With the weather being as hot as it is, and quite strong breeze forecast, I decided to go back to Ravensroost Wood. Our last visit there was on the 25th April and we processed 28 birds from 11 species. What a difference a month can make!
In fact, today’s is our largest ever catch in Ravensroost Wood outside of the months with the feeding stations set up: i.e. April to October inclusive. I was joined for the morning by Miranda, Laura, Adam, Sarah and our newest recruit, 12-year old Dorothy. Miranda had to leave at 9:00 for a prior commitment but, with us meeting on site at 5:30, she helped us get set up and to process a decent number of birds before leaving.
We set nets along two rides in the wood: R38 and R35. R38 had two net sets: one comprising x 2 18m nets and the second comprising 2 x 18m + 1 x 9m nets. R35 had three sets, each comprising 2 x 18m nets. This was actually 2 x 18m nets fewer than we had in our last session. The breeze was constant throughout the morning, but coming from the east-north-east it had a lot of woodland to get through and barely impacted on the nets at all. With two teams setting up it didn’t take long to get going
We started catching before the nets were all open, with Blackcaps, Garden Warbler, Robins and Willow Warbler all hitting the nets whilst we were finishing setting them up. It was a bit on and off all morning, with three biggish rounds and six single figure rounds, but the quality was very good.
There were several highlights:
Our first newly fledged Blackcap of 2026. This was soon followed by:
Our first juvenile Great Tit of the year. This was followed in the next round by another 11 juvenile Great Tits and a tired looking adult! Whilst Laura and Adam were extracting those in ride 35, Sarah and I were extracting 10 juvenile Long-tailed Tits in ride 38. We have had a couple of juveniles of the species so far this year, but this was the first family flock. That was followed by juvenile Robins, another two juvenile Song Thrush and, then, my personal highlight of the session:
Our first juvenile Marsh Tit of the year! It is only the third time in 14 years of study that we have ringed a juvenile Marsh Tit in May. Each time (2017, 2024, 2026) it is just one. We don’t usually catch good numbers of juveniles until August.
We also had our first recently fledged Blue Tit of the year:
The list from the day was: Nuthatch 2; Blue Tit 2[1](2); Great Tit [12](1); Marsh Tit [1](1); Long-tailed Tit 2[9]; Wren 2(2); Robin 1[2](6); Song Thrush [2](1); Blackbird 1; Blackcap 8[1](2); Garden Warbler 7(1); Chiffchaff 1(1); Willow Warbler 1(2); Bullfinch 2. Totals: 29 adults ringed from 11 species, 28 juveniles ringed from 6 species and 19 birds retrapped from 10 species, making 76 birds processed from 14 species.
We had all had enough sun by 11:00, although we did manage to make maximum use of available shade, and all nets were in shade all through the session, one of the benefits of the ride structure in Ravensroost Wood. closed the nets at about 11:20, processed the last few birds, and took down. It was a special session: the company was lovely, the birds were remarkably obliging and the haul was varied and interesting. We left site before midday. I ran a little bit later as my car decided not to start. As much as I love my Mazda CX-30, it does have a very annoying habit: even if the car is switched off, if you open the hatch-back it assumes that you want the car to be ready to go, and it fires up the electrics and, very helpfully, drains the battery! I now carry a portable battery boost, which is brilliant, so it only took a couple of minutes to fire it up, but I would hate to find that the boost had run out of charge at the same time as the car had. Last time I had car trouble, even though I had Green Flag cover, they wanted £450 to “rescue” me from an open field that was harder than the tarmac on the roads, that had softened due to the heat! Apparently they needed to bring special equipment, i.e. a Landrover with a winch, to pull me out so it could be loaded onto their flatbed! I got a local lad out who charged me £150 and drove his flatbed truck out over the field to pick the car up!
Anyway, more Barn Owl checking tomorrow! Hoping there are at least another 18 to ring!
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 