This year has been pretty weird: some very good catches and some absolutely awful sessions. With the feeding station in place in January and February we had decent catches of 110 (62 ringed 48 retrapped) and 63 in February (24 ringed and 39 retrapped but, outside of that, catches of 13, 12, 9 and 14 have been hugely disappointing. To be fair, we have had the same pattern in all of the Braydon Forest woodland sessions. We had planned to go to Somerford Common on Wednesday but, unfortunately, I had a stinking cold come on Tuesday and it hasn’t fully gone yet. On Tuesday morning I had popped over to Somerford Common and set up a seed feeder and a peanut feeder. Having decided to change Saturday from Ravensroost Wood to Somerford, because the logging work has started, and I wanted somewhere where the bird life is undisturbed, and as Somerford had the feeding station set up, it seemed sensible. On Thursday afternoon I went to check on the feeders. They were both about half empty, so I topped them up. Arriving on site this morning I went to check the feeders: same as Thursday, so I thought that was a good sign, but didn’t expect what actually happened.
I was joined for the session by Laura, Adam and Ellie at 7:00. Laura’s hubby Mark also came along, and did a great job of brush cutting a couple of our somewhat overgrown rides, whilst the rest of the crew got on with setting up the other nets. He doesn’t ring but is very helpful and helped with the nets once he had finished strimming. A little later in the morning we were joined by Laura’s friend, Jo, and her partner. Jo is based in Reading and interested in the possibility of taking up bird ringing.
We set the usual nets and, whilst the others set up the ringing station, I went and set up my lures for the session. I had Redpoll, Siskin and Marsh Tit on three lures and one, having seen that a ringing friend in Suffolk had his first Redwing of the season, I thought I would try a lure for them. I wasn’t confident, as we only caught one Redwing at Somerford Common in the autumn winter period 1st August 2025 to 31st March 2026. To be honest, we only caught nine across all of my sites in that period. So this was pleasing:
It worked! We actually caught three in total: so a third of last winter’s catch already.
As I was putting up the lures near the feeding station the birds started arriving. And then the Blue and Great tits just started piling in. 56 birds in the first round: 32 Blue Tits and 17 Great Tits! I was particularly pleased to catch three more Marsh Tits: one new and two retraps. It is going well again this year.
This was the list for the session: Nuthatch 1(2); Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 40(20); Great Tit 29(7); Coal Tit (1); Marsh Tit 1(3); Dunnock 1; Robin 4(1); Redwing 3; Goldcrest 4; Chaffinch 2; Redpoll 1. Totals: 87 ringed from 11 species and 34 birds retrapped from 6 species making 121 birds processed from 12 species.
Apart from our first Redwing of the Autumn we also had this:
Our first Lesser Redpoll of this Autumn : species or subspecies? Genetically a subspecies but recording what you find is largely left up to the individual doing the data entry and no enforced uniformity by the powers that be.
So many titmice. Lots of biting and sore fingers. I did feel a little sorry for this Great Tit though:
Another unusual catch was this:
This isn’t the first time I have seen this, but it is the most extensive example I have found. I presume it is a form of melanism.
Anyway, Ellie had to leave at 10:30 for work at lunchtime, Mark and Adam had to leave just after 11:00 as Adam was attending an educational briefing event in Gloucestershire. The wind had got up and, although the sun was nice and warm, the wind, coming from the north, was bitterly cold. With Laura, they rescued the nets along the main path from the brambles, took out as many leaves as they had time to, and took down. Laura and I extracted the last seven birds from the top nets, then closed and emptied those nets and took down, clearing everything away by 12:15.
So, why is this a record session? It is our largest ever catch in Somerford Common. In fact, it is our largest ever catch in any of our Braydon Forest Woodlands. We have had bigger catches: but at Lower Moor Farm or Blakehill Farm, our key Autumn migration sites. Our actual biggest catch was 140 at Ravensroost Meadow Ponds on 2nd September 2017: unsurprisingly that was much more autumn migration heavy, with loads of warblers, 25 Swallows being the biggest contributor, and a nice haul of 18 Goldfinches.
Anyway, it was a refreshing change from the recent small catches.