After Wednesday’s outing to Red Lodge and its reasonable return, and feeling rather unwell, I suggested that we have garden sessions on Thursday, and put off our Blakehill session to Saturday. The wind forecast was the same for both days, so it seemed like a reasonable swap, and gave me a bit of time to feel better.
Miranda was going to have to leave early from Thursday’s session, as she had to get to a previously arranged appointment, so she didn’t set up in her garden. Laura, abetted by Adam and Ellie, ran a session, as did Steph in her back garden. Both of them live just over the border in Gloucestershire: Preston and Down Ampney respectively. I abandoned my effort, as I still felt unwell, but set my garden nets Thursday evening to open them Friday morning.
Then Laura, Adam, David and I met up for our scheduled session on the Blakehill Farm plateau on Saturday. This was my big mistake: the weather on Thursday was flat calm and would have been perfect for the plateau. The forecast for Saturday was essentially the same but, unfortunately, it got windy quickly. As it was, I still felt lousy, and also needed to leave early to take my wife for a hospital appointment, so I just ended up leaving the equipment needed with the team, set up the ringing station and left off. Laura ran the session. They had to pack up at 10:15 because of the wind and a near complete lack of birds.
To the sessions. Steph had a really decent time of it, catching 26 House Sparrows: our biggest ever single session catch of this species! Her catch list was: Blue Tit 11(2); Great Tit 1; Dunnock 1; Robin 1; House Sparrow 26. Totals: 40 birds ringed from 5 species and 2 birds retrapped from 1 species, making 42 birds processed from 5 species.
Laura, helped by Adam and Ellie, had a smaller haul but more variety: Green Woodpecker 1; Magpie 1; Blue Tit 11(2); Great Tit 1(1); Long-tailed Tit 1; Dunnock 3; Robin (1); Blackbird 4; Goldfinch 1. Totals: 23 birds ringed from 8 species and 4 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 27 birds processed from 9 species.
I am jealous of the Green Woodpecker catch. Laura has now caught two in her garden since she got her C-permit earlier this year. I have never caught one in 14 years of ringing in my garden:
Having set my nets the evening before, and topped up the seed feeders, fat balls and coconut shell with fat and peanuts; I had them open just as it started to get light. I put out a couple of trays of mealworms and sat and waited. Almost straight away I caught a couple of Starling, a Dunnock and a Goldfinch. Then nothing until 9:00 when I caught two more Goldfinch, two Blue Tits, one at 10:10, the other at 10:40 and, just as I finished processing that last Blue Tit, a retrapped House Sparrow. Despite leaving the nets open until dusk, with lures for Greenfinch and Goldfinch playing, not another bird caught. Thank goodness I was at home, with plenty of food and drink and alternative “entertainments”: like net mending! Oh! Deep Joy!
To Saturday, I felt bad for the team: Blue Tit 3; Great Tit 3(1); Wren 1; Dunnock 1; Redwing 1; Blackbird 2; Goldfinch 2. Totals: 13 birds ringed from 7 species and 1 bird retrapped, making 14 birds processed from 7 species.
My mistake: we should have done Blakehill Farm plateau on Thursday. Not really my mistake but I always feel somewhat guilty when the weather forecast turns out to be wrong! In the event we ended up with 84 birds ringed from 13 species and 8 birds retrapped from 4 species, making 92 birds processed from 13 species. It would have made a nice haul for a single session!!!