Author: Braydon Forest & Beyond

The title is twofold: firstly, and more importantly, catches in the wood at Ravensroost have been pretty dreadful since 6th January 2022. That was a session boosted by a supplementary feeding station in place. Without that boost, this was our best session there for several years. The second meaning, without going into too much detail: I have been unwell, with depression. I had to decide how to handle that and being outdoors in the woodland is never a bad option. I arranged a session in Ravensroost Wood for Saturday, as a sick car had prevented me getting there on Tuesday and it was going to be too windy for the planned session at Brown’s Farm. Teresa and Andy came to help. We set the nets, caught and processed a retrapped Robin, and I then called a halt: I couldn’t face doing any more. I have to thank Andy and Teresa for being so understanding and helpful.

With the weather set to be dire for the rest of the week, I knew that I had to get back out and make sure that I could see it through. I decided to work solo, as I had to know that I could depend upon myself. As a result, I did not invite my usual weekday team along: I hope they will forgive me when they read about the session itself. In the event, Rosie came and helped me set up: we had things to discuss about some management changes being enacted for the woodland by the Wildlife Trust, which comes within her remit. The changes won’t affect our work there, but I needed to know so that I can plan and adapt accordingly.

The only slightly worrying event first thing was that, although most forecasts had it dry until the evening, as I was setting up ride 2 there were a few spots of rain, then a little bit of drizzle. Fortunately it only lasted for a couple of minutes, and thereafter the sky cleared and, once the sun was up, we had lovely blue skies for the rest of the session.

We set the following nets:

It was interesting from the start. Whilst we were setting the nets, and before the first round, there were large flocks of birds flying around the canopy of the woodland. There were a lot of Fieldfare all around, but we didn’t get so much as a smell of them near the nets. We noted several Tit flocks, particularly Long-tailed Tits. I was rather dreading being overrun by Blue Tits, especially after Rosie had left for work. Missing from the wood were Redwing. I set two lures along ride 2 for them but, for once, there was no response. That is a bit unusual.

The first couple of rounds produced half-a-dozen birds each. The second had five Great Tits: three juveniles and two adults – and I was rather expecting that to be the way it went: Blue and Great Tits making up the majority of the catch. How wrong I was! The last round that we did before Rosie had to head off to work, at 8:30, produced a lovely catch of 14 Long-tailed Tits, three Blue Tits and a Goldcrest. That was pretty much it for the Blue Tits, but not for the Long-tailed Tits and Goldcrests.

Rosie left after we had processed that round, it took a while. As she was leaving she noticed that there were a few birds in ride 2. I went to extract them, to be faced with a couple of Lesser Redpoll. I tried to call Rosie, so she could come and ring one of them, but couldn’t get a signal, so I had to do them myself. Next round I caught another. What was interesting was that none of them were caught anywhere near the lure and I was beginning to think that, perhaps, as sometimes is the case, the lure acts as a deterrent instead of an attractant. However, in my last round, just before 11:00, I did catch three right over the lure. I think the difference might have been an age thing: the first three were all juveniles, the second three were two adults and a juvenile – or it could just have been coincidence.

Lesser Redpoll, Acanthis cabaret

Six Lesser Redpoll is our second best ever catch of them at Ravensroost Wood. The best was in late November 2020 when we caught 17 at a feeding station. Other than that they have just been ones and twos.

As usual, Nuthatch were calling all around and I was thinking I would bring a lure for them next time. Of course the best lure isn’t a sound lure but a filled peanut feeder. That was one of the things I discussed with Rosie, as the Trust prohibited supplementary feeding last winter, because of HPAI. As they have relaxed that at other reserves, I was asking if we can set them at Ravensroost this winter. Hopefully yes, if Natural England will allow it, as the site is a SSSI. Still, who needs lures? Not only did I catch a male Nuthatch but I also caught a juvenile male Great Spotted Woodpecker. Definitely the noisiest bird you ever catch in a net!

Throughout the morning I was taking a couple of Goldcrest and / or Long-tailed Tit here and there, and they added up to a decent total by the end of the morning. The list for the day was: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1; Nuthatch 1; Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 4(1); Great Tit 3(3); Long-tailed Tit 25(1); Wren 2; Robin 2; Blackbird 2; Goldcrest 10; Lesser Redpoll 6. Totals: 57 birds ringed from 11 species and 5 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 62 birds processed from 11 species.

It was a lovely session and has fully restored my appetite and put me back on an even keel. There were also a lot of interested and friendly people in the wood today, really keen to see the birds close up and to learn about ringing. One lady, visiting friends, having come up from Bristol, took down details on how to find a trainer from me as she was certain her daughter would be very interested in learning how to ring. Amazingly, every single one of the half-dozen dog walkers actually had their dogs on leads!

I closed the nets at 11:00, took down and was off-site by midday.

For the second time this week my first choice site became unavailable and so I had to go for an alternate. The plan had been to go back to Blakehill Farm for another clutch of Meadow Pipits plus testing the numbers of Redwing at what is one of our prime sites for them. At the beginning of the week it looked good but by Friday winds that were too high for the wide open spaces of Blakehill were forecast, so I decided to go to the western side of Somerford Common. News that Siskin and Lesser Redpoll numbers were increasing and that Common Crossbill have been seen at the site did influence my decision.

I was joined for the session by an unusually large team: ringers David, Adam and Teresa; helpers Laura, Andy and Mark plus Claire: also a ringer who has just moved into the area and is looking for opportunities to carry on her ringing activities. This was her first time out with us and a bit of an eye-opener as previously she has just worked alongside her trainer. She brought a lovely selection of chocolate biscuits / cakes, much appreciated by all of us. It was the largest group I have had out with me for ages: a shame that there wasn’t a proportionate response in the catch!

We met at 7:00 and set the following nets:

I set various lures: for Redwing and Lesser Redpoll on net 1; Redwing and Siskin on net 2 and Goldcrest, Lesser Redpoll and Siskin on net 3. Net 3 because, whilst like the others it is mixed woodland, this one is in an area with quite a high density of conifers.

Having set up the nets we went to set up the ringing station, only to find that I had left the ringing table at home. I decided to pop home and get it but my car stalled and refused to start again, so we had to make do with using my net boxes as a temporary solution. We started catching birds at 8:30, and caught a couple each round for the rest of the morning, until we packed up at 11:30. All nets caught, but net 3 caught most, mainly because the largest catch was of Goldcrest and that was as expected. Unfortunately, no sign of any Lesser Redpoll or Siskin in the catch. I wasn’t expecting to catch Crossbill. I have been told that the way to catch Crossbill is to watch where they go to drink and to set nets around that water source. Otherwise they are in the tops of the trees, way away from standard mist nets.

The catch for the morning was: Great Tit 3; Coal Tit 2; Wren 1; Robin 3, Redwing 1; Blackbird 1; Goldcrest 9(1). Totals: 20 birds ringed from 7 species and 1 retrap. I will be setting up supplementary feeding stations in the next couple of weeks, so expect to see a fairly substantial increase in catch numbers. Certainly not the biggest catch we have ever had but, to be honest, we had a really fun morning chatting in between rounds. I am lucky enough to have a good group to work with.

With so many hands, taking down was very light work and we were ready to leave site before midday. Everybody else left but my car decided still not to start, so I left site, with my car on the back of a lorry, at 14:30! All good fun!

The plan was to run a session in Ravensroost Wood this morning, so Miranda, Teresa and I met at 7:00 in the car park. Unfortunately the padlock on the main gate of the reserve was seized solid. Despite the padlocks being the same make and model from the same supplier for all Wildlife Trust reserves, and their providing the keys that should fit all, they don’t always, so I actually have two keys. Neither worked, whereas they always have before. It is far too much of a distance to haul all of our equipment to the ringing site, so I decided to head over to Red Lodge. Our last effort there got rained off before we had finished opening the nets (one of those days when the weather forecasts told us it would be dry!), so it was next on the list to be visited, after Ravensroost.

As a result, everything was running about 30 minutes later than planned, so we had the nets open just before 8:30 – which is when we started catching birds.

We set lures for a variety of birds, all autumn migrants / winter visitors: Redwing being the loudest. There were also lures for Siskin and Lesser Redpoll. Mind, the first three rounds were fairly indicative of what was to come: two Great Tits in round one, a Great Tit and three Blue Tits in round two and two Great Tits and a Redwing in round three. This is the earliest in the autumn that we have ever caught a Redwing, by a whole two days! That was back in 2014. Apart from that, the earliest we had caught them at Red Lodge in the autumn was mid-November. We ended up with a total of six, with the last one caught in our last round at 11:30.

The star bird of the morning, however, was this beauty:

Male Lesser Redpoll, Acanthis cannabina (photo courtesy of Miranda)

We catch very few in the Braydon Forest in the autumn, and have never done so before in October in Red Lodge. Webb’s Wood and Somerford Common are our more likely capture sites for this species in October.

Soon after this we caught a female Chaffinch. Not the first that we have caught in Red Lodge in October, but the first for five years. Again, a species we normally catch at the feeding stations in the winter months.

The list for the session was: Blue Tit 17; Great Tit 17(1); Long-tailed Tit 8; Redwing 6; Goldcrest 1; Chaffinch 1; Lesser Redpoll 1. Totals: 51 birds ringed from 7 species and 1 retrapped, making 52 birds processed from 7 species.

This is a very unusual catch for us. Obviously not the Blue, Great or Long-tailed Tits, but it is what is missing from the list: no Robin or Wren. I cannot remember the last time we had a proper session at Red Lodge where neither of these species were in the catch. Prior to this we had carried out 65 sessions in Red Lodge since 2013: 55 of those had either Robin or Wren or both processed during the session. It is over five years since neither species was caught in a session.

Somewhat more frustratingly, we had Nuthatch and Great Spotted Woodpecker calling all around us during the morning without catching any. But, the real icing on the cake (not the right term, but the right term would include the odd profanity) came as we were taking the nets down. The session had been forecast to be windy but, pleased to say that the nets were not affected until the wind really got going at 11:20, so we shut up shop at 11:30. As we were taking down net set 2, I heard a little “pitchu” call and a bit of a cackle, followed by several other calls and churring. At least three Marsh Tits basically saying “missed us”! I am sure those calls had a sarcastic edge to them!

We were away from site at about 12:30 after a thoroughly enjoyable session.

This year we have had quite an expansion in our monitoring of nesting birds in our area: primarily due to Jonny Cooper adding this functionality to his skill sets. All activities are carried out under licence from the BTO. Monitoring of Barn Owls and Stone-curlew are carried out additionally under Schedule 1 licences issued by the BTO on behalf of the appropriate government agency.

Introduction:

Having taken over the monitoring of the Barn Owl boxes in the north west of the county in 2018, following the retirement from doing so by the excellent Paul Darby and his team the previous year, we have since mainly focused on doing so.  However, with Rosie joining the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust in 2021, and joining my ringing team soon afterwards, she was instrumental in getting me to focus elsewhere, mainly due to the Swallows nesting in the Trust’s store rooms at Clattinger Farm.  Last year we started on monitoring those nests, as well.

Jonny Cooper has helped me with the Barn Owl boxes over the years and this year decided he would like to do his own thing. Primarily monitoring a number of titmouse nest boxes in the Trust reserve at Biss Wood.  There had been some nest recording in the wood in both 1989 and 1993, but it was opportunistic, not structured.  In order for him to pursue that, Jonny needed to get an endorsement added to his licence, allowing him to process hole / cavity nesting birds.  To help him achieve that, we spent a few sessions together at the beginning of the Blue Tit breeding season checking nest boxes together and processing any youngsters ready for ringing. As soon as he passed the threshold for that endorsement we sorted it out and he could carry on independently.  At the same time I specified Jonny as an “agent” for Barn Owl box checking.  This enables him to focus on the boxes in his area, around the environs of Chippenham and further south, whilst allowing me to focus more on the boxes local to me.

So, to the breeding season:

Barn Owls:

I spent last winter replacing a number of dilapidated owl boxes at my sites and erecting a number of new boxes at new sites in the area, and was hopeful that we would get some benefit from these.  Last year was excellent, we checked on 22 boxes. From those we had five successful Barn Owl broods, one brood that was predated at the newly hatched / naked young stage and one complete  failure after the three young were predated on the point of fledging, but 23 youngsters were ringed in the season.  Also making use of the boxes, we had one brood of three Jackdaw chicks ringed, two broods that fledged before they could be ringed and three broods of Stock Dove, with three ringed from two of the broods, the other fledged whilst I was laid up after back surgery.  Essentially, we had 13 boxes that were actively engaged in the breeding process plus there were two other boxes being used for roosting by adult Barn Owls.

This year we had 34 boxes to check. Unfortunately, none of the four additional boxes I put up over the winter attracted any breeding effort, although two were being used as a roost site by adult birds.  One of last year’s boxes was unavailable this season. The site had changed hands and I could not find the contact details for the landowner. Some of the boxes Jonny had taken over were active. We had six boxes that successfully fledged young, with a total of 14 chicks ringed.  Very different from last year.  It is almost certainly the influence of the weather. The previous two years had been excellent vole years. When checking boxes we were finding voles stashed in larders, no shortage of food and we had a single case of brood cannibalism. 

This year there was significant brood cannibalism.  Two of our earlier broods had four young in each box.  They were too small to ring when first looked at.  On returning to ring them a few weeks later, we found just two in each of the boxes.  Clearly the others had provided food for their siblings.  As well as the breeding boxes, at least six were being used by roosting adult birds, with five adult birds caught and ringed during the checking. Six of our boxes were used for nesting by Jackdaws.  We ringed six young from two of the broods, the others having fledged before we had the chance to ring them.  Six boxes had Stock Doves in occupancy. Two of those produced young that could be ringed and fledged successfully.  Of the others, one failed when the nest was predated, and the outcome of two of the other  sites could not be accurately ascertained.  Three of the boxes had Grey Squirrel dreys in them, one of which did produce a youngster: as I was clearing out the vegetation I heard a slight mewing sound, so stopped what I was doing and found this:

Grey Squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis, Kit

Four of our boxes, two at one site, showed squirrel occupancy.

So, not a great year for Barn Owls.  In fact, my most productive site over the last few years had no signs of Barn Owl breeding at all this year.  However, we had a total of 18 boxes actively involved in the breeding of various species, plus another six that were being used as roosts by adult Barn Owls.  It has to have been a bad vole year!

Hole / Box Nesting Passerines:

The bulk of this work was carried out by Jonny once he had his endorsement approved.  We have no comparisons with previous years because it is the first time any of the team have been monitoring these types of nest box.  Biss Wood had 21 nest boxes in situ.  Not all were boxes set up for titmice: as is often the case, boxes set up for Dormice were also used by them.  These boxes produced a total of 82 nestling Blue Tits ringed, plus three of the boxes produced a total of 18 Great Tit nestlings and, the icing on the cake, one of those boxes produced a brood of three Nuthatch nestlings. 

Alongside this activity, Jonny took over a number of Tree Sparrow boxes around the Maiden Bradley area: 147 of them spread across five sites.  The person who had been monitoring them over the last few years could no longer do so, so Jonny was asked to take them over. He took over later in the season but still managed to produce 50 nestling Tree Sparrows from 10 boxes and one box held a brood of 5 Wrens.

Tree Sparrow, Passer montanus, pulli (photo courtesy of Jonny Cooper)

Open Nesting Passerines:

This was something that I started working on in my local area last year.  I expanded my efforts this year, with the help of Rosie and Miranda, and Jonny continued his work further south in the county. 

Swallow:

Jonny processed 39 Swallow nestlings from ten nests spread over four sites. There was one nest failure, due to abandonment by the parents, in late July.  My team processed 30 nestlings from eight nests spread over two sites.  At our Clattinger Farm site we had two nests predated at the egg stage, and one nest in which the eggs were cold and either infertile or nest abandoned.

Swallow, Hirundo rustica, pullus (photo courtesy of Miranda Shirnia)

Blackbird:

Rosie drew my attention to two Blackbird nests at Clattinger.  Both were successful, with one producing four, and the other three, nestlings that fledged successfully.

House Sparrow:

For the second year running we had House Sparrow breed successfully in the same nest position as last year in one of the stables at Clattinger Farm.  This year we timed it better and managed to ring the three juveniles in the nest.

Robin:

For the first time we got to ring some Robin in the nest.  And what a nest! It was inside one of the stables at Clattinger Farm used to store tools, and the nest was built inside one of those plastic boxes in which hardware stores sell screws and nails.  They successfully fledged the four young we ringed.

Other:

Andy ringed two Stone Curlew young out on Salisbury Plain, after another season monitoring their breeding efforts.  There is a very narrow window for ringing their young, as they become active very soon after hatching.

In Summary:

Clearly the key difference between this year and last is the addition of Jonny’s efforts to the total and, to a lesser extent, the expansion of my teams activities to focus a bit more on nesting birds.

Thanks to all of the landowners who are involved in putting up boxes and allowing us access to carry out our monitoring and ringing work.

After lots of reports of Redwing arriving in Wiltshire already this autumn, and Jonny catching nine at his Sutton Benger site on Monday, I decided to run a session at Somerford Common, one of my two best sites for the species. I have caught them this early in the month on three other occasions, with the earliest being at Blakehill Farm on the 9th October 2021. With it forecast to be windy, Blakehill Farm was a non-starter. Besides, I seem to have been there and written about it quite a lot recently, and hope to be there again this coming weekend. I also wanted to try out some different net setting at Somerford, in anticipation of the coming winter, and planning where to set the feeding station for when the weather turns.

Another reason for going to Somerford Common was that Teresa, who volunteers at the RSPCA Oak & Furrows Wildlife Rescue Centre, released a rescued (from the feline scourge) and recovered Siskin here a week ago. It was immediately joined by another small group of Siskin before moving off. I wanted to see if they were still in the area.

I was joined for the morning by Miranda and Teresa and we set the following nets:

Nets 1 to 4 were all single 18m 5-Shelf nets. Net 5 was an 18m net + a 89m net, both 5-Shelf nets. I set lures for Redwing on 5, Siskin on 3 and a mix of migrants on the other nets. After a couple of hours with no activity on net 3, I swapped the lure over with the one on net 2. Still to no avail on the Siskin front. The ringing station was set up behind a hedgerow, out of sight of the various nets.

Unlike either Saturday or Sunday, it was a slow session, with nothing like the activity levels we had over the weekend. However, round one produced two Redwing. To quote Hannibal Smith “I love it when a plan comes together!”. That said, apart from a flock of about 25 that flew over mid-morning, those were the only Redwing that we caught.

It is hard to complain though: the next round produced three Marsh Tits and a Goldcrest. We have ringed 15 Marsh Tits so far, year to date, which is our best for four years. This should set us up nicely for 20+ by the end of the year.

It was a pretty varied catch for this time of year in a woodland setting. However, we didn’t see or hear any Great Spotted Woodpecker or Nuthatch, which is most unusual for this particular site. Mind, if that is unusual: to not see, hear or catch a Blue Tit is a real rarity in one of my woodland sites. We did catch a few Great Tits, one of which was extremely reluctant to let go of my hand:

Juvenile male Great Tit, Parus major

That bird sat like that, back to my palm, holding on to my finger and thumb for a couple of minutes. Certainly long enough for me to open my phone, enter the security pin, select the camera icon and take a couple of photos, and then it sat there some more before deciding to leave. I have never had an experience like it before!

Talking of experiences, we caught an interesting (to me, at least) juvenile Treecreeper. Ageing a Treecreeper is quite simple: each of the primary coverts on an adult are either entirely brown, or have a tiny pale cream pinpoint at the tip. Juveniles have quite a pronounced tear drop shaped cream spot at the tip of each of the primary coverts. The juvenile we caught today rather took this to extremes:

Primary coverts of a juvenile Treecreeper, Certhia familiaris

Our weather recently has been bouncing between extremes of heat, strong winds and rain, occasionally torrential. This has an impact on parent birds ability to feed their young. As a result, feather development in young birds can reflect those difficulties, with distinct barring as the feather growth is interrupted or held back by lack of food. These are called “fault bars”. We found an excellent example in a Blackcap we caught towards the end of the session. When we looked at the tail feathers the barring was very obvious:

Tail feathers of a juvenile Blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla

Fault bars can be zones of weakness, and one can often find feathers that have broken along one such zone.

The list for the day was: Treecreeper 1; Great Tit 4; Marsh Tit 2(1); Long-tailed Tit 1(1); Wren (1); Robin (1); Redwing 2; Blackcap 1; Goldcrest 6. Totals: 17 birds ringed from 7 species and 4 birds retrapped from 4 species, making 21 birds processed from 9 species.

Once again, Goldcrest was our top species for Somerford Common, just as it was back in September. It wasn’t the busiest session but it was thoroughly enjoyable. Given that the weather forecast for the week had shown Wednesday to be wet, windy and no chance of ringing. By yesterday the forecast had changed to it being windy and wet from midday. Then this morning it had changed again to windy with the rain coming in mid-afternoon. The wind was nothing like as strong as forecast, and the woodland protected the nets from what there was, so the weather did not impact on the session at all.

One of the more interesting things we found this morning were these:

Turkey-tail Fungus, Trametes versicolor

We took the nets down in stages, finally packing everything away by 12:30. The rain finally arrived at 19:30 this evening!

After last week’s ringing demonstration for the Malmesbury & District Natural History Society, today it was the turn of the Swindon Wildlife Group (SWG), affiliated with the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. The last time we did a ringing demo for SWG at Blakehill Farm was on the 20th August last year. Unfortunately, we only caught eight birds! They were quality and included Blackcap, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Willow Warbler and, especially, only the second Tree Pipit ever ringed at Blakehill, and the first time any of the SWG had seen one there. So they were delighted. However, with it being the tail end of the Autumn migration, I was concerned that we might have a repeat but without the redemption of such a special bird for the site. Fortunately, although there was no Tree Pipit, I need not have worried.

There is always a risk with setting up a session at Blakehill, as it is so exposed to any wind. The forecast was for it to have light wind, with the gusts getting stronger over the course of the morning. They got it wrong again: only this time it was to our advantage, as it remained flat calm until 11:45, soon after we had started to shut the nets and take down.

I had the luxury of a large team out to help me. Ringers represented by Rosie, Miranda, Steph, David, Adam and Teresa. Helpers by Laura, Andy and Daniel, and last, but by no means least, Steph’s daughter, Bea, whose role was to keep me smiling! Which she did admirably.

We met at 6:30, with the attendees due at 8:30, and we set the following nets before they arrived:

The neighbouring landowner kindly allowed us to use his field as a car parking area for the morning. Which, with the size of our team, plus the SWG team and then the twenty attendees, was very helpful.

The first bird out of the nets was, as seems to be de rigeur for this site, a Wren. Our first round proper was an indication of things to come: two Linnet and one each of Meadow Pipit, Reed Bunting and Stonechat. Linnet numbers seem to have declined quite precipitously at the site, as Robin Griffiths, volunteer warden and highly knowledgeable, incessant observer, of all wildlife in this area, commented when we caught these two. Our ringing records do bear this out, with just two caught in 2020 and 2021, none last year, five in 2019, 16 in 2018, 25 in 2016 and 42 in 2015! To be fair, 2017 only produced 3, but the overall trend is significant decline.

Linnet, Linaria cannabina

The bulk of the catch came between 8:00 and 10:30, which meant that the attendees certainly got their money’s worth. Our Mipit triangle delivered in spades. We had our usual autumnal fall of Reed Bunting. September and October are our best months for catching these birds at Blakehill. This year is no different.

At 11:00 we were delighted to catch another two Stonechat: a juvenile female and a stunning adult male.

Adult male Stonechat, Saxicola rubicola

Towards the end of the session we had a small fall of three Chiffchaff. It is hard to know whether they are genuinely on migration out of the country or planning to overwinter in the Cotswold Water Park, as many do.

Juvenile Chiffchaff, Phylloscopus collybita

We also caught two Blackcap. At this time of year they would probably be late departing migrants that have fledged here this summer: both were juveniles. The female weighed in at a decent 20.3g. Fledging weight is usually about 16.5g, so I would suggest that she is definitely fattening up for the journey south. The male weighed in at 18.9g, so is probably doing the same. If it was a recently arrived migrant, as ringing has shown that we have a winter population migrating to the UK from central Europe, I would have thought it would have used up some of its fat reserves and would weigh less than that. I could be wrong, of course.

The list for the day was: Blue Tit 17(2); Great Tit 4; Long-tailed Tit 1; Wren 3; Dunnock 2; Meadow Pipit 47; Stonechat 3; Robin 2; Blackcap 2; Chiffchaff 3; Starling 1; Linnet 2; Reed Bunting 17. Totals: 104 birds ringed from 13 species and 2 birds retrapped from 1 species, making 106 birds processed from 13 species.

The thing I find odd about the Blue Tits we catch at Blakehill Farm is that the majority are not caught in the hedgerow, but in the sparse bushes out on the plateau. My natural thought about Blue Tits is that they are woodland and garden birds, not birds of the wide open spaces.

The session was a huge success with the attendees. A large number of people were shown how to safely hold and release a bird. I like to teach people how to do that, you never know when it might be required. We were packed away and off site by 13:00. With so many birds, all of the ringers got to ring a decent number of birds, which is not always the case at a ringing demo, as often it falls just to me to do the processing. So everybody went away happy.

The photos of the Stonechat and the Chiffchaff were courtesy and copyright of Teresa.

As regular readers of my blog will know, my trainee, Rosie, regularly turns up to help me set up the nets before going off to her day job as an Estates Manager at the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. On some days she doesn’t even get to process a bird before leaving. What you won’t know is that she lives on the edge of the Forest of Dean, so it is one heck of a commute, certainly the furthest of my trainees to work with me for little reward. She had asked me if I would return the many favours and run a ringing session in her garden, which backs onto the woodland of the Forest. We had tried to arrange it for a while but weather and other factors got in the way, until today.

Rosie had said that her garden was fairly steep. Oh boy! It certainly was! The first thing we noticed on arrival is that the slope was at least a 45^o angle, possibly steeper. Fortunately, Rosie, being so much younger and fitter, took on the vast bulk of the net checking and extracting.

We set the nets and had them open by 7:45. The maximum width of the garden was 10m. Each of the nets was set adjacent to a feeding station, with a wide range of different feeds on offer. Ironically, net 3 was adjacent to the biggest feeding station and, although at times we had over twenty Starlings on and around those feeders, it only caught one bird: a House Sparrow. The other nets caught regularly. It started brightly, with an opening round of nine birds, including a Nuthatch. If anything is going to underline the proximity of the woodlands, it is catching a Nuthatch in the garden.

However, the key species being caught this morning was House Sparrow. The sheer numbers in this area are astonishing. We caught 25, it could have been 50+. Not surprisingly, the second largest catch was Blue Tit: the ever presents at garden bird feeders.

The bird of the morning for me was the bogey bird for so many of the less educated birdwatching fraternity / sorority:

Juvenile Magpie, Pica pica

As you can tell from the photo, there was a lot of dark brown feathering on the head and, although it doesn’t show so well in the photo, it had patches of a soft peach colouration mixed in with the white. The key ageing criterion is the colouration of the first primary: both have black lining around the outside of the feather. On an adult the centre of the feather is pure white right up to the tip. A juvenile has a small amount of white with dirty brownish infill to the tip.

As well as this we had a juvenile Coal Tit, just one from a flock of a dozen and, although we didn’t catch any in net 3, we did catch four Starlings in net 4. Just about the finale for the session was a second Nuthatch. The first was a male, the second a female, a pair?

We were catching birds all morning until it died off at about 11:00. Still. it was a good haul for garden ringing. Unsurprisingly, there were no retrapped birds, so we ringed: Nuthatch 2; Magpie 1; Blue Tit 17; Great Tit 2; Coal Tit 1; Dunnock 3; Robin 3; Song Thrush 1; Starling 4; House Sparrow 25. Total: 59 birds processed from 10 species.

It was an excellent session and, being in the garden, great to have all facilities on tap: and the 10:00 bacon sandwich was especially welcome!

An excellent month last month. September 2022 was our previous best September, with 1,400 birds processed, and our second best month ever. It was split out as 1,223 birds ringed and 184 birds retrapped.  This year’s total rather eclipsed that and is, in fact our best ever month, with 1,790 birds processed, split out as 1,641 birds ringed and 149 retrapped.  That is also our highest ever total of birds ringed in a single month, by over 300 birds.  Jonny’s sites continue to produce astonishingly large catches; backed up by decent catches from Ian and my team.  Finally my sites have produced some reasonable catches: particularly Blakehill Farm, fuelled by the arrival of the autumnal Meadow Pipits. 

This is the list:

Added to the catch this year were Bullfinch, House Martin, Kestrel, Nightjar, Nuthatch, Redstart, Reed Bunting, Tree Pipit and Tree Sparrow.  Missing from last year’s catch were Linnet, Pied Wagtail, Spotted Flycatcher, Starling and Stonechat.  Of those, the Spotted Flycatcher and Stonechat were caught at Blakehill Farm. As the Spotted Flycatcher was actually caught in the Mipit triangle at Blakehill, and not one of the woodlands, that isn’t much of a surprise that it wasn’t repeated. However, given that Stonechat are around at Blakehill, and that I have been luring for them at every opportunity, I am disappointed that we haven’t caught any. That said, I am even more disappointed at the lack of Whinchat: two years running they have been missing from my September catch, despite there being good numbers at Blakehill.

Ian had an excellent catch of House Martins at New Zealand Farm: the first big catch of the species since September 2020. In fact, the 30 in 2020 plus the 22 this year are the only House Martins we have caught anywhere in September, except for one I caught at Blakehill Farm in September 2020.  There was an interesting increase in the number of Swallow that were processed.  Only two of them were fledged birds, the others were late brood nestlings at Waterhay Farm, Clattinger Farm, Hazeland Farm and Charlcutt Stables.  My ones, at Waterhay and Clattinger, were eggs mid-August, ringed first week of September and fledged by the 19th September.

There were significant year-on-year increases in many species this year. If I start with the migrant species: Grasshopper Warbler (4 vs 1); Blackcap (382 vs 177); Chiffchaff (323 vs 180); Goldcrest (32 vs 21 – I know there is a resident population, but it boosted significantly in winter by migrants and both Somerford Common and Webb’s Wood has their best ever September catches, almost certainly die to incoming migrants) and Whitethroat (25 vs 8).  Interestingly, there were fewer Reed Warbler (5 vs 17) and Sedge Warbler (7 vs 18) than last year.  Of the resident species: Blackbird (18 vs 5); Blue Tit (165 vs 104) and Yellowhammer (14 vs 7) showed increase in numbers, but quite a few saw significant declines in the catch.  These were: Cetti’s Warbler (5 vs 13); Dunnock (30 vs 52); Goldfinch (38 vs 139 – these figures might not have been so dramatic if we had been able to catch a fraction of the flocks at Blakehill Farm); Greenfinch (6 vs 30) and Treecreeper (2 vs 8).

The figures are there for you to see.  In terms of variety, New Zealand Farm and Jonny’s East Tytherton site have been outstanding: with 19 species caught at each.  An overall species list of 42 is also pretty good, our second best September (2021 had 44 species). The star bird has to be the Nightjar that Ian processed on the Imber Ranges. It is only the fifth caught by us, but it does seem to be becoming a regular catch on the Salisbury Plain sites, with the first in September 2020, three in August 2022, and now this one.

Here’s hoping for an excellent October as autumn migration out does seem to still be underway, whilst autumn migration in already seems underway.

Miranda, one of my trainees, is on the committee of the Malmesbury & District Natural History Society. When she asked if I would be prepared to run a ringing demonstration for the group I was very happy to do so. We arranged to carry out the demonstration at Lower Moor Farm, as it is the easiest place for attendee parking, and provides a good open area for the demonstration to take place, and they can repair to the excellent café at the end of the session. To accommodate the large number of people who wanted to attend, we split the session into two groups: group one between 7:30 and 9:30 and then 9:30 to 11:30 for group two. My only concern was whether we would have a decent haul of birds, with a reasonable variety, for both groups. I was especially worried because of the disappointing CES results this year. Fortunately, I need not have worried.

I had plenty of support today: Miranda (obviously), Rosie, Laura and Adam, Teresa and Andy. We all met at 6:30 to get the nets open before the first group arrived. I used a somewhat different set up to that used for the CES. To start with, we set up a Mipit triangle in a field adjacent to the CES site. Also, Rosie had helpfully mown the CES net rides and created me two new rides:

We set lures on every net set, except net 5, for multiple autumn migrants, with net set 5 playing Meadow Pipit, and we hoped that we would have a decent return for our efforts. There was a good omen: on Friday, Ellie ran a session on the north side of Mallard Lake and had a good haul for two nets comprising: Blue Tit 2; Great Tit 1; Wren 2; Robin 1; Dunnock 5; Blackbird 5(1); Blackcap 1; Chiffchaff 1; Goldcrest 2. Totals: 1 adult ringed, 19 juveniles ringed from 9 species and 1 retrap, making 21 birds processed from 9 species. There were just two adults in the catch: one of the Dunnock and the retrapped Blackbird.

Meadow Pipits have not been a regular catch at Lower Moor Farm. I have only caught them there in September. My first catch was in 2014, when I caught 22 of them. I didn’t catch another until I caught one in 2020, nine in 2021, none last year, but it was successful this year, producing eight caught but, as per usual, there was a significant number that sat on the top of the nets and refused to be lured into the trap.

Our session started well, with Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Robin and Wren in the first round. Rather like other recent sessions, we had small regular catches throughout the morning, that ended up contributing to a very reasonable total. In fact, it was our biggest catch of the year at Lower Moor Farm. As usual, the Meadow Pipits didn’t turn up until 9:00. They are definitely one of the late risers of the bird world!

The catch was: Treecreeper (1); Blue Tit 1(1); Long-tailed Tit 12(5); Wren 2(2); Dunnock (1); Meadow Pipit 8; Robin 3(2); Blackcap 5(1); Chiffchaff 2; Goldcrest 1. Totals: 34 birds ringed from 8 species and 13 birds retrapped from 7 species, making 47 birds processed from 10 species.

The key catch was, clearly, the number of Long-tailed Tits. We think that they were caught in three family groups. I base that on the fact that each group was caught close together, in the same net at the same time. The first group was caught at 8:30, the second group at 9:30. These first two groups each comprised one ringed bird and four unringed. The last group was caught at 11:00 and comprised three retrapped birds and four unringed. Of the retrapped birds in this last batch, two had consecutive numbers: PKJ698 and PKJ699, with the third being PKJ702. They were all ringed as juvenile birds at the same session, caught at the same time in the same nets in June of this year, almost certainly brood mates. By now both adults and young have undergone full moult, both post-breeding and post-fledging respectively, into the same plumage, making it impossible to age them accurately with any confidence.

Perhaps the most exciting catch of the day was a juvenile male Blackcap, ring number AFZ5454. It is a UK ring but not one of ours. I look forward to finding out where it has come from.

The catches were reasonably well distributed between the two groups of attendees, and they, in return, were extremely pleased with what they saw. There were lots of questions and a lot of interest in the answers, including one attendee who expressed interest in becoming a ringer.

Alongside the bird ringing demonstration some of the attendees were lucky enough to come across the local Otters crossing the path in front of them on their way to the café at the end of their session. We also had the Great White Egret, that has been at the site for the last couple of weeks, make an appearance: at one point perching on top of one of the trees on the opposite bank.

For a day that was forecast to be completely dry and calm, we had sporadic light rain showers and, at 11:00, the wind got up. Because of that, and the fact that the catch had fallen away, we decided to shut the nets and take down. We had a lot of really positive feedback from the attendees and, apparently, the organisers have received loads of text messages expressing their enthusiasm for the session. Embarrassingly, I had to endure an extended round of applause from the attendees before they left.

We had a lot of hands making light work, and so had everything packed away quickly and efficiently and were ready to leave site by midday. I hope that next Sunday’s ringing demonstration for the Swindon Wildlife Group is as successful as this one.

At the beginning of this week the weather forecast was for Storm Agnes to make any ringing impossible before Friday. Fortunately, by this morning it had opened a window for a woodland session. With the volunteer group being busy in Ravensroost this morning, Webb’s Wood was the next on the list.

I met up with Rosie, Miranda and Teresa at 7:00. This morning I decided to try out a different set of nets from our usual ringing area. This time we set up along the main tracks and the bridle path that leads to Echo Lodge Meadows:

We put up the following nets:

I put lures for various migrants on each net set, plus a lure for Marsh Tit on set 2. Webb’s Wood is, for its size, my worst site for Marsh Tits. Although Webb’s is almost exclusively native deciduous woodland, primarily Beech, and it is certainly a moist woodland, the problem is probably the lack of an extensive shrub layer. The Beech was previously closely planted, leaving little understorey. It was thinned significantly over-winter 2020 / 2021, as a lot of the Beech was harvested, but it is taking time for the understorey to establish. Marsh Tits being highly sedentary, unlike other Tit species, it is unlikely to be populated by inward recruitment, so it is up to its small population to produce the offspring to fill the new niches.

This morning’s first round produced three Robins and a Marsh Tit! It proved to be the only Marsh Tit caught this morning. It is now sporting some nice distinctive colour rings, enabling it to be recorded by sight by local birders, in what is now a 10 year project monitoring the health of the Marsh Tit population in the Braydon Forest (holding on well, if you are interested)

Marsh Tit, Poecile palustris

Round three produced a male Nuthatch. Already, it was impossible to tell whether it was a bird of this year or older. It was clearly a male, and was also Teresa’s first opportunity to ring the species:

Nuthatch, Sitta europaea

Each round produced a small number of birds, until Rosie left for work, whereupon the birds decided that they would push off as well. For just under an hour-and-a-half we did not catch another bird! At 10:30 I changed the Marsh Tit lure for Goldcrest. Almost immediately we caught three Goldcrest adjacent to it.

The forecast was for wind to start gusting upwards of 20mph from 14:00. Unfortunately it arrived three-and-a-half hours early, at 10:45 the nets started billowing too much to be safe, so we closed them and packed away.

The list for the session was: Nuthatch 1; Blue Tit 3; Great Tit 3; Coal Tit 1; Marsh Tit 1; Wren 1; Robin 3(1); Goldcrest 7. Totals: 20 birds ringed from 8 species and 1 bird retrapped, making 21 birds processed from 8 species.

Without that late flurry of Goldcrests we would have had a very dull, if short, session, excepting the Marsh Tit and the Nuthatch so, thank goodness for Goldcrests! With the nice catch of Goldcrest at Somerford Common last week, this has been our best September for the species in the Braydon Forest. October is when they usually arrive. That said, on Monday Teresa released a juvenile Siskin at Somerford Common. It had been sent to the RSPCA Oak & Furrows wild animal rehabilitation and recovery centre from a vet in Cirencester, having been rescued from a member of the feline scourge and successfully returned to health by the team there. As soon as it was released it was joined by three other Siskin. That is very early for this species in the Braydon Forest. In fact, we have only one other record for them in September (in 2020) and only one record for November, back in 2013. Apart from that, all of our Siskin catches have been in February or March, bar one other – four birds in my back garden in April 2014! Perhaps this is a sign that winter is arriving early? The way the weather has been this year, who knows?