Author: Braydon Forest & Beyond

The following blog was written by the newest member of my ringing team, Ellie L. As I now have three Ellies in my ringing life, I think I had better start distinguishing which is which. Ellie J was the second trainee that I took on, and is now an A-permit holder. Ellie P. is a key contact of mine at the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and helps keep an eye on nesting Swallows at their properties and rings them with me when we get the chance. Ellie L is the one who is now a regular trainee with the team and proving to be very helpful and skilled at what she is expected to do (and is making me ever so slightly jealous!).

Her blog:

To introduce myself, I’m a new (ish) member of West Wilts Ringing Group and have been training with Simon and team since March.

The opportunity recently came up to join a trip to Portugal to ring European storm-petrels and, having spent the year studying their vocalisations at university, it seemed about time to see some in the wild.

The ringing trip takes place each June and contributes data to a >30-year-long project run by Dr Rob Thomas from Cardiff University and the A ROCHA Portugal Field Centre. Most birds are caught on their migration route past Portugal on their way north to breeding grounds in the UK, Faroe Islands and the Republic of Ireland, but some may come from more local Mediterranean breeding populations.

European storm-petrel Hydrobates pelagicus (Photo by Ben Porter, June 2024)

Close-up showing ‘tube nose’

The ringing process:

Storm-petrels are caught at night on a wave-cut platform on the south coast of Portugal by playing a tape lure of a colony on a (very!) loud speaker.

Wave-cut platform where ringing takes place

The usual biometric data is collected as well as information on the condition of the birds’ feet (storm-petrels often lose feet due to entanglement in fishing gear or attack from predators, or even fish, as they hover over the sea surface to feed). Faecal and vomit samples are collected for dietary analysis and weather-related data (wind speed and direction, SST, air temperature, cloud cover) is collected hourly. This data collection allows for long-term changes in catch rates, foraging behaviours, weight etc. to be studied.   

A one-footed storm-petrel (Photo by Kayleigh Bargus)

Ringing has to be carried out under white light in this area, as red light is used as a signal by drug smugglers here, meaning birds can become slightly disorientated as it takes a while for their eyes to re-adjust to darkness. As a result, releasing the birds involves sitting with them near the edge of the cliff and making sure they fly off in the right direction or bringing them safely away from the cliff if they go too near the edge before beginning to fly.

Overall, just over 100 storm-petrels were caught this year, two of which were re-traps which had been previously ringed at breeding colonies (one of these was confirmed to be from West Wales). The number of storm-petrels caught was lower than in recent years which seems to be part of a longer-term decline in catch rate at this site since 1993 – this could be due to a decline in storm-petrel populations but could also be due to changes in migration routes/timings or foraging behaviours.

There were a few bonus extras caught including a desert locust (which flew in from the seaward side of the net!) and a couple of these:

Cory’s shearwater Calonectris borealis (Photo courtesy of Beth Rawles)

Overall, it was an incredible experience, storm-petrels are lovely birds to ring and it was worth staying up through the nights to do so!

I had just a few boxes to check this morning: particularly the box at Plain Farm which had two small chicks in last time we checked. Ellie and I set out at 9:30, first stop Plain Farm. There we found and ringed just the one chick:

This is Ellie’s first Barn Owl chick and she handled it perfectly. The G-rings aren’t always the easiest to get right first time, but she certainly had no problems fitting and closing the ring properly.

This chick was pretty healthy, weighed in at a decent 350g, with a reasonably full belly. How much of that was its now, no longer in existence, nest mate I don’t know, but it looked in good condition.

We then went over the road to Drill Farm. Back on the 13th June we caught the adult female on the nest and found four warm eggs. Today we found three chicks and two warm eggs. The chicks were too small for ringing. In fact, even the largest was still naked and was only just opening its eyes. Its nest mates were very definitely naked and bind. We will visit again in three to four weeks to ring what may be left. They do seem to be being well fed. This was the largest of the chicks:

Just look at the belly on that: makes me look positively svelte! A shame it is Ellie’s legs that are in focus and not the chick!

We checked a couple of boxes at Gospel Oak Farm: the Jackdaws had fledged from the bottom box and the owner had cleaned it out subsequently. The upper box, which had previously held a squirrel drey was still empty. We then went over to Clattinger Farm to look at the new box there: no sign of any activity or poo adorning the greenery under the box.

Our final stop was at Oaksey Moor: this was frustrating: plenty of evidence of owl occupation, plenty of white splash all over the vegetation all around the base of the box and beyond, so it looks active. Unfortunately, it was inaccessible using the ladder. It is going to need either permission to cut a swathe through the brush trees around the base of the tree (mainly Blackthorn) or a tree climber to get in there. As it is part of a Wiltshire Wildlife Trust reserve, one has to follow the Health & Safety protocols, which means two tree climbers!

By then it was approaching midday and getting very hot, so we called it a day! Ellie was happy with her first experiences of Barn Owls and ringing her first of their chicks: the first of many I expect.

A really nice session today: thoroughly enjoyable. I am not sure that I give my team enough credit in my blog pieces: I am very lucky with the people that I have the privilege to train. Apart from being massively interested in our birdlife and the importance of the ringing scheme, willing learners and committed helpers, they are all thoroughly nice people, with whom it is a pleasure to spend time.

That’s enough of that, down to business! I was joined this morning by Laura and Ellie at 6:00 for a session at Ravensroost Meadows and we set the following nets:

We started with a Wren that got into the nets before they had been opened. They are bad enough to extract when the nets are fully open but this one crawled through three pockets of the net, got the nets up around both thighs and angel-winged itself on both wings: just what you want for your first extraction of the morning after no coffee to wake you up and, having set Laura and Ellie other tasks I had to get it out. Suffice to say, I did, safely and with only a minimum of curses.

Anyway, it was an interesting morning for a number of reasons. It wasn’t the busiest of mornings, with some quite long gaps between catches, but there was plenty to appreciate. Our second round produced two of these:

Of course, those of us who are lucky enough to catch Bullfinch regularly will recognise this pose as far more typical:

He might look ferocious but they are one of the few birds that are more than happy to sit on your outstretched hand until you decide it is time for them to move on. Anyway, these were our first juvenile Bullfinches of the year.

A bit later on, at 10:30, we caught our second first juvenile of the year:

In addition to our catching these first juveniles of the year, we also caught two adult Lesser Whitethroat: a male and female in full breeding condition, which were also my teams first of this species for the year.

The total list for the session was: Treecreeper [1]; Blue Tit 1[3]; Wren 1(1); Dunnock 1; Robin [4]; Song Thrush [3]; Blackcap[1]; Whitethroat 2; Lesser Whitethroat 2; Chiffchaff 1[7]; Bullfinch [2]. Totals: 8 adults ringed from 6 species, 21 juveniles ringed from 7 species and 2 retraps from 2 species, making 31 birds processed from 11 species.

Given how the weather has been these last couple of weeks, we were lucky that the sun stayed behind cloud pretty much for the whole morning, coming out and into full force just after 11:30, just before we started to take down and pack up at midday.

Quite the most astonishing month, for all sorts of reasons.  Firstly, our biggest June catch to date:

The same number of species but more ringed and fewer retrapped.  Of those ringed, we added Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Kingfisher, Marsh Tit, Meadow Pipit and Spotted Flycatcher and pulli from Lapwing and Stock Dove.  Missing species this year, ringed in June last year, were the totally astonishing Redwing, not really surprising, and Yellowhammer and pulli from Jackdaw and Kestrel.  

To those figures in more detail, the Canada Goose was, unsurprisingly, caught by Jonny at Langford Lakes.  Andy and Ian have ringed Lapwing chicks out on SPTA Imber Ranges, indeed Ian did another there this month.  The other 23 were ringed by Jonny and Aurora and the Project Peewit team – who invited me to ring my first ever chicks: three of them at one of my Barn Owl sites.  

The two Stock Doves chicks were found, with their mother, by Jonny in a Barn Owl box.  My experience of Stock Doves this month was somewhat less pleasant: the only box we found in the Braydon Forest area had an adult and two chicks: one was dead, the other looked in poor condition. We removed the dead one and left the other in peace.  In my journeys out with the Salisbury Plain Raptor Group we have come across a few nests: one had two dead adults killed and eaten in the box, another had a dead adult uneaten in the box and a third had a clutch of two very cold eggs.  We also saw four other boxes inhabited by pairs of Stock Dove but didn’t bother them.

On the Barn Owl front: they have started breeding much later this year: a lack of voles has pushed them back. One good thing about that is that the Jackdaws have finished breeding: so some rapid cleaning of boxes and there will be less competition for nest spaces from other species.  We have done a lot better than on SPTA, who had ringed nothing on the Plain until just two last minute ones for Justine at one of her off Plain sites.  We have ringed three broods, totalling eight chicks: one at Echo Lodge and two at Blakehill Farm.  There are also two broods developing at Plain Farm and Drill Farm which will be ringed in July if all goes to plan.  The numbers are lower than last year, but at least they are succeeding. One good point: we are finding dead voles inside the boxes.

With regard to the Jackdaw pulli, it is a lack of opportunity, due to my being out on Salisbury Plain and the Lower Wylye Valley checking their boxes, plus my lack of a roof rack after changing my car from a dead one to a much younger model.  Thanks to Laura for providing the roof rack and car for our box checks.

The Kestrels last June were fortuitous, ringed by Jonny and myself because, in my case, Justine was away and unable to deal with the brood at an appropriate time, so I got to do them.  This year the only Kestrel chicks ringed have been on Salisbury Plain: with quite a variety of age.  They seem to have swapped diet from small mammals to small birds, with Goldfinch and Skylark appearing quite often in their diet.

I am hoping to put up some Kestrel boxes in the Braydon Forest for next year.

Amongst the other catches: there was a quite excellent haul of Marsh Tits ringed.  It is our best June ringing catch ever.   The previous highest was seven in June 2014.  In fact, it is tied as our best monthly ringing catch with October 2019, which was influenced by supplementary feeding. Apart from that, 10 in August 2018 was the only other month when we ringed double figures of this species.  The Meadow Pipit is also notable: two adults were caught on the Imber Ranges in June 2022, this is just the third June catch of the species by the Group.

For me, the best moment of my month had to be ringing three Lapwing chicks, but it was a real toss up between them and this:

This is only the thirteenth Spotted Flycatcher caught by the Group since January 2013 – and the ninth caught in the Braydon Forest.  Perhaps more remarkable is the fact that this is the fifth caught in the Firs: the smallest of the five woods ringed in the Forest, at 10ha: a quarter of the size of Ravensroost Wood, one tenth the size of Red Lodge and one twentieth the size of both Somerford Common and Webb’s Wood.

Let’s hope that July delivers as well as June has.

After another car problem (see last post) I had to cancel Sunday’s visit to Ravensroost Wood, so I could check that the car issue had been resolved. It has, fortunately, and I got permission to run a session this morning at Ravensroost Wood but, unfortunately, none of my team could make it. I have to check these days as the Trust have employed a contractor to reduce the population of Roe Deer and Muntjac, in an effort to enable the understorey to regrow following Ash die-back remediation work, that also coincided with 25 year coppicing of a large part of the northern end of the wood. I am just hopeful that it will give the Bird’s Nest Orchids and the Violet Helleborines a chance to expand their somewhat tenuous status in the wood. It is not their usual habitat, which makes them being there even more special.

I arrived on site at 6:30 and set the usual nets: 3 x 18m nets in R 28 and 4 x 18m + 1 x 12m nets in R38. I had them open and the ringing station all set up by just after 7:30 and started catching at 8:00. I had only one round with a good number of birds, the third, with nine birds from six species at 8:30. Because of the heat, I did far more rounds, with less time in between, than I normally would: twelve rounds in three and a half hours. Fortunately, the net rides were properly sheltered from the sun, and I also managed to put the ringing station into the shade, so it was actually a very pleasant session and it didn’t get really sweaty until I started the take down (I am sure you all needed to know that).

The highlight of the morning for me was this:

We have had one visiting our garden for the last week or so, and Laura did ring one in her garden when we ran a session there earlier this month, but that was just outside Cirencester and very much in Gloucestershire. This is the first for the year by anyone in our Wiltshire ringing group.

The list for the morning was: Great Spotted Woodpecker [1]; Great Tit [1]; Wren [4](1); Dunnock 1; Robin 1[6]; Song Thrush 2; Blackbird [1]; Blackcap 2[4]; Garden Warbler [1]; Chiffchaff 1[3](2). Totals: 7 adults ringed from 5 species, 21 juveniles ringed from 8 species and 3 birds retrapped from 2 species, making 31 birds processed from 10 species.

It is clearly a good year for Robins: we have ringed 22 in the Braydon Forest so far: 21 in June and one in May. This table shows just how variable the breeding efforts of Robins are in the first six months of the year within the Braydon Forest:

Essentially, this is an above average year. Goodness knows what happened in 2014! Of course, the plague year was the best of them all proportionately. It is quite surprising how good the catches were that year, given the restrictions.

Anyway, it was a lovely morning. Lots of people out passing through almost all stopping to chat. Even the dog owners were keeping their pets on their leads. I think it is the first time ever that I have seen 100% compliance.

As I was working solo I did my usual takedown routine of: one set at a time, extract any birds and close, leaving the other rides open. Process birds, take down nets, repeat for each net set.

I had planned to be away by midday but with so many people wanting to chat about how things are going this year, on the birds, and what’s happening with the butterflies from the peeps with the big cameras. Answers: Silver-washed Fritillaries plenty, White Admirals noticeabel by their absence, Ringlets plenty, other common species doing well, Brown Hairstreak about on the edge of the woods, Purple Hairstreak not really showing yet. The big one, because it is so new to the area: Purple Emperor, possibly a couple seen so far.

In the end I got away from site just after 13:00 after a nicely satisfying session (and not a Blue Tit to be seen).

I met up with Dick and Mark at Westdown Camp this morning at 8:30 and we headed out to cover the south-west of the training area. It was certainly an interesting day: nearly everywhere you looked there were tanks, lorries, armoured cars, rocket launchers and soldiers! They had been on a major exercise for the last two weeks, i.e. since our last foray onto the Plain, and were now packing up and clearing away at the end of it before heading off to their home barracks area. I have to say, in that heat, in those uniforms and helmets, I didn’t envy them.

We had a busy session, and found quite a lot. The Barn Owl story is still very slow in developing this year. Today we checked on 11 Barn Owl boxes: thankfully, four of them contained adult Barn Owl pairs, but no eggs nor young in the boxes yet. Two boxes had Jackdaw nests in but they have fledged now, so we cleaned out the boxes and replenished them with wood shavings ready for Barn Owls to take up residence. It is a late start, but Barn Owls can breed late into the year, they often have two broods, so starting late is not such a big deal for them.

The saddest part of the Barn Owl boxes were the four that had been utilised by Stock Doves. That is a fairly standard occurrence. Two of the Stock Dove nests had healthy chicks, developing nicely, and should fledge within a couple of weeks. Another of the nests, however, had what was clearly a long dead adult (it was buried in the nesting material in the bottom of the box) and an infertile egg. The last Stock Dove occupied box had two predated adults in it. Their chest muscle had been picked clean. My thoughts are that they were predated by either Weasel or Stoat, Sparrowhawk / Goshawk would have made much more of a mess, as they rip their prey apart.

Now to the success stories of the afternoon: the Kestrels. We checked 16 Kestrel boxes and found four successful broods of Kestrel. The first brood were surprisingly small: just two small, downy chicks, but big enough to ring:

These were our smallest of the day. The next box had another two chicks to ring. These were a bit bigger:

At this stage they are a real handful: all beak and claws. We ringed four chicks in the next box. They were very close to fledging:

They were so close to fledging, in fact, so close that two of them flew from the box. Their flight isn’t that strong and we just monitored where they went, then Mark collected them and brought them back for ringing. When Dick put them back in the box it was done very carefully, controlling the access to the box, so that they didn’t panic and fly out again. Delighted to say that was totally successful.

The final Kestrel box with Kestrels in, actually didn’t. As we drove towards the tree within which it is sited we watched three juveniles fly off to trees elsewhere. There was one sat on the top of the box. We sat and watched until it also decided to follow its brood mates. So four broods, three ringed, comprising eight chicks. What is slightly weird is that each brood was at a later stage than the previous, from downy chicks just big enough to ring, to fully fledged and leaving the next box! Great script.

Alongside that, two of the boxes had Jackdaw nests, young probably fledged already, four had breeding pairs of Stock Dove in them and six of the boxes were empty.

Although Barn Owls are having a slow time of it, Kestrel are doing much better on the Plain: these eight ringed yesterday take the total of chicks ringed this season to 51!

We got back to Westdown Camp at about 15:45.

Postscript: Returning home after our pleasant day out on Salisbury Plain, as I got to Devizes a tyre pressure warning came on in the car.  I stopped at the garage on the way out of town, pumped up the tyres, off-side front being the worst and headed for home. Just before the Bristol, Marlborough, Avebury roundabout on the A361 the front tyre deflated rapidly. I pulled into the bus stop layby and the tyre was as flat as a pancake.  I couldn’t make head nor tail of the inflation kit, so called my friendly local recovery agent, who said he’d be there on 45 minutes. I looked at tyre shops that he could take me to to get a replacement, only to find that all, even Kwik-Fit, were shutting at 5.00, so no good. I canceled him and looked at mobile replacement services. I was just picking myself up from the floor at the price I had been quoted  when a white van pulled in behind me.  This guy climbed out, covered in tattoos and piercings and, in the broadest Wiltshire accent I have ever heard, asked “What’s the problem, mate?”   I showed him and he said he would sort it for me. He tried the tyre inflation kit but the valve remover is plastic and it just broke. So he said he lived locally and would head home and come back with his tool kit . 10 minutes later he got back, took out the valve, squeezed in the tyre sealant and put on the compressor to pump up the tyre.  Five minutes later it was still saying zero pressure in the tyre.  We rolled the car along a bit and found a rather large hole: 4mm at least. “Don’t worry” he said, “I am a biker and repair these all the time, I just need some more kit”.  He got on the phone and 6 minutes later his wife arrived with another box of tricks and a bottle of cold water for me, assuming I would need it having been stuck out in the sun all that time. Jan gets on with repairing the tyre, plugged the hole and sealed it. I said I would take it slowly on the way home, he said no need that repair will last as long as the tyre treads.  He was right.  He wouldn’t take anything for it and I am just awestruck that someone like that exists in this day and age: that there are two of them in a relationship is even better.  I have insisted they let me take them out to dinner next week but I suspect it won’t happen as they just didn’t think they had done anything out of the ordinary.

I had planned to go out and check Barn Owl boxes yesterday but, of course, the wind decided to gust up to 40+mph, plus a few heavy showers of rain, put paid to that, so this morning Laura, Daniel and I went to do what we had intended to do yesterday. Our first stop was Echo Lodge Farm where, on our last visit there, on the 13th June, there were two chicks that were too small to ring. Two weeks later and they were just right, so we ringed two chicks. We invited the landowner along to see what her land management was helping, and she was delighted. It turns out that she is friends with the other farmer whose land is currently supporting the other two Barn Owl nests we knew have either eggs or chicks.

We went from there to check that a Jackdaw at Somerford Farm had fledged and cleaned out the nest box so that it was fit for a Barn Owl. This box has been up for a good few years but last year was the first time that it was successful. Hopefully it won’t be too late for them to try again this year.

Our next stop was one that we couldn’t get near to last time due to some mental Belted Galloways in the field at Ravensroost who just wanted to chase our car all over the place. I have spent enough time wiping Beltie drool off my car to want to do it again! This time we parked up on the verge, climbed over the gate and carried the ladder down to the box. They were still bouncy and enthusiastic, but were also scared of the ladder it seemed, so they never got close. This was a sad encounter: as we opened the box an adult Stock Dove flew out. There were two chicks in the nest: one was recently dead and the second was very floppy. The dead one had clearly starved, it’s crop was absolutely empty. I removed the dead bird and left the other behind in the hope that the adult might be better able to cope with just the one. I will check again in a few days to see how it is getting on. We didn’t ring it.

From there we headed to the two boxes on the west side of Blakehill Farm. These were just about the first boxes we visited this year, way back on the 14th April. There were pairs of Barn Owl occupying each of the two boxes. However, there were no eggs, no signs of breeding, so we gave them a good long time to get down to business without being disturbed. I think it is a good job that we did. From first egg laying it takes, normally, 32 days for the eggs to hatch so, even if they had laid in the next few days, that would have taken to mid-May before they hatched. Once hatched they are in the nest for, typically, 53 days and they become able to be ringed at approximately 30 days post-hatching. That is once their feet have grown large enough for the rings not to slip off.

Arriving at our first box, in Pouchers Field, we nearly caught the female in our hand net as she came flying out of the box upon our approach: a hopeful sign. A much better signal was the hissing we could hear emanating from the box! Upon opening we found four chicks: three were the right size for ringing, the other will need another couple of weeks, so we ringed three of them.

I know that some people who aren’t ringers worry about whether or not the birds are stressed by the experience. All I can say is that this one certainly wasn’t:

I suppose if I had eaten quite as much as this youngster has clearly done I would probably feel that sleepy myself. Just look at that belly!

Having ringed these three we then went off to Allotment Field to check on the box there. Absolutely delighted to find another three healthy and well-fed chicks.

Our final box of the day, final because the wind was really whipping up by then and Daniel, who will possibly be climbing rigging in these sorts of winds next week, was more than uncomfortable at the top of the ladder. This was at White Lodge. As we were driving down to the box, I have never seen the fields and sky so full of Jackdaws. Later, as Daniel was cleaning the box out, the sky became dark with two huge flocks of Jackdaw. We are not talking tens, we are talking hundreds of them! Unsurprisingly, this box had clearly been a successful Jackdaw nest again this year.

After this long delay in the commencement of Barn Owl breeding, it is such a relief to find that, of the 16 boxes we have checked so far this year in the Braydon Forest, we have ringed chicks in three, have another box to ring another three in in the next two weeks, and another on eggs which, hopefully, we will ring in about five to six weeks. It isn’t as though the other boxes have failed: although the Stock Dove probably will be a complete failure, at least three of them had Jackdaw chick success, with chicks ringed in two and one known Jackdaw failure plus, sadly, one containing a dead adult Barn Owl. However, five boxes out of sixteen containing breeding by the target species is a good proportion.

A big thank you to Laura for providing the car with a roof rack (how long does it take a roof rack to get to the UK from Belgium?) and to both Daniel and Laura for doing the vast majority of the grunt work today, in particular doing all of the dirty work clearing out emptied Jackdaw nests.

I am out with the Salisbury Plain team tomorrow: let’s hope we can get similar results tomorrow!

This is turning into a very nice week for me, Lapwing yesterday, hopefully Barn Owls tomorrow: and this morning was pretty good for Laura and Miranda as well. We have seen a significant improvement in the Firs since it reopened after the Ash dieback remedial work and opening up of the canopy. The three of us met up at 6:30 and set the following nets:

(One day the Ordnance Survey, Google Maps and Bing Maps will update their aerial views: this is OS and the best of the three.)

The wood is considerably more open since the Ash-dieback clearance in 2023 / 24. The Wildlife Trust had very helpfully mowed the central glade recently. Rides 1 and 2 are in the usual places for net setting in the Firs, ride 3 is on the slope down to the central glade / ponds area. Since the clearance the woodland on either side of the slope has developed a very decent understorey, including a bank of bramble down the eastern side, which is full of flowers, and I am hoping that will translate into a lot of blackberries in the autumn, and a significant catch of migrating birds, as happened in a similar habitat, with the same number of nets, at Lower Moor Farm in August 2014 (137 birds from 15 species). So I decided to set these three nets up to see how they went at this time. They performed better than I expected.

We had a few niggles with the nets and didn’t get them open until after 7:30. After taking the setting equipment back to the car, having a quick coffee to wake myself up, as the others did the same with their chosen poison, we did our first round. It was a good start: 17 birds from 8 species. Nobody was counting chickens, we have had reasonable starts recently that ended up with very little happening subsequently.

Once they had been processed we went off on round two: 19 birds from 9 species. Good grief: did this mean that we were going to end up with a decent haul? Well, yes. Over the next two hours we processed another 31 birds from 11 species. This is our best catch this year, and that includes catches inflated by the provision of feeding stations in the winter months. Out of 85 ringing trips to the Firs, since 8th September 2012, there have only been five bigger catches: each one fuelled by supplementary feeding.

Alongside the good number was an excellent variety, with lots of highlights. We ringed another three Marsh Tits, bringing the annual total for the Braydon Forest 16! Looks like it is going to be a bumper year for this red-listed species in the Braydon Forest.

However, the outstanding catch of the session was this beauty:

The story of ringing Spotted Flycatchers in the Braydon Forest is quite an interesting one. They have bred in the Ravensroost complex on and off for a long time: I saw my first ones, adults feeding young, in 2005 and have seen them on and off ever since. The Trust have put up nest boxes for them and we know they breed there. On several occasions, whilst Jonny was still training with me, we would watch them hawking insects, occasionally landing on the path 20m or so away from where we were sat ringing birds. To be fair, since the group came into its current structure at the beginning of 2013, we have actually only caught 12, until today. Of those, eight had been caught in the Braydon Forest, which is why it was such a pleasure to catch another today. Given that the Firs is the smallest of our woodlands, its record in Spotted Flycatchers is surprising.

As you can see from this graphic, the Firs is a tiny fraction of the woodlands we cover with our ringing activities.

Anyway, the first Spotted Flycatcher ringed in the Braydon Forest was a juvenile caught in the Firs on the 3rd August 2016: the first bird out of the nets in that session. Ironically, the second was the last bird out of the nets in that same session. That was followed by another juvenile in Red Lodge on the 21st of that month. The next was a juvenile caught at Somerford Common in July 2017, then a juvenile in Ravensroost Wood in August 2018.

Perhaps the most exciting find for me, because these juveniles caught could all have been on autumn migration, was in June 2019 when we caught another two in the Firs: a male and a female, both in full breeding condition. That was followed by a juvenile caught in a net triangle set for Meadow Pipits on the Blakehill Farm plateau, and then today’s catch!

So, to sum up, of the 13 Spotted Flycatchers caught by the West Wilts Ringing Group since 2103, nine have been caught in the Braydon Forest and five of those in the smallest site: the Firs! Because neither Laura nor Miranda have ever ringed a Spotted Flycatcher, I decided that they would draw lots for the privilege: Miranda won. Laura did the release.

Anyway, enough rambling, the list for the session was: Great Spotted Woodpecker (1); Nuthatch 3; Blue Tit [14]; Great Tit [2]; Coal Tit [1]; Marsh Tit [3]; Long-tailed Tit [1]; Wren [5](1); Dunnock [1](2); Spotted Flycatcher 1; Robin 1[4]; Blackbird [1](3); Blackcap 6[7]; Garden Warbler [1]; Chiffchaff 2[4](1); Chaffinch 1[1]. Totals: 14 adults ringed from 6 species, 45 juveniles from 13 species and 8 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 67 birds processed from 16 species.

We did the last round and closed the nets at 11:30, taking the last three birds out of the net, processed them, and then took down the nets and packed away, leaving site by 12:30, after a very satisfactory morning.

One of my productive Barn Owl sites is adding another string to its bow. The farmer, as well as providing lots of grassland, also sets aside large tracts for cover crops, and he is very keen on his wildlife, if a little reticent about advertising the fact, which is why, out of respect for his concerns, I am not going to give any pointers as to where it is.

Suffice to say that, of the ten Barn Owl boxes I have managed to check so far (roof rack for new car should be here in the next couple of days – it isn’t just Barn Owls who are a bit behind this breeding season!), he has two of the three with breeding in progress.

Last Wednesday he contacted Jonny and his project Peewit team and me to let us know that, whilst out deciding what to do about a failed cover crop, he saw some movement and identified four Lapwing chicks. He fenced off the area they were in, so the cattle couldn’t disturb them, and on Thursday evening the Peewit team and I went searching for them. It was very hot and they were well hidden and we didn’t find them. However, we did find this:

The team said that they would return on Monday or Tuesday with drones, thermal imaging cameras etc to try and locate the chicks and they would give me a shout if they found them.

We told the farmer about the nest and Friday morning he asked for a What3Words location so that he could put an electric fence around the nest. Unfortunately, in this instance, the W3W location was inaccurate and he couldn’t find it.

After my rather disappointing Red Lodge session on Saturday (sorry Song Thrushes, you were lovely but…), I went to the farm to see if I could find the nest. I was a little concerned when I arrived to find a flock of about 50 Lesser Black-backed and Herring Gulls wandering around the field foraging, and three pairs of adult Lapwing circling and alarm calling. The gulls pushed off as soon as I got out of the car, which was a bit of a relief. I sat back in the car hoping that an adult would return to the nest, but after 15 minutes there was no sign, so I decided to carry out a grid search of the area where we had seen it. After an hour of searching I had to admit defeat. It was also starting to rain and I was conscious of getting out of the way so that Mum could come and protect her nest from the weather.

At 7:28 this morning I got a text from Jonny: “Morning, we have chicks”. By 7:35 this morning I had got up, got dressed and was on site and was privileged to ring and weigh these beauties:

I was home and breakfasting by 8:30: that’s the way to go ringing! A huge thank you to the Project Peewit team for allowing me the privilege of processing this little group. That brings my total of UK pulli species ringed to 31 and my total UK species ringed to 112. One day I really must do some overseas ringing!

It is good to know that two of my Barn Owl sites are also supporting Lapwing and Curlew. There are some very good farmers in the Braydon Forest area who are keen to support their wildlife and have signed up to project Peewit and the longer running Curlew monitoring project.

The longest day! Not quite the shortest list – but a close run thing! This is only the sixth time that I have actually carried out a June session in Red Lodge in 12 years. With more time available since I decided not to continue with the Lower Moor Farm CES, it was time for a session in Red Lodge. It has been more than a little hit and miss: last time was 2022, and we only caught five birds. The three June sessions in 2014, 2018 and 2020 showed a slow decline in catch size: 61, 41 and 36. The three since then have been much worse (2021 15, 2022 5, 2025: I will reveal later). The forecast was for it to be hot and dry but overcast with a negligible possibility of rain (<2%).

With just the two of us meeting at 6:00, we set the following nets:

We had the nets open by 7:00 but, as we were finishing off , I felt a few spots of rain! We took two Robin out of the nets and then the rain started in earnest, so we shut the nets and processed the birds and then sat in the car for the next 90 minutes as the rain fell! We reopened the nets at 8:30 and then did our next round at 8:45. There were 6 birds in that round, including our second juvenile Marsh Tit of the year, taking our total of Marsh Tits ringed in the Braydon Forest to 13 so far. To put that into context, this is the most we have ever ringed in the first six months of the year. The previous best was nine in 2013. Excluding 2025, our average is 5.75 for the first six months, so this is very encouraging.

In these first two rounds, 95 minutes apart, we caught five juvenile Robins. They do seem to be having a good start to their breeding year.

Unfortunately, after that things went very quiet. Which is not to say that there were not highlights: no birds at the 9:00 round, two in the 9:15 round: a Nuthatch and this noisy beggar:

Our first of the year, beautifully showing the markings that make juvenile Song Thrushes easy to identify. You cannot see the tail from this angle but it was, equally diagnostically, with very pointy tips to the remiges.

That was followed by a break of 45 minutes until our next capture, and then another 30 minutes until we caught our second juvenile Song Thrush of the year. I had always planned to pack up at 11:00, before the heat settled in. We took a final Wren out, as I was taking in ride 2, which David processed whilst David’s dad and I continued taking down the rest of the nets and packing up. Between us we were finished and off site by 11:30. The list from the session was: Nuthatch 1; Great Tit [1]; Marsh Tit [1]; Wren 1[1](1); Robin [5]; Song Thrush [2]. Totals: 2 adults ringed from 2 species, 10 juveniles ringed from 5 species and 1 bird retrapped, making 13 birds processed from 6 species.

Following on from the fabulous Zebra jumping spider on Friday, I was rather pleased to find this little beastie, a long-horned beetle, crawling over my mobile phone case:

Usually found on nettles in woodlands and, it would appear, mobile phone cases! Apparently common but I have never seen one before. I really must take my macro lens with me next time: my 70 – 150 zoom had a bit of trouble getting it in focus, either auto or manual (and I picked up my new glasses on Thursday, so my eyesight is just fine, thank you).