Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond

Lapwing: before this year the group had ringed 11 Lapwing chicks, all bar one were ringed on Salisbury Plain, on the edge of the training area. This year, two were ringed on the Imber Ranges, but two others were the result of a new project, being run by Jonny in his role at the Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre, supported by Aurora, and called, not unsurprisingly Project Peewit. On the back of his work with the local farmer cluster involved in the Curlew project, a similar project is now being run for Lapwing. One was ringed at one of my Barn Owl sites in the Braydon Forest and the other near Shalbourne. Here’s looking forward to many more!

Buzzard: our first ever chick ringed by Jonny at one of his new farmland sites.

Kestrel: an amazing year for us, as we haven’t, so far, targetted raptor pulli, outside of the Barn Owls we work on. This year we had 15 chicks ringed plus one adult.  One adult is par for the course: in every year from 2015, excluding 2019, the group has ringed a single Kestrel.  This year’s was at a site just outside Hilmarton.  However, the chicks were the first for the group.  Mine was a brood of five nesting in a box in a back garden on the outskirts of Amesbury.  Jonny’s were, shared with Aurora and Justine, a brood of six in a Barn Owl box near Combe Bisset and a brood of four near East Grafton.

Hobby: our first ever, caught at Langford Lakes by Jonny.  

Tawny Owl: Jonny got to ring his first ever Tawny Owl, at his Hilmarton site.

Nightjar: they have started to be caught on autumn migration at Ian and Andy’s Salisbury Plain sites: the first in 2020, three in 2022, one in 2023 and another three this year: with two a first for a new Imber Valley site:

Sand Martin: our group’s first ever catch of this species, at one of Jonny’s new sites north-west of Calne. 

Carrion Crow: Only our third wild caught fledged Carrion Crow. The first was in 2017 at Lower Moor Farm, the second was at Biss Wood in 2021 and then this one in 2024 at a farm near Hilmarton.

Long-tailed Tit: our best ever year by a long way.  We do recapture a lot of them, some 40% of our catches are retraps.  Even so, 391 in 2024 vs 347 in 2023 vs 325 in 2022 shows consistent growth.  That just under half of those ringed came from my Braydon Forest sites is very pleasing, as numbers there reduced significantly after 2016 and have been recovering slowly over recent years.

Wren: our best year for Wren, both ringed and retraps 344 (134), 30 more ringed than the previous best (2022).

Meadow Pipit: our second best year, following up last year’s 670 ringed with another 640.  

Stonechat: Equal best year with 2020: 25 ringed + 1 retrap in both years.  The surveying team at Blakehill are convinced that Stonechat bred there this year for the first time on record.

Whinchat: after two blank years it was good to get four back at Blakehill Farm, with the fifth caught on Salisbury Plain. 

Yellow Wagtail: only our second, this time a juvenile, again at Brown’s Farm.  Somewhat concerning: the tenancy agreement at Brown’s Farm was terminated in September and I have not yet been given permission to resume ringing activities there by the owners, who are going to manage it going forward.

Redstart: Since 2020 we have regularly caught five or six each year.  This year it was five – but three of those were at Blakehill Farm.  We only caught a total of two there between 2013 and 2019 inclusive. Then two in each of 2020, 2022 and 2023. Here’s hoping for four in 2025.

Redwing: given how much we have all been complaining about the lack of them at the end of the year, we did actually have more than last year (318 vs 294) although lower than the catches since 2018.  Mind, prior to 2018 we never caught more than 132 in a year. 

Blackcap: fewer than last year but our second best ever: 670 ringed and 75 retraps vs 726 ringed and 69 retraps.  2024 was 100 birds higher than 2022 and 200+ higher than any other year.  This time the numbers were not boosted by new sites coming on line.

Lesser Whitethroat: our best year to date. Numbers have been increasing over the last three years. 45(6) in 2024; 39(1) in 2023 and 31(4) in 2022. This is my favourite photo:

It sat there, quite happily, for a couple of minutes and flew off only when someone else decided to see if it would transfer to them. Clearly it preferred me.

Goldcrest: Although the total number processed is our highest to date at 267, 66 of those were recaptures, which drops the number ringed into second place behind the 220 ringed in 2023.

Firecrest: best ever year with three ringed: a first for Biss Wood, second for Red Lodge and a third for one of Andy’s Warminster sites.

Greenfinch: best year yet, with 195 ringed vs the previous best being 183 in 2022. The numbers do fluctuate significantly.   The key factors seem to be, primarily, the catch at Jonny’s East Tytherton site and, secondarily, his Sutton Benger site.

Goldfinch: best year for ringing them (512 ringed vs 507 in 2022). 

Linnet: our best year for the species since 2015. It doesn’t compare with the 108 processed then, but it is more than double that of any year since 2016. The 2015 figure came from a remarkable catch of 65 at Brown’s Farm and 42 at Blakehill: neither of which has ever produced anything like that subsequently: only two per annum during the last five years, with a blank in 2022.

Brambling: only the one, but a first for the western side of Somerford Common.  They are not a common bird for us: only 14 prior to this one, 10 of those in the Braydon Forest. Only the Firs to go for the full Braydon Forest set!

Reed Bunting: best year to date, building on last year: 134 vs 103 in 2023.  The key boost being in one of Jonny’s relatively new farmland sites near Hilmarton  with 55, Blakehill Farm consistent with 40.  Langford Lakes surprisingly low, so potential for yet more growth.

After several days of rubbish weather, with the last two being particularly hard, I decided to go to Somerford Common, as I have been supplementary feeding there throughout the winter: hopefully reducing food finding stress for that local population. Because the forecast was for it to be sub-zero until 9:00, I decided to get to site for 8:00, with the nets open after the temperature went above zero. I was joined for the morning by Laura, Mark, Adam and Daniel and we set the following nets:

(It looks as though Ordnance Survey have updated the aerial photographs of the Braydon Forest over Christmas – goody!)

We had the nets open just before 9:00. I went round to put on lures only to find that the birds had started arriving already. So we had a good first round and then decent catches each round until 10:30. It rather died off after that and at 11:15 we decided that, on the balance between sitting there getting cold and not processing many birds and going home and getting warm, we opted for the latter. With Laura and Adam taking down rides 5 and 6, Mark, Daniel and I went for rides 1 to 4. As I started on taking down ride 4 the bird of the morning, a Jay, very kindly decided to fly into ride 2. We frequently see small mobs of Jay flying around the site but rarely catch them. One was caught here at the end of November, and that was the first at Somerford Common since February 2020. Getting a second within a couple of months was satisfying. Laura processed the bird, which managed to extract a fair degree of revenge for being caught and ringed: drawing blood from her index finger with a well-aimed lunge with its beak.

Jay, Garrulus glandarius, photo courtesy of Mark

Marsh Tit AAL0191 put in another appearance. This is the Marsh Tit previously referred to, that left the Firs in October 2022 when the disruption caused by the removal of the Ash trees, and some of the mature Oaks, started, and turning up at Somerford Common in November of that year. This bird is now over 5 years old: against a standard life expectancy of just 2 years.

The list for the morning was: Nuthatch (3); Jay 1; Blue Tit 4(7); Great Tit 1(7); Coal Tit 1(4); Marsh Tit (2); Dunnock (2); Robin 2(6); Blackbird 1; Chaffinch 1. Totals: 11 birds ringed from 7 species and 31 birds retrapped from 7 species, making 42 birds processed from 10 species.

What one recaptures can be quite odd. For example, Blue Tit AEX0595 was ringed as a juvenile in November 2021. It was then retrapped five times in the next 12 months, but not seen again for two years and two months until we caught it today. The pattern of catch does rather indicate that it is caught only when there is a feeding station present but it does make one wonder why the gap.

Unfortunately, no sign of any Redwing, Goldcrest, Long-tailed Tits, Lesser Redpoll or Siskin today.

As ever, it was a fun session, as well as having a reasonable catch. With that number of retraps, it was a cheap session for me. We had everything packed away just before midday and were away from site soon after. I have now thawed out!

Due to the weather of the last few weeks, and my aversion to being in woodlands when the wind is blowing at 40+ mph, I haven’t got around to setting up a feeding station at all of my sites, and that includes Red Lodge. I scheduled to go there today, so I was going to get an opportunity to see the impact or otherwise of setting up a feeding station. The list for Red Lodge in December 2023 was: Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 27(3); Great Tit 15(7); Coal Tit 2; Long-tailed Tit 1(1); Robin 1; Goldcrest 1; Chaffinch 2. Totals: 50 birds ringed from 8 species and 11 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 61 birds processed from 8 species. That is pretty typical for most Decembers: ranging from 45 to 101 birds processed.

I was joined for the morning by Sarah, Laura, Adam and Daniel, we met at 7:45 and we set the following nets:

Set 5 is where I will set up the feeding station before the next session – promise! Our first bird was, entirely predictably, a Wren. It came out of ride 1 before it was fully opened. I haven’t done the analysis but I am pretty confident that the first bird out of the net is a Wren on well over 50% of our sessions.

It was very quiet: between opening the nets and 10:00 we caught only six birds: two each of Goldcrest and Long-tailed Tit, one each of Wren and Robin. Then, at 10:10, we had a decent haul of eleven birds: all bar one in net 4. Unfortunately, it them dropped away again and I decided to call an early halt at 11:30. Naturally, there was one last bird in the net: a Goldcrest.

The list for the session was: Blue Tit 3(1); Great Tit 1(1); Long-tailed Tit 6; Wren 1(1); Robin (2); Goldcrest 4(1). Totals: 15 birds ringed from 5 species and 6 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 21 birds processed from 6 species.

When you contrast that with the 2023 result, the difference is primarily in the numbers of Blue and Great Tits. This then begs the question: do I need to put up supplementary feeding stations if all that is doing is helping Blue and Great Tit numbers: two species that are really not in need of help in maintaining their populations? Or do I need to provide the feeding on the off chance of catching the occasional finch? Something t0 ponder over the turkey, pudding, cakes and mince pies over the next few days!

Having informed Forestry England that access to Webb’s Wood was blocked by a fallen tree, I rather expected that they would have removed it. Turning up on Friday morning I found that the tree had been cut out across the pathway. I assumed it was their action, but it was very tight and nothing else had been cleared away. Anyway, chatting to one of the regular dog walkers later in the morning, it turns out that it was cut by a local. He had turned up for a walk and for his young daughter to ride her bike through the wood. Finding the tree down he returned to his car and took out a chainsaw, as you do, to remove it! Who drives around with a chainsaw in the back of their car? Apparently, he had absolutely no protective equipment! Not my idea of fun.

With the weather earlier in the week being dreadful, and the forecast for the weekend being worse, and Thursday I had other appointments, so Friday looked like the only day available for a session. That said: it was going to be wet and windy from midday, so we were on a tight schedule. David and I met at 7:45. As it was just the two of us we only set the following nets:

Ride 3 was a nightmare or, to be more precise, a quagmire. At one point it did claim David’s wellies, which ended up with quite a lot of mud everywhere!

I don’t have a feeding station set up in Webb’s Wood at the moment, as the feeders were stolen last year. It was the first time in 12 years of feeding this site that it has happened, but I have decided to put in a bird table instead. The table has a huge great stake that will go about one metre into the ground, and the table area has a mesh cage large enough to let in most bird species attracted to seed mix, and small enough to keep out squirrels. The thought of some tea-leaf staggering down the track with that on their shoulder, trying to pretend that what they are doing is a normal activity, I find amusing. I will put up a cheap mesh peanut feeder for the titmice, Nuthatches and Great Spotted Woodpeckers. I just have to get round to doing it!

We put on a variety of lures in the hope of attracting in a range of over-wintering species. Before we put on the lures the only bird we had seen and heard was a peripatetic Raven, flying back and forth and issuing its regular croak. After we put the lures on we still didn’t hear any birds and it took a long time before we actually caught any birds: two retrapped Long-tailed Tits at 9:15. That was it until 10:15 when we caught a nice flock of more Long-tailed Tits and a Blue Tit. Thereafter we were just taking one or two birds out at a time.

By 11:00 the wind had started getting up and rides 1 and 2 became untenable, so we had to shut them: which was unfortunate, because ride 3 had only produced a retrapped Goldcrest. After we shut the others, ride 3 did produce another bird we could process: a retrapped Great Spotted Woodpecker. It did catch two same day retraps, which I just extracted and released. That was it for the session and left us with the following list: Great Spotted Woodpecker (1); Blue Tit 4; Long-tailed Tit 10(3); Robin (1); Goldcrest (1). Totals: 14 birds ringed from 2 species and 6 birds retrapped from 4 species, making 20 birds processed from 5 species.

We were cleared away and leaving site by midday. I stopped at the entry gate to remove my warning signs and lock the site access gate back in place. Got back into the car and drove off, and then that smell hit me: the dog poo whiff! Why is it that every dog owner is apparently a responsible dog owner, and they all clean up after their dogs, but each of our Forestry England sites, despite their very clear signage for owners to clean up after their dogs, are plastered with dog poo? If you are lucky it is there in a plastic bag but mostly it is just on the side of the track: hidden under leaves at this time of year, ready to trap the unwary! A quick hose down of the car mats (thankfully rubber, not fabric) and my shoes when I got home fixed it – but I had to drive home with that stench in my nostrils! Not happy!

After last weekend’s horrendous weather I had hoped to make up for lost opportunities by arranging a session at Ravensroost Wood on Tuesday. I was joined for the session by Laura. We arrived on site at 7:30 and set up the following nets:

The white dot between nets 3 and 4 is the feeding station comprising a seed feeder and a peanut feeder. The feeding station was set up on the previous Wednesday but, no doubt not helped by the foul weather, it hadn’t really been found yet: just a few peanuts had been eaten and the seed feeder hadn’t been touched. I had taken feed to top up the feeders but, as they were still relatively full, at the end of our session I went off to Somerford Common and topped up the feeding station there, as we were planning to be there today.

Unfortunately, after an hour the wind got up and was blowing directly along the line of rides 1 and 2, but was also impacting on rides 3 and 4. The nets were billowing and, although the nets are tethered along the horizontal axis, there was potential for shear forces, so I decided that it was potentially too dangerous to allow birds to be caught, and we closed the nets and took down. It was doubly unfortunate as we had caught the following in the one round possible: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1; Nuthatch (1); Blue Tit 1(1); Great Tit 2; Coal Tit (1). Totals: 4 birds ringed from 3 species and 3 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 7 birds processed from 5 species. Home before elevenses!

Wednesday I was scheduled to run another session at Miranda’s house. We were being joined by new recruit Emma. Meeting at 7:30 that morning it became immediately obvious that it was a non-starter, so we didn’t even try to set the nets.

The forecast for today was rain overnight, until 7:00, easing off between then and 9:00, with it being overcast but dry, and with a light breeze thereafter. I arranged to meet Laura, Adam and Mark at Somerford Common at 8:00, thinking that it would be dry by the time we had the nets set. In the event, it was dry when I left the house at 7:30. Arriving on site I went and replenished the feeders, which were empty. I should say: the seed feeder holds four litres of seed. I use wheat-free seed mix, and there is no waste or rat-attracting spillage.

We set the following nets:

It was a good session, helped by the weather being much better than forecast: instead of being overcast, the cloud lifted and the sun came out. The breeze didn’t arrive until midday, as we were starting to pack away.

The birds came regularly and we ended up with the following list: Nuthatch 1(3); Blue Tit 10(6); Great Tit 1(8); Coal Tit (5); Marsh Tit 1(4); Robin (6); Chaffinch 1; Lesser Redpoll 5. Totals: 19 birds ringed from 4 species and 32 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 51 birds processed from 6 species.

Given that there is a cohort of academics who like to blame supplementary feeding as a partial reason for the decline of other species, due to competition from more aggressive species, particularly in my study area, the Marsh Tit, it is interesting to note that the first three birds out of my nets this morning were a juvenile Marsh Tit, which we ringed, plus two retrapped birds: one of which is five years old and the other four years old for a bird with a typical lifespan of two years. Mind, the oldest recorded from bird ringing was over 11 years old when last recorded. Perhaps the most interesting Marsh Tit though was ring number AAL0191. A key finding about Marsh Tit movements is that they are a very sedentary species and rarely move any distance from where they fledged. It is one of the factors behind their decline, as our woodlands become more fragmented and more sparse. This bird was ringed in the Firs reserve in February 2020. It was recovered there on seven occasions between then and October 2022. In October 2022, at the insistence of the owner (it is managed by the Wildlife Trust on behalf of the landowner), the Firs reserve was closed for Ash tree removal. We actually did retrap the bird in our last session prior to the closure, on the 9^th October. The very next month we recaptured it at Somerford Common, some 3km away. (Confession: I hadn’t realised at the time, I only found out today because I was looking at the records for a four year old Marsh Tit.) It is clearly not as territorial as its peers: as it has also been caught in Somerford Common West, and now back at Somerford Common, each of those movements just over the 1km mark.

Nice to catch and ring another Nuthatch, it is turning into a good year for them in the Braydon Forest. we have processed the same number as in the previous best year (40 ringed and retrapped) and are two off tying with the best year for ringing the species (27 vs 29). With a bit of luck we will beat the former and at least equal the latter. It was also good to catch a Nuthatch that was ringed five years ago and has been caught every year since at Somerford Common.

Okay, the absolute highlight of the session has to be a small flock of five Lesser Redpoll. We usually catch them at this site in the January to March period, Before today we had only ever caught them in a December session in 2020 and 2023: each time it was just a single bird, so five was a really decent result. They were all caught together in the same net on the same round.

We started packing away at just after midday and, with breaks to process some more birds, extracted as we were closing the nets, and left site at about 13:15. Very enjoyable, made better by the excellent company that I am lucky enough to have in my team. We do good work and have a good laugh as well.

This brief analysis covers the period from the 1^st January 2013 until 6^th December 2024. I will update it at the end of the year, but this is to fill in the time, as Storm Darragh has prevented any ringing activity this weekend, and you can only do so much net mending without getting really, really bored. Over this period we have caught and ringed 1,046 Goldcrests and retrapped 164 birds. As a single bird may be retrapped multiple times, this represents a total of 1,051 individual birds.

We have had some excellent results with Goldcrests, as people who have been following this blog for some time will know. The Braydon Forest has delivered the oldest known Goldcrest on record: JJP007. Ringed on the 22nd November 2015 and recaptured five years, three months and 14 days later at Porth Kellick, on St Mary’s Island in the Isles of Scilly. Not only longevity but, from other recoveries that I will come to in a short while, its journey there of 356km is a minor movement for this species. The longest known single movement of a bird of this species is 831km: a Goldcrest ringed in the Orkneys and recovered in Suffolk.

The other interesting Goldcrest recoveries that we have had were: a bird ringed on the Calf of Man on the 5^th September 2019 and recaptured in Ravensroost Wood on the 3^rd November 2019 (a juvenile, 59 days later, 334km); another also ringed on the Calf of Man on the 7^th April 2019 and recaptured in the Firs on the 19th October 2019 (an adult, 195 days later, 337km). In reverse, we had a Goldcrest ringed in the Firs on 19^th October 2019 and retrapped at the Bardsey Bird Observatory on the 26^th March 2020 (juvenile, 159 days later, 236km).

It is only in writing this that I realised that the 19th October 2019 was a quite astonishing day for the Firs: one bird recovered from a long way away and another ringed on the same day that was recovered a long way away. The other thing that these four recoveries seem to indicate is that there is a western flyway for Goldcrest.

I have looked at our ringing records over this period:

You will see that I have included individuals in these figures. This was to highlight that most retrapped birds are from the local population, as highlighted by the low number of ringed recaptures from outside of the area.

The trend line shows a shallow decline in the number of birds ringed, but if you exclude the big dip in both 2017 and 2108, plus the subsequent peak in 2020, it is pretty consistent.

The next thing I looked at was the number of birds ringed and retrapped by month:

It shows pretty clearly that late autumn / early winter is the key period for the species. Looking at the data for the Wiltshire Bird Atlas, this reflects both the breeding and winter abundance maps for this species. (The link to the data can be found at: https://www.wiltshirebirds.co.uk/atlas-system.html)

As you can see from the table, there are very few birds ringed in May, June and July and virtually no birds retrapped in June, July and August.

The next thing I looked at was whether there was any difference between adult and juveniles ringed by year:

The definitions of juveniles are as follows: 3 is the BTO code for birds fledged this year that have completed their post-fledging moult. Code 3J is for those birds that fledged this year but have not yet completed their post-fledging moult. When graphed up:

There is a small downward trend in the number of juveniles who have completed post-fledging moult but, like the overall numbers, this is no doubt down to the large fall of birds at this stage in 2017 and 2018. Those juveniles at stage 3J are those most likely to have been fledged locally and their trend is just better than static. So then I looked at the split by month:

This rather reinforces my view that most of the 3J juveniles fledge relatively locally, with the adults and 3 juveniles, at least, reinforced by birds flying through on autumn passage, with some staying in for the winter.

Finally, I had a look at the birds that had been retrapped over eight months after being encountered at our sites. Given that the likelihood is that a large proportion of our catch is made up of birds on passage, I thought I would have a look to see how many recaptures were on sites different from the first encounter:

There is just one Goldcrest that was recaptured at a site other than that at which it was first encountered. Does this mean that these birds are site faithful on migration or are they just local birds? I don’t know.

Today was to be a special day: it is exactly 10 years to the day that my first ringing trainee, Jonny, ringed his first bird. He wasn’t my trainee at the time, as I wasn’t a trainer: a mere C-permit holder, but with a training / helper’s endorsement, because my trainer was laid up after an operation and someone had to step into the breach to help his T-permit trainee. Jonny isn’t my trainee now, as he is also a fully-fledged ringer, the first I progressed to A-permit, and has been so for a good few years now.

We agreed to run our session at Webb’s Wood and to meet at 7:30. Rosie was joining us as well. I arrived on site at 7:20, opened the gate, put up my signs, drove up the track – for 100m, just around the corner only to find a very large tree had fallen across the track and there was no way round it. So I backed up, took down my signs and locked up. As the nearest woodland, and also next on my session plan, was the Firs, I texted both of them and changed venue to there.

That worked well for Rosie, as she was scheduled to be working at the Firs today, so she could ring until her trainee, Emily, turned up with their equipment (two shovels and wheelbarrows) and would be on hand to ring if we caught anything out of the ordinary (see below). They were busy working hard on reconstituting parts of the reserve paths with loads of wood chippings.

We set the following nets:

The first net set down from the ringing station comprised 3 x 18m 5-Shelf nets and the second set comprised 3 x 18m + 1 x 12m 5-Shelf nets. Where the nets are set is at the bottom of a 100m hill. It looks innocuous but, after a dozen or more trips up and down, it becomes a very good workout. Since the Firs reopened it has been a very productive site, until this morning! The first round produced six birds: four Long-tailed Tits, a Robin and a Wren.

The next two hours only produced another seven birds! It gave us plenty of time to chat. Not only that, Jonny produced a gift for me: he has gone through the time he spent with me as a trainee, and produced a lovely scrap book of the highlights from photographs posted on the blog on the Wiltshire Ornithological Society site and, subsequently, from this blog, together with a “thank you” card. You never know as a trainer whether you are doing a good job, and I have had a couple of issues in the last two years, but three weeks ago, to celebrate my 70th birthday, a dozen of my team past and present, took me out to dinner and showered me with lovely gifts, a fabulous cake (thanks Ellie), and wouldn’t let me put my hand in my pocket to pay for the meal. I guess I must be doing something right! Personally, I would say that I have mainly been very lucky with who I have had as trainees.

Anyway, we decided that if the next round was poor we would pack up and call it a day. Naturally, the next round we caught a reasonable nine birds but, within that, three of these:

Male Siskin, Spinus spinus

Not only are these the first Siskin we have caught this winter, they are the only Siskin we have caught at any of our sites in the north in the whole of this year! With regard to the Firs, we have only every caught one at this site before, and that was back in March 2013!

As Jonny had to leave at midday, we decided to close the nets and take down at 11:15. There was a single Blue Tit in the nets as we started closing them. We extracted it ready for processing.

We had been conscious that the Vale of the White Horse Hunt were in the area: the hounds had been going into cry regularly throughout the morning. It got louder as we were closing the nets, and the next thing we were surrounded by their hounds. They were totally out of control. It wasn’t until I shouted that the scum on horseback realised there were other people in the nature reserve, and then they started blowing their horns, trying to get them back out. It took them something like 15 minutes to get them back under control. The only good thing: they were clearly after a fox and they, equally clearly, didn’t get it. I do not understand why hunts are not deemed to be responsible for the control of their hounds. The Dangerous Dogs Act makes owners responsible for the actions of their dogs, so why doesn’t the Hunting with Hounds Act make hunts responsible for the actions of their hounds? It is the loophole they exploit every time they break the law and deliberately hunt foxes.

It was a good job that we had the nets closed: goodness knows how much damage the rampaging hounds would have done to them had the nets still been in operational mode. I know from discussions with my old trainer that he has had first-hand experience of the hunts trashing ringing equipment and refusing to replace or compensate for the damage they do. Their arrogance and entitlement is so entrenched.

Anyway, rant over. The catch for the morning was: Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 1(1); Long-tailed Tit 2(2); Wren 4(1); Dunnock 1(2); Robin (1); Blackbird (1); Goldcrest 1(1); Bullfinch 1; Siskin 3. Totals: 14 birds ringed from 8 species and 9 birds retrapped from 7 species, making 23 birds processed from 10 species.

Although slightly disappointed in the size of the catch, there is no feeding station set up in the wood, the Siskin catch made up for almost everything. It was very quiet, without a lot of bird movement. I will set up a feeding station later this week.

As an afterword: driving home I came across the hunt again: causing traffic hold ups on the B4696 main road to Ashton Keynes, and with all their “followers” parked partially blocking the western road from the Braydon crossroads and with a fox spotter searching on the eastern side for something for them to hunt.

So, a roller coaster: down – unable to access our original planned site (if we had, our encounter with hunt would not have happened, but Rosie and Ellie would still have had the experience); up – Rosie could do a bit more ringing for a bit longer before going off to work, because of the change of site; down – small numbers of birds; up – Jonny’s scrap book and thank you card; down – no birds for 2 hours; up – Siskin; down – the hunt.

Another pretty decent month.  Given how bad the weather was, we did well to get out as much as we did.  So far I have only set up one feeding station, so I was quite pleased with my little group’s results.  Ironically, that with the feeding station, Somerford Common, delivered fewer birds from fewer species than before I set the station up.  Before feeding station: 48 birds from 13 species; after feeding station: 46 birds from 9 species.  Perhaps I should save myself £100+ and not bother with supplementary feeding!

The list from this month was:

Added to the list compared to November 2023 was: Blackcap, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Jay, Siskin, Stonechat and Tree Sparrow.  The addition of Tree Sparrow is down to Jonny having taken over monitoring Zeal’s Airfield for the Tree Sparrow project and expanding the activity at the site.  Our, presumably over-wintering, Blackcap was caught at Jonny’s Sutton Benger site. Blackcaps in November are never very common at our sites: one or two only each November since 2013, with none last year or in 2014 and 2015.

The three Stonechat were caught at three different sites: Blakehill Farm in the north, Jonny’s East Tytherton site mid-Wiltshire and Andy’s SPTA site further south on the Imber Ranges.  With regard to Great Spotted Woodpecker, we haven’t ringed any since June!  My group haven’t ringed any since March, so it was nice to get one at Somerford Common (probably attracted by the peanuts).  That said, we are on track to match recent year’s catches.  The Siskin was caught at Langford Lakes.  This is only the second caught there since the group came into its current structure in January 2013, the first being back in March of this year.  Prior to that, one was caught in March 2011 by Rob: a gap of 13 years for the bird at the site!

Missing from the list this year were Kingfisher, Linnet and Starling.  The Linnets last year were caught, three at Andy’s Imber Ranges site and three at my Brown’s Farm site.  I have only managed one visit to Brown’s this year.  The tenancy for the farmer I was working with was terminated in September. The landowner plans to farm it themselves from now on and I am in discussion about getting continued access to the site.  The previous tenant actually owns the farm next door and he has offered for us to ring there. I need to get see it and evaluate the possibilities.  The Kingfishers were caught, one at Lower Moor Farm and two at Jonny’s Sutton Benger site. Neither delivered this month.  Numbers caught at Lower Moor have declined significantly since 2021, with five processed that year but just singles since then and none so far in 2024.  The lack of Starlings is almost entirely down to my not carrying out any ringing in my garden as six of those caught last year were there!

There were some fluctuations in numbers: Redwing and Long-tailed Tit up; Goldcrest and Lesser Redpoll down.  The Lesser Redpoll is a surprise as last year’s catch were fairly evenly spread between Ravensroost Wood, Somerford Common and Webb’s Wood.  We didn’t have a Webb’s session this month but one at Ravensroost and two at Somerford should have delivered one or two, instead it was just the one at Somerford Common. 

As a side note, we have already surpassed last year’s total, closing in on 11,500 birds from 73 species.  Hopefully we will have a really good December as well.