Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond

I was asked by Rosie to help with the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust’s children’s Watch Group on Saturday night by carrying out a moth trapping session at Lower Moor’s Care Farm area. With the weather forecast showing that it would be raining Saturday morning, scuppering my opportunity to carry out CES 10, but dry overnight and the following morning, I decided to move CES 10 to Sunday. Given that I am not keen on having a late night, followed by an early morning, I decided we would start Sunday’s session at 7:00, instead of 6:00.

Saturday I woke up to a dry morning, but probably too windy for ringing regardless and, according to my local sources (Ellie), it was actually raining at Lower Moor Farm for a couple of hours Saturday morning. Rosie and I met up at the Care Farm site at just after 8:00 that evening. I set up the moth trap while Rosie got the necessary together to start up their fire pit. The children that were coming along were going to spend an hour or so walking around bat detecting, returning to toast some marshmallows on the fire, and then have a look at the moths. Whilst they were off doing their thing, I kept an eye on the fire, to make sure it didn’t go out, and did a bit of birding. There were some very interesting sounds coming from the lake: heavy splashes and quiet silky plops. I like to think Beaver for the former and Otter for the latter. The children came back at about 9:30, just as the moths started to arrive in good numbers.

The most prolific moths in numbers were Ringed China-mark, Paraponyx stratiotata, of which there had to be at least 100 flying around and into the trap, reasonably closely followed by Dingy Footman, Eilema griseola, with 50+. Once the big boys started to arrive the children became somewhat more excited:

Elephant Hawkmoth, Deilephila elpenor (one of my stock photos, last night’s specimen was a little worn)

Polar Hawkmoth, Laothoe populi

It was an excellent catch. We left the trap on overnight, and Rosie collected it up early Sunday morning and brought it over to the CES site, so we could identify the rest of the moths. I spent this afternoon trawling through photographs and finalising the list. This was the list of species:

I was very pleased, as I added five species to my life list, taking it to exactly 500. Everybody with a garden should try mothing: in my medium sized garden in Purton I have caught moths from over 460 species! Those added to my list Saturday night were: Willow Ermine, Yponomeuta rorella; Anania crocoealis; Purple Bar, Cosmorhoe ocellata; Alder Kitten, Furcula bicuspis; and Small Rufous, Coenobia rufa.

I was joined for the CES session by Justine and Rosie. Justine’s husband, Lee, came along, and about 8:30 we were joined by a family from Saturday night who were excited to see the rest of the catch and who wanted to see the birds as well. As usual, I taught the girls how to properly hold and release a small bird, and introduced them to the pleasures of Blue Tit pecks!

It wasn’t the biggest catch we have ever had but, as with the last couple of sessions, larger than the equivalent session last year. CES 10 last year produced just 18 birds: Treecreeper [1]; Blue Tit 1(3); Great Tit [1]; Wren 1[3]; Dunnock [2](1); Robin [2]; Cetti’s Warbler [1]; Blackcap [2]. Totals: 2 adults ringed from 2 species, 12 juveniles ringed from 7 species and 4 birds retrapped from 2 species, making 18 birds processed from 8 species. Of the retrapped birds, 3 were also juveniles, so 3 adults and 15 juveniles processed.

Sunday’s catch was: Blue Tit [3](1); Great Tit [1]; Long-tailed Tit (1); Wren [3](1); Robin (1); Song Thrush (1); Blackbird 2[1]; Cetti’s Warbler (1); Blackcap [2](2); Chiffchaff 1; Chaffinch 1. Totals: 4 adults ringed from 3 species, 10 juveniles ringed from 5 species and 8 birds retrapped from 7 species, making 22 birds processed from 11 species. Of the retrapped birds 5 were juveniles, so 7 adults and 15 juveniles processed.

It was a very pleasant morning, even if the moth catch did outshine the bird catch, with a lot of positive interaction with the public. Start late, finish late: we shut the nets after six hours, at 13:00 and left site by 13:45. I was knackered! So I spent Monday sorting through all of the moth photos and getting the moth list together, which is why I am publishing this on Tuesday!

A good month: just five birds shy of our best ever July figure (1,182 in 2020, coming out of lockdown!  Are our gardens really that productive?).  

We didn’t manage as many species as last July, but there were some notable additions.  Firstly, I was delighted to catch only the second Yellow Wagtail for the group. Like the first, in May 2021, this was at Brown’s Farm. Unlike the first, a stonkingly attractive adult male, this was a juvenile. I know that they are doing well on the Marlborough Downs and that this could be one of their progeny starting their journey south for the winter, but it would be lovely to think that they might have spread their breeding range to the southern outskirts of Marlborough.

This was my personal bird of the month, and thanks to all of my team for not being able to make the session, so I could ring it with a clear conscience. 

Mind, it was a close run thing: on the 17th of this month I ringed my seventh ever Redstart and the first ever at the Whitworth Building side of Blakehill Farm.  Then, on the 28th of July we caught another one on the opposite side of Blakehill, which Laura pulled rank on Adam to ring (Mothers are allowed to do that to sons).  I have never caught two in the same month before.  Hopefully we will get a few more over the autumn migration.

As well as those catches, we had an early Meadow Pipit and Whinchat.  This is only the third Meadow Pipit that we have caught in July and they have all been caught in the Imber Valley area of SPTA.   Similarly, the only Whinchat that have been caught in July are in the same area.  This is only the sixth: one in 2017 and four in 2021.  One tends to presume early migrants, although this one was also a juvenile.  I cannot think of a reason why they wouldn’t be nesting on the Plain, so I contacted Jack Daw.  He spends his summers monitoring nests on Salisbury Plain, and has been doing so for decades.  He has confirmed to me that, although he doesn’t find huge numbers, he does regularly find nests out there.  Nice to know.

Missing from the catch this month were: Canada Goose, Corn Bunting, Jackdaw, Nuthatch, Tawny Owl, Tree Pipit and  Woodpigeon.  I am never going to miss not catching Canada Geese! The Tawny Owl doesn’t really count either, as it was an Oak & Furrows rescue.  As for the Nuthatch: I cannot understand how we didn’t manage to catch any in the Firs yesterday: they were all over the place.  Last year’s singleton was caught in Red Lodge, but we didn’t actually get a decent session in at Red Lodge last month. After rain in the morning put us off, we did try an evening session but, apart from great company, we only had six birds, with no sign of a Nuthatch. 

There were some significant increases in a number of species: Andy’s back garden continues to produce huge numbers of Starling!  Of the 83 caught, 77 were caught by Andy from the comfort of his own home.  Three from my garden and three at Blakehill on Sunday.  I might have got more from my garden but having a rat problem at the moment, so not wanting to leave food out.  It was good to see a large increase in the number of Long-tailed Tits.  It was our best catch since 2020 and well distributed across our sites.  The 2020 number was rather boosted by my catching 21 of them in one session in my garden, just as lockdown was ending.  It was one of the most memorable catches I have ever had, with them flying into the nets whilst I am stood there taking them out!  

There was a welcome increase in the numbers of both Blackcap and Garden Warbler, even if of different orders of magnitude.  Similarly, we had a nice increase in Willow Warblers: last year four were also from the Imber Valley, this year Langford Lakes was the primary site, with six, but they were well spread across the group’s sites.

A good catch of Chaffinch: mainly down to a big catch at Jonny’s East Tytherton site.  At the same site last year there were just two!  Again, they were spread across all of our sites.

Jonny also had the most surprising catch of the month.  At one of the sites where he is monitoring nest boxes, he was contacted by the farmer: a Buzzard chick had fallen from its nest.  Having checked it over and ascertained that it was uninjured, he ringed it and they put it back in the nest!  The first Buzzard chick any of us have ringed within the group since before the split: the previous one being ringed in June 2007!

Jonny has continued with this cracking work on nest boxes and Swallows. My month for checking boxes and Swallow nests was rather scuppered by a back problem, so all of the Swallow chicks were done by Jonny. I was able to get out, with the help of my team, to ring the Barn Owl chicks. Well, they ringed the chicks, I just “supervised”.

Anyway, a good month: it is beginning to get interesting with migrants beginning to arrive: we even had a decent catch in a woodland yesterday!  Here’s for many more.

With it scheduled to be hot again today I decided that it would be best to head into some woodlands this morning. Our woodland catches have not been great recently, so I had a look at the history of the woodland sites in July and worked out the average catch sizes. This showed that the Firs and Somerford Common average 34 birds per session in July, Ravensroost Wood produces 24 birds per session and Red Lodge and Webb’s Wood average just 23 birds per session in July. Because of that, I decided to have a go at the Firs for only the third time since it was reopened to ringing.

I was joined at 6:00 by Rosie, Laura, Adam and Sarah for the morning, with Rosie heading off at 9:45, getting a bit more time today. We set the usual nets down the central glade: 3 x 18m 5-Shelf nets from the bottom of the hill to a spot adjacent to the pond furthest from the road; then 3 x 18m + 1 x 12m nets on the opposite side of the glade, from adjacent to the ponds to as far as they stretched. Everything was set up just before 7:00 and we did our first round soon after. The first round was indicative of what we were in for. It comprised Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Wren and two Blue Tit.

Whilst waiting for the next round we were treated to a Nuthatch show. Sarah first noticed one climbing up a nearby dead tree. We watched as it flew to another tree, where it was joined by another. Then two flew off, but there were still two there. Another two then flew off in a different direction, and there were still two there. It really was excellent: we heard them calling and doing their slow drumming pretty much all morning.

The next round delivered another four Blackcap, a couple of Dunnock and a retrapped Great Tit. Having processed these, we had a few minutes to be entertained by a Treecreeper working its way around the trees just a few feet away from our ringing station.

Each round was different, the biggest catch being 15 at 9:35. As with my session at Brown’s Farm yesterday, I planned to shut the nets at 11:00, before the heat became too oppressive. This is exactly what we did after a much better session than we have been used to in the woodlands recently. This was the catch: Blue Tit 2[15](1); Great Tit (1); Marsh Tit [1](1); Wren 1[4]; Dunnock 1[1]; Robin [3]; Blackbird [3]; Blackcap 2[11]; Garden Warbler [1]; Chiffchaff [4]; Chaffinch 1[2]. Totals: 7 adults ringed from 5 species, 45 juveniles ringed from 10 species and 3 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 55 birds processed from 11 species.

There was a lot to enjoy in today’s catch: a new Marsh Tit colour ringed, an adult female Chaffinch with two juveniles all from the same net but, mainly, constantly active with reasonable catches for each net check round, from first to last.

As scheduled, we shut the nets at 11:00 and took down, leaving site by 11:30. After a busy few days, and a twist of my weak right ankle to boot, I plan to do very little now until Sunday. Saturday morning is going to be wet, so that suits me, although Saturday evening I am helping out at the Care Farm at Lower Moro Farm, running my moth trap and bat detecting for the children who use the Care Farm.

The first “first” is that this was my first ringing visit to the farm this year. It is at the top of Postern Hill, south of Marlborough, with views for miles around and nothing to “break the wind”, so to speak. Our local weather has become far windier over the last few years, making my visits to Brown’s Farm much more infrequent than I would like. With the wind scheduled to be just one mile per hour, with no gusting until gone 10:00, it seemed a perfect day to go to Brown’s. What a shame that none of my team was available to take advantage of it! The benefits of being retired! It is also the first solo session I have run outside of my garden this year.

With the weather forecast to hit 30^oC, I decided that I would pack up at 11:00 or when the shade temperature reached 25^oC. I arrived on site at 5:45 and set just seven nets:

Brown’s Farm is my most reliable site for both Yellowhammer (my only site) and Linnet. In fact, the only other site of mine at which I have caught Yellowhammer is Blakehill Farm: back in October 2016!

This morning started with a Whitethroat in the nets at 6:30 and then, at 7:00, I caught my second bird of the session and a first for me this year:

Juvenile Sedge Warbler, Acrocephalus schoenobaenus

This was followed by two Linnets, one of my reasons for being there. Unlike on Sunday at Blakehill, the three Linnets captured today were all female: two adults and one juvenile:

Adult female Linnet. Linaria cannabina

It took a little longer for the next target species to arrive:

Adult male Yellowhammer, Emberiza citrinella

Keeping on with the “firsts” trend, I also had my first juvenile House Sparrow of the year (and only my second of the species this year):

Juvenile House Sparrow, Passer domesticus

And then, the icing on the cake:

Juvenile Yellow Wagtail, Motacilla flava

This is only the second Yellow Wagtail that I have ever caught and ringed on my rings. I was lucky enough to have ringed five as a trainee at the Icklesham site in East Sussex, then nothing until we caught an adult male in May 2021 at Brown’s Farm. I am aware that numbers have increased on the Marlborough Downs to the north: perhaps they are starting to expand to the south or perhaps the former was on Spring migration and this one is on an early Autumn migration (there’s a lot of it about). Needless to say, another first for the year.

The catch for the session was quite remarkable: 29 birds caught from 14 species! Not huge numbers, plenty enough for me though, and an excellent variety. There were no retrapped birds at all: Blue Tit 1[1]; Dunnock 1[7]; Yellow Wagtail [1]; Robin 2; Song Thrush [1]; Blackbird 1; Sedge Warbler [1]; Blackcap 1; Whitethroat 1[1]; Chiffchaff 1[2]; Willow Warbler 1; House Sparrow [1]; Linnet 2[1]; Yellowhammer 1[1]. Totals: 13 adults ringed from 10 species and 16 juveniles ringed from 10 species, making 29 birds ringed from 14 species. That variety is just astonishing for this farmland site.

The Dunnocks were interesting: one adult and seven youngsters. Four of those youngsters were caught in the same net and had not started their post-fledging moult yet: very likely second, or even, possibly, third brood young. My two favourite BTO codes for birds species are DUNNO for Dunnock and NUTHA for Nuthatch. One of my DUNNO’s was a right NUTHA! I caught it, ringed it, released it in the opposite direction to the nets. Next net check it was back in the net. I extracted it and released in the direction from which it had entered the net, so it could continue its journey. It immediately flew straight back into the net. After extracting it again I took it right away from the nets and released it, whereupon it flew straight back and into the nets. Twice more it did the same thing only on the final time it actually extracted itself and flew off, not to be seen again today!

The farm has fabulous hedgerows, primarily Hawthorn and Blackthorn, interwoven with Dog Rose. Alongside the tracks and between the fields there are no large trees. They are confined to the edges where the fields touch woodland and copses. The hedgerows were planted by the previous tenant farmer over 20 years ago. They have been kept in superb condition, particularly by the current tenant. His management of them keeps them thick and not at all straggly, with a height of just under 2.5m: the height of my nets. When the Crown Estate sold the land off to the current owner, the tenancy passed to the farmer who had the next farm over to the west of Brown’s Farm. Both farms were beef and arable, and the new tenant consolidated the beef production onto his own farm site, so Brown’s is primarily an arable farm now. The cattle sheds were converted to stables and are rented out to a number of horse owners. He has converted a couple of fields into horse paddocks but, unlike so many horse deserts, he minimised the amount of land lost to the horses, established a number of wildflower rich horse tracks around the farm, for the owners to exercise their horses. As well as that, he runs a small scale pheasant / red-legged partridge shoot, and provides supplementary feeding, plus large areas of game cover around the site. It is so small scale that the only pheasants that you see out of season are a pair of Reeve’s and a pair of White-eared pheasants, plus a small flock of Helmeted Guineafowl, that have been there as long as I have been working the site (firstly for the Breeding Bird Survey and, subsequently, bird ringing). Anyway, the point is that, he has kept an excellent variety of wildlife on the site. This morning I saw several Hares, a Fox and a couple of Roe Deer. It compares very favourably with Blakehill Farm for numbers of Skylark territories. Over the time I have ringed there we have processed birds from 36 species.

Anyway, the shade temperature reached 25^oC at 10:30, so I started taking down the nets, starting with ride 3, as it had been the least productive: just one each of Whitethroat and Dunnock. Then ride 1 as, although it started strongly, it had dropped right away. I then got held up taking down ride 2 because first time I found a Dunnock had flown in. After I processed that and went to shut them, I found a Blackbird in there. Third time unlucky: it had a Song Thrush in it. This time I shut the nets before processing the Song Thrush, and so managed to get everything down by 11:15. I was off-site by 11:30 after a thoroughly enjoyable session.

I don’t usually ring on the Blakehill Farm plateau until mid to late August. However, with reports of early migrants passing through Wiltshire at the moment, I decided to try a session in the hope that we might snaggle an interesting catch. It helped that the weather forecast was for virtually zero wind and a clear, sunny day. The British weather has turned decidedly windy since 2020 and I really have to grab every opportunity to get to this exposed site. Since I started ringing at Blakehill in early 2014 I have only once previously ringed there in July. That was on the 24th July 2020 and I only caught seven birds: Great Tit 1; Wren 1; Dunnock 1; Blackbird (1); Chiffchaff 1; Goldfinch 2. The singles ringed were juveniles, the Goldfinches and retrapped Blackbird were adults. To be honest, it is a good job I didn’t look at that, it might have given me second thoughts.

Anyway, I was joined for the session by David, Sara and the Childs family: Laura, Mark, Daniel and Adam. We set a decent number of nets:

I put on a few lures for migrant species: nets one and three had Redstart and Wheatear, net set four had Meadow Pipit and net sets five and between eight and nine had lures for Whinchat and Stonechat. They were all a bit of a punt on the off chance: one worked. Certainly I was being very optimistic with the Meadow Pipits: we have never had them arrive any earlier than September in all the time we have been catching them at Blakehill Farm.

We met at 6:00 and had all of those nets open by 7:15. I really need to get a second hole maker and hammer, particularly when we are looking to put up a relatively large number of nets. I did try out a hand augur this morning: complete waste of time, as it was a woodworking augur. I gave it to Mark to go with his hobby carpentry. The first birds arrived straight away: a trio of Wren, Reed Bunting and our first Lesser Whitethroat of the year! We never catch lots but they really have been few and far between since our last good catch of 16 in 2020. Since then they have been in single figures each year.

Adult male Lesser Whitethroat, Curruca curruca

The rounds were all very light: either one, two or three birds per round and a total of only 18 birds. However, the catch was a really pleasant and different selection. The breakdown was as follows: Wren [2]; Redstart [1]; Whitethroat 1[1]; Lesser Whitethroat 1[1]; Chiffchaff [2]; Starling [3]; Linnet 1; Reed Bunting 1[4]. Totals: 4 adults ringed from 4 species and 14 juveniles ringed from 7 species, making 18 birds processed from 8 species.

Our fifth productive round produced our second Redstart in two Blakehill sessions, the previous one being on the opposite side of the site:

Juvenile female Redstart, Phoenicurus phoenicurus

A little later in the session we caught our second Lesser Whitethroat of the day. This time it was a juvenile and, after processing he decided to hang around for a bit:

I took it out of the weighing pot and opened my hand to release it and it sat on my thumb. It must have sat there for well over a minute and it was only when Adam reached over to see if it would hop onto him that it decided to go, flying off strongly along the hedgerow.

Early on, Adam noticed five birds on the bush at net 6. Being young and enthusiastic, he ran over to that bush, as one of those birds had ended up in the net!

Juvenile Starling, Sturnus vulgaris

Having run all that way, and made a good job of extracting the bird, it would have been harsh not to let him process it, so he did. As luck would have it, on the penultimate round we caught another two. Their moult was progressing nicely:

According to the ringer’s bible for Passerines: “Identification Guide to European Passerines” by Lars Svensson, this is a male bird.

With the wind picking up at 11:15, we shut the nets at 11:45, not without getting another cracking bird: our first Linnet of the year! Had I been able to get to Brown’s Farm this side of the New Year, I would no doubt have got a fair few more, but this was a real bonus:

Adult male Linnet, Linaria cannabina

I pulled rank on this one: the only bird I processed all morning. All of the bird photos, except the adult male Lesser Whitethroat, were taken by Sarah Emery and are reproduced with her permission.

We started to take down about 12:15. Mark, who had disappeared to find something to drink, returned with ice lollies for the whole team. What a really kind gesture, and very welcome in that heat. That, I am pleased to say, is what it is like with my team: we do the job, we have a good laugh, and can fill the time comfortably when there aren’t many birds around.

With eight of us to take down (David’s Dad Trevor had arrived and joined in the clear up) it really didn’t take long to get everything put away. I had a few things to put in the case before leaving, so sent everyone away as there was nothing left for them to do. Unfortunately, in between Mark returning with the ice creams and them reaching the gate, someone with a key had decided to lock us in. I know it wasn’t Nobby, the other landowner, because we had discussed it earlier and agreed that I would lock up on leaving. Besides, if he had done so, Mark would not have escaped the site for his drink, so it has to be a Wildlife Trust employee and there is only one who lives nearby! I shall have words! It was only a minor hold up for them but irritating nonetheless.

I told the team that we would start at 6:00 this morning only, having awoken early and unable to doze comfortably, I was actually on site by 5:30. As I pulled into Sandpool Farm entrance I was greeted with this:

Half-a-dozen empty beer cans and assorted associated debris dumped on the grass beside the gate. What is wrong with people? Why are some people just so thoughtless? The Trust and volunteers will now have to clean up after them. Should I also mention the kind dog owner who had deposited a bag of dog poo on one of the picnic tables for someone else to remove? Looks like I have.

I was joined by Miranda and Rosie and, just a little later, by Steph and her daughters, Lillie and Bea. Lillie was the youngest ever ringer to do any ringing with me: starting out at age 6! It has been a while since they have all been out with me but I was delighted to see that she has retained all of her skills.

We set our usual CES nets. The weather was interesting: we started in fog, which started lifting at about 7:00, then the sun broke through until 10:00, when it all clouded over and we had a sharp burst of rain, that disrupted things for 30 minutes, before the sun came out again. Unfortunately, as the sun came out, the breeze got up and started gusting quite strongly. Remarkably, none of it really adversely affected our activity, apart from hiding from the rain for a short while.

The first couple of rounds were quiet: three and four birds respectively, but the third round was 11 birds and the fifth round produced 12 birds. After the rain, a couple of reasonable rounds before we closed the nets just before midday.

The list for the day was: Treecreeper [2](1); Blue Tit 1[8](1); Great Tit [2](1); Wren [3]; Robin [2](5); Blackcap [11](1); Garden Warbler [1]; Chiffchaff [1](2); Bullfinch [2]. Totals: 1 adult ringed, 32 juveniles ringed from 9 species and 21 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 54 birds processed from 9 species. To be clear: 6 of the retrapped birds were juveniles ringed in previous CES sessions.

This is a big improvement on last year’s CES 9: Wren [1]; Dunnock (3); Robin (2); Blackbird (1); Blackcap [2]; Chiffchaff 1[3]. Totals: 1 adult ringed, 6 juveniles ringed from 3 species and 6 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 13 birds processed from 6 species. I compared the weather for both sessions and, I have to say that last year’s weather was actually better than we had today!

We have caught very few Bullfinch so far this year: before today we had ringed just six of them. Today we caught three: one was an adult male but, unfortunately, it was showing signs of Fringilla papillomavirus on both legs. It wasn’t pronounced or well advanced but we never process sick birds and, as FPV affects the legs, it would be even more crass to put a ring on it. The beauty of today’s catch was that the two birds we did catch were our first juvenile Bullfinches of the year:

Juvenile Bullfinch, Pyrrhula pyrrhula

In case anyone is concerned, its tail was all there, just hiding behind my hand!

I didn’t manage to get a photo of it, but we were rather lucky to see a Lesser Emperor dragonfly, Anax parthenope. Lucky because there were several photographers on site, with their huge large lenses, trying to see them, let alone get photographs, but without luck.

Rosie had to leave at 8:00 to get to Devizes for a Wildlife Trust meeting, and Steph and her girls left after the rain shower, just after 11:00, as Steph had work to get to as well, leaving Miranda and me to see it through to the end. I think that the hardest work of the morning fell to Miranda. She was on willow catkin removal duties from our 3 x 18m net ride, ride 5, whilst I took down the other 3 x 18m net ride. We then took down the rest of the nets and packed away, with all finished and ready to leave site by 13:00. All in all, a very satisfactory session.

With the weather set fair for this morning I decided that I didn’t want to hide in a woodland and, so, because the wind was scheduled to be light and from the south-west, I decided to go back to Ravensroost Meadows, hoping that it might be a bit better than last time (just 16 birds). The team worked in relays today: Rosie and Miranda joined me at 5:30, and we got the nets set up. Laura joined us at 7:45, having got Adam off to school, then Rosie left to go to work at 8:00. Miranda was having some stuff delivered, so left at 11:00, and Laura and I shut the nets at 11:30 and took down. We had a slightly different net set today:

We had a Robin fly into the nets before they had been opened. Our first round, at 7:15, got us quite excited! Our last session at this site produced just 16 birds: our first round this morning produced 14 birds from nine species. Unfortunately, our excitement was a little optimistic. After that each round produced with two or three birds, if any at all, and by the time we shut the nets at 11:30, we had caught 27 birds. Obviously a huge improvement on last time.

That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t fun, it was. The weather started off dry but very misty and the mist hung around until gone 9:00. It was always warm but, once the sun broke through the mist, it was nicely warm. The wind was as light as forecast and just didn’t get blowy at all until after we had closed the nets.

We were really pleased with the variety of the first round: Blackcap, Blue Tit, Chiffchaff, Garden Warbler, Great Tit, Robin, Whitethroat, Willow Warbler and Wren. As we started processing the birds it was nice to find so many juveniles in the catch but, more fun for me, was that a number of the adults had started their post-breeding moult. I might be a sad individual, but I really enjoy looking at the different moult strategies and looking for aberrant individuals. Like this:

Willow Warbler, Phylloscopus trochilus, Primary moult is usually sequential, starting from the centre of the wing working out to the outer edge of the wing. This one has clearly not followed that pattern.

The list from today was: Blue Tit 2(1); Great Tit [1]; Wren 1[2](1); Robin [2]; Blackcap 1[1]; Garden Warbler 1; Whitethroat 1[3]; Chiffchaff 4[3](1); Willow Warbler 1[1]. Totals: 11 adults ringed from 7 species, 13 juveniles ringed from 7 species and 3 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 27 birds processed from 9 species.

After Miranda left at 11:00, whilst sitting down between rounds, Laura called my attention to a Kestrel hunting over the field to the north of the ringing station. We watched it hover and then plunge into the grass. It disappeared for about 15 seconds before flying off to a dead tree in the hedgerow to the east. Through my binoculars we had a clear view of it devouring its brunch! I can honestly say that I cannot remember the last time I saw a successful Kestrel hunt.

The catches remain smaller than we used to get but I think that key to that is a significant reduction in the numbers of insects flying around. Why this should be the case in this area, managed by the Wildlife Trust, full of wildflowers, available moisture and hedgerow vegetation, is beyond me. We saw a few Meadow Brown butterflies, where I used to see swarms. There was the odd Large White and Gatekeeper and a solitary Marbled White. We had a couple of Emperor dragonflies over the pond and good numbers of Common Blue damselflies, but no bees, very few flies or beetles. Mind, Miranda did have a shield bug drop onto her cardigan, and it stayed there like a living brooch for a large part of the morning.

Laura and I packed away at about 11:45, having processed three Chiffchaff caught in the last round, and we were away from site just before 12:30. A very pleasant morning.

Without going into details, the last few weeks have been hard, and certain events have drained the enjoyment I get from ringing out of my system. Today remedied all of that! I had planned to go to Red Lodge until I saw the weather forecast: dry, sun and virtually no wind, so I changed venue to Blakehill Farm. The plateau will be out of bounds until the end of July, in case there are Curlew chicks out there, so we went to the south west of the reserve, to the fields adjacent to the Whitworth building. Driving down to the building I couldn’t help but be struck by just how tall the grassy vegetation has become on the plateau: tall enough for a Roe Deer hind to be stood there and have only her head and ears showing. In the decade that I have been visiting this site I have never seen it so tall. It has to be this combination of alternating rain and sun that is pushing this growth along so quickly.

I was joined for the morning by the Childs family: Laura and Adam are T-permit holders, Mark and Daniel are extremely valuable helpers. We met at 5:30 and set the following nets:

We had the nets open by 6:30 and the first birds were caught at 6:40: a Blue Tit, a Chiffchaff, a Dunnock and a Wren. So far, so unsurprising. Next round: two Blue Tits and a Dunnock. Ho hum, how predictable! Third round we had three of these:

Juvenile Chaffinch, Fringilla coelebs

These are our first juvenile Chaffinch of the year. That was a lovely catch. We caught a male and a female at this same site back in March, I wonder if they were the parents?

Round four produced a couple of Chiffchaff and two of these:

Juvenile Whitethroat, Curruca communis

Again, our first juvenile Whitethroats of the year. We ended up with six Whitethroats: two adults and four juveniles. Things went a little slower after that but, on the penultimate round, we caught this:

Juvenile Willow Warbler, Phylloscopus trochilus

Sorry for the repetition but, again, this is our first juvenile Willow Warbler of the year. It might look a bit tatty but it has nearly completed his post-fledging moult, although it still had lots of body feathers in pin. It was a lovely session: lots of first for the year, what could possibly top it off. Well, in that penultimate session we also trapped this:

Adult female Redstart, Phoenicurus phoenicurus (photo by Daniel Childs)

Although we catch them regularly on passage in the autumn, two things about this bird are special. Firstly, we have never caught one on this side of the reserve before. We always catch them in the perimeter track hedgerow on the opposite side of the reserve. Secondly, this female, although she has started moulting, still had a properly engorged brood patch. It is entirely possible that she is breeding close by. That is not something that I expected. I don’t rule out the possibility that her young fledged in the last day or so and her brood patch just hasn’t started to regress yet, but the other possibility is tantalisingly exciting.

The catch for the session was: Blue Tit 1[3](1); Great Tit [1]; Wren 1[1]; Dunnock 1(1); Redstart 1; Whitethroat 2[4]; Chiffchaff [7]; Willow Warbler [1]; Chaffinch [3]. Totals: 6 adults ringed from 5 species, 20 juveniles ringed from 7 species and 2 birds retrapped from 2 species, making 28 birds processed from 9 species.

Not the biggest catch but just a lovely session with good people. We closed the nets at 11:30 and took down. Earlier in the session, Mark had noticed that my rear off-side tyre was looking a little under-pressured (as opposed to under pressure). Returning to the car, having taken everything down, it was clear that the tyre had seriously deflated. I carry an electric tyre pump and, fortunately, so do Mark and Laura, because mine was buried under my equipment. After a good 10 minutes getting it back to a decent pressure, so I could drive it home (Mark found the culprit: a nail embedded in the tread) we left site at about 12:30.

As well as a lovely morning with the birds, I was blown away with the huge variety of flowering plants in the two meadows. Particularly the one directly behind the building. I really need to spend some time getting to grips with meadow flowers, as my ID skills are just not good enough, but I am pretty certain that there were in the region of 50 species of wildflower in that meadow. There was a reasonable number of butterflies on the wing: predictably, lots of Meadow Brown, a couple of Large Whites, a few Ringlets and also some Gatekeeper but the best Lepidopteran seen today was the Snout: a moth that looks like a brown Vulcan bomber. If you are in the area, it is well worth a visit.

Not the biggest, but the nicest session I have had for a very long time. The catch was lovely and the company was excellent. Now, if this weather stays like this, and I can get out to Brown’s Farm for some Yellowhammer and Linnet, life will be very good!

Unfortunately, due primarily to bad weather, I ran out of space to run CES 7. I could have done it on Monday but, after events over the weekend, I decided that I wanted to stay away from the public and ringed in my garden. At the time, the last day in its window was Wednesday, 10^th July, and I had planned to run it then. On Monday the forecast was that it would be dry but, unfortunately, the weather decided to change and foil the plan: with rain between 8:00 and 10:00 in the morning and very strong winds. With today looking dry and sunny, I decided to make sure that CES 8 went ahead. I arrived on site at 5:00 and started setting the nets. Laura joined me at 5:30 and we had everything set by 6:30.

It wasn’t a very busy session: the results were better than CES7 last year (17 birds from 8 species) but worse than CES8 last year (37 birds from 13 species): perhaps that is the result of running the session so early in the window this year.

The list for the day was: Treecreeper [2]; Blue Tit (1); Great Tit (1); Long-tailed Tit 1(1); Wren [3](1); Dunnock [3]; Robin [1](2); Song Thrush [1]; Cetti’s Warbler [2]; Blackcap 2[2](2). Totals: 3 adults ringed from 2 species, 14 juveniles ringed from 7 species and 8 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 25 birds processed from 10 species. Of the retrapped birds, the Long-tailed Tit and the two Robins were juveniles ringed at previous CES sessions.

We had three highlights:

Our first juvenile Treecreeper, Certhia familiaris, of the year. We then caught a second juvenile later in the session.

Our first juvenile Cetti’s Warbler of the year:

Juvenile Cetti’s Warbler, Cettia cetti. We also then caught a second juvenile later in the session.

The third (sorry, no photo) was our first juvenile Song Thrush of the year.

We had to watch our feet this morning: there were lots of froglets moving through the undergrowth, and so many snails everywhere. We saw plenty of dragonflies: particularly a couple of stunning male Emperors, and loads of damselflies everywhere. They were primarily Common Blues. There were several butterfly species around: Small White, Ringlet, Meadow Brown, Speckled Wood and a solitary Red Admiral.

The wind started to get up at 10:30 and by 11:30 it was blowing quite hard, so we shut the nets and took down, leaving site at about 12:30.

After what can only be described as a ghastly weekend, for a wide range of reasons, not least the nerve shredding last 10 minutes of the second-half of England vs Switzerland (I was always confident of the penalties) and wet and windy weather, I decided to take a chance on the forecast that said it would be dry with low wind in our area until mid-morning and do some ringing. My garden is, unfortunately, a bit of a wind tunnel. I think it is because we have a detached double garage with a three metre gap to the house. I have planted plenty of trees, alongside those that were already there, but it doesn’t get any better and I can only open my nets in calm conditions.

The garden has been alive with birds, eating me out of house and home, for months now, so I was hopeful of a reasonable catch. Just in the last week we have had plenty of Jackdaws, Starlings, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Wren, Robin, Blackbird, Dunnock, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove and Stock Dove. I set the nets, just two x six metre, five-shelf Merlin nets, either side of my feeding station and furled them ready for action. I had planned to open them about 6:00 but I woke up at ridiculous o’clock (4:00) and, after struggling to doze for a bit longer, got up and topped up the feeders, set out some mealworms in Potter traps and opened the nets.

I was hoping for a nice catch of Greenfinch and Goldfinch, as we have had plenty of adults and juveniles coming into the garden, and it is about the only place that I regularly catch them amongst my sites.

The catch was decidedly weird in its timings: a small fall of birds, followed by a long gap, followed by another small fall, etc. First round produced three juvenile Blue Tits and three juvenile Robins. I was very pleased with the juvenile Robins: I had seen one hopping around the place but not as many as I would have liked. In the end I caught five this morning: two were recently fledged and hadn’t started their post-fledging moult, two were undergoing their moult and the fifth had actually completed their post-juvenile moult and was in full adult plumage. Its wings were very fresh and its tail was fresh and very pointed, hence I could reliably age it as a bird of this year.

Unsurprisingly, the Blue Tits kept coming in in twos and threes, until I had processed eleven of them: ten ringed and one retrap. What I remarked upon on the UK Ringers Facebook Group is that, as well as being a ringer, I have been a member of the BTO’s Garden Birdwatch scheme for even longer than I have been ringing. In that scheme you make a note of the largest number of a particular species you see at any one time. So whilst my ringing return is eleven birds my GBW return is just three. It makes sense to keep it consistent for GBW: if you keep adding up every time you see a bird of a particular species in your garden that day, you don’t know if you are seeing individual birds or the same bird multiple times, and all combinations in between. That is why ringing can give reliable quantitative data for birds but simple observation cannot.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get my hoped for good numbers of Greenfinch and Goldfinch, but I did get one of the former, a second-year female in full breeding condition, and two of the latter: a second year male in full breeding condition and a nearly fully moulted juvenile (also a male).

There weren’t too many Starlings trying to take advantage of the mealworms, either in the Potter traps or on the feeding stations. I did catch two juveniles and a second year adult male in my mist nets but that was it. I also caught a juvenile Dunnock and a juvenile Blackbird.

However, there was one unexpected bonus:

Juvenile Blackcap, Sylvia atricapilla

Since I started ringing in my back garden, back in 2013 when I got my C-permit, until now, I had only ever caught three Blackcaps in my garden, all adults, so to catch this lovely, recently fledged, juvenile was a nice result for me.

The list for the session was: Blue Tit 1[9](1); Dunnock [1]; Robin [5]; Blackbird [1]; Blackcap [1]; Starling [2](1); Goldfinch 1[1]; Greenfinch [1]. Totals: 2 adults ringed from 2 species, 21 juveniles ringed from 8 species and 2 birds retrapped from two species, making 25 birds processed from 8 species.

With the rain moving in at 11:00, I could see it approaching, I closed and took down the nets, and had everything packed away just as the rain started falling: impeccable timing. At 12:30 the rain stopped briefly. Suddenly there were half-a-dozen Greenfinch and Goldfinch, about 20 Starlings, five Jackdaws and three Woodpigeons. It soon started raining again and has continued to do so ever since, with a Meteorological Office yellow warning of heavy rain to come until tomorrow evening. Deep joy: there are some benefits to living close to the top of a hill.