Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond

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

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

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

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

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

Juvenile Magpie, Pica pica

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

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

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

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

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

This is the list:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We put up the following nets:

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

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

Marsh Tit, Poecile palustris

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

Nuthatch, Sitta europaea

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

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

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

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

It has been a pretty frustrating year for my team in the north of Wiltshire, with catches well down on previous years. The arrival of Meadow Pipits at Blakehill Farm always gives a welcome boost to numbers and, with a nice catch last week on the western side of Blakehill, I was looking to see more of the same on the eastern side. September has always been an excellent month for ringing at the Chelworth side of Blakehill Farm, boosted by large numbers of Meadow Pipit.

I had a lot of team members wanting to join me for this morning: my most long standing C-permit holder, Ellie, trainees Miranda and Teresa, and helpers Laura, Adam, Andy and (later, much later, Mark) signed up for the session. As a result, I decided to set rather more net than I have done recently:

I put on lures for a variety of migratory species on rides 1, 2, 4, 8 and between 9 and 10 and for Meadow Pipit in the middle of the Mipit triangle. Unfortunately, we still did not manage to catch any Stonechat or Whinchat this morning. The frustration is that they are there on site, we just don’t seem to be able to draw them in. Usually both species are nailed on in September at this site.

We had arranged to meet at 6:30 but, my having woken up at 5:00, and dozed until 20 minutes later, but couldn’t spin it out any more, I was on site by 6:00 and managed to have nets 8 and 9 set up before the others arrived. We had all nets open just before 8:00, and caught our first birds straight away. Then we had a bit of a stutter until birds started to arrive at 9:00. This coincided with the sun beginning to warm the site and the insect life becoming active. The area where the nets are set is an extensive rough grass paddock that is grazed by cattle, but not by sheep, and which has not been cut mechanically for over six years. Although there are not masses of wildflowers, it is absolutely buzzing with insect life. The most obvious at this time of year are the craneflies, and we are pretty certain that the arrival of the Meadow Pipits is a happy result.

The catch was busy all morning and we ended up with a total of 70 birds processed: Blue Tit [4]; Great Tit [4]; Wren [1](1); Dunnock [1]; Meadow Pipit 3[39]; Robin (1); Blackcap [4]; Whitethroat [1]; Chiffchaff [4]; Reed Bunting [7]. Totals: 3 adults ringed from 1 species; 65 juveniles ringed from 9 species and 2 birds retrapped from 2 species, making 70 birds processed from 10 species.

The Meadow Pipits were there in good numbers, as hoped for. All bar six were caught within the Mipit triangle, responding to the lure. One of the most regular catches at Blakehill in the autumn are Reed Bunting. With another seven today, nine for the month so far, it looks as though this will be comparable to previous years. They were all juveniles: not the easiest birds to age, particularly as the adults are all finishing or finished their post-breeding moult. One of the key distinguishing features is the extent of the black patches on the tertials: narrow and pointed on a juvenile’s wing, broad and squared off on the adult.

Juvenile Reed Bunting, Emberiza schoeniclus

So, why a “breakthrough”? This is the second largest catch my team has managed this year. The largest was at the feeding station at Somerford Common back in February, when food was scarce. Since then we have been grateful if we have managed to catch 30 or more birds in a session. It has given plenty of time for a relaxed approach to training, but the sheer enjoyment of a busier, bird rich session has been missing. This was certainly the most enjoyable session of the year so far, and everybody enjoyed it and got to process a decent number of birds.

The only slight downside to the morning was nothing to do with our activity. Adjacent to the reserve is a field where a local model aeroplane club meets to fly their toys. Their agreement is that they fly their models over the fields adjacent to the reserve, but that they do not fly them over the plateau, so that they don’t disturb the cattle or the wildlife. Unfortunately, not every member of the club cares to honour that agreement, and at about 10:30 this morning one of them turned up and started buzzing the plateau with his toy. It definitely impacted on the birds out on the plateau, clearly disturbing those in its flight path. He didn’t last long: possibly when three of the team started walking in his direction, although all they were going to do was to check nets, he possibly decided that they might be coming to discuss his activities and that he didn’t want to have that discussion. Just as well as, although I was out on the plateau, being annoyed by his intrusion, I was going to go and have that discussion when I had finished my round.

We were lucky with the weather. I took a chance on the forecast, which was for a relatively low base wind speed, but with that building up from 8:00 and with it gusting to 15mph quite early as well, as the plateau nets would be exposed to the projected westerly winds, but I wanted to go for migrants and Meadow Pipits. In the event, we had no issues with the wind until gone 11:00, whereupon we closed the nets, we did it in a slow sequence, so we could continue catching birds in the less affected nets, starting with the most exposed (8, 9, 10), finishing with the most sheltered (1 & 2, protected by the hedgerow). With such a good sized team out it was a quick and easy take down, with last birds extracted and processed at 11:45 and the team off site by 12:15.

With filthy weather forecast for the next week, starting from Saturday afternoon, I decided to try a session at Somerford Common this morning. I knew it wasn’t somewhere I ring often in September, but I didn’t realise that this would only be my second September visit since I started working there in 2013.

I was joined for the session by the same team as yesterday. Today Rosie didn’t have to leave for work until 9:00, and s0 she managed to get to process some birds after helping set the nets. It was a 6:30 start again and we set the nets at the southern end of the site:

One extremely keen juvenile Great Tit decided to get itself into net ride 4 before we had opened them. Fortunately it didn’t wrap itself in lots of net and was easily extracted. Once the nets were open, at just before 8:00, taking longer than expected thanks to some rather annoying twists and knots in the netting, I set sound lures for a range of migrant species on each of the net rides. The first round proper produced a single bird: a Wren, but after that things did improve. However, as well as some Blackcaps and a Robin, round two did produce the worst Wren I have ever had to extract. Somehow it had managed to crawl through several of the net cells, taking more netting with it, and getting royally enmeshed in netting as a result. In the end, with the bird’s welfare being paramount, I had to cut several strands on a brand new net (a mere £107 investment) to extract the bird. The Wren was perfectly fine, they are tough little birds, and flew off strongly after it had been ringed and processed.

We were regularly catching birds, mainly Blackcaps, alongside the occasional Robin and Blue Tit, and a solitary Goldcrest. However, at 10:00 I decided to change the lure on ride 4 to Goldcrest. The response was almost instantaneous. Over the next 30 minutes we extracted another nine Goldcrests from that net, but Andy, who was monitoring the ringing station and our possessions as most of the nets were out of sight from the ringing station, did tell us that there were at least another ten that had bounced off the nets! I never set lures for Goldcrest in inclement weather, and never before 10:00 whatever the weather, to ensure that they have had plenty of time to feed before being targetted. There were two adults (a male and a female) with the rest juveniles. I am not sure whether this was a fall of early arriving migrants or local resident birds. That there were so many in a flock, I suspect they were migrant birds.

Juvenile Female Goldcrest, Regulus regulus

The list for the day was: Blue Tit [4](1); Great Tit [2]; Wren 1[2]; Robin [2]; Blackcap 1[7]; Goldcrest 2[8]. Totals: 4 adults ringed from 3 species, 25 juveniles ringed from 6 species and 1 bird retrapped, making 30 birds processed from 6 species.

With rain set to arrive at midday we decided to make the 11:00 round the last one. In the event, the nets were empty, and we closed and took them down as we went. That meant we were away from site before midday. Hopefully the weather forecast will change and there will be a chance to get out next week but it doesn’t look hopeful!

About this time last year there was a decent through flow of Stonechat seen in the hedgerows along the perimeter track on the western side of Blakehill Farm. I decided to try a session setting nets along the hedgerows to see if any could be caught. We did see half-a-dozen and managed to catch and ring two of them. Having failed miserably to catch any Whinchat or Stonechat so far this autumn migration, I decided to have another go on this part of the site: only my second go. Rosie came along to help set up before heading off to work, not a single bird by way of compensation, plus I was joined by Andy and Teresa for the whole session. We set the following nets:

Despite a 6:30 start, and having the nets open by 7:30, we didn’t catch our first birds until 8:15. It was a decent round with five Goldfinches and a Dunnock in net set 3 and a Meadow Pipit in 4. The white lines indicate a fenced-off area. This, and an equivalent area north of it, were fenced off to allow for them to be planted up with bird friendly wild flowers. It hasn’t worked as intended but the legacy is a mass of thistles. This is why the Goldfinches were caught in ride 3. At 10:00, having caught nothing, we split the nets in ride 2 and put one each through two of the thistle plots. Unfortunately the Goldfinch had already moved on and we caught no more. In fact, neither rides 1 or 2 caught anything. I think that the issue with ride 1 was that the hedgerow was just that bit higher than the nets and the birds, plenty of which were feeding on the blackberries in the hedgerow there, were just flying in and out over the top. I have decided that I need to put a 75cm extension on each of the net poles before trying again. I shall be investing in some 1″ diameter dowelling very soon.

Fortunately, ride 3 caught reasonably well all session, and the Mipit triangle just delivered as expected. It was good to see that the numbers are building up on the site. Hopefully we will get up to the high numbers seen in previous years as the month progresses.

The catch for the day was: Blue Tit 3; Great Tit 1; Dunnock 1; Meadow Pipit 22; Robin 1; Chiffchaff 3; Goldfinch 5. Totals: 1 adult ringed (the Dunnock) and 35 juveniles ringed from 6 species, making 36 birds processed from 7 species.

As you can see: still no Stonechat or Whinchat. I am determined, so will be back at Blakehill next Wednesday, weather permitting, on the eastern side of the site.

We started to take down at 11:30 and were ready to leave site just after midday.

I always look forward to the eruption of the Tipulidae (Crane-flies to the unpretentious out there) in September, as it heralds the arrival of the over-wintering Meadow Pipits at Blakehill. On the last visit, on the 28th August, there was not a Meadow Pipit to be seen. This visit I was hopeful that they would have started to arrive, as mid-September is the prime time for them at the site.

This morning, with temperatures forecast to reach 30^oC by 11:00, I decided to be very cautious with the net setting: I wanted no opportunity for heat stress on either the birds or the people. I was joined by my newest trainee, Teresa, and her partner, Andy. I also thought that it would give more time to guide Teresa through her first ringing experience. She has accompanied me at quite a few sessions, primarily photographing the catches, and the next thing I knew she had applied to be a trainee. Normally I would have expected her to have a few taster sessions before signing up, but I have no wish to curb enthusiasm. Besides which, Andy is a star at helping set up and take down. Because of the planned early closure, I got on site at 6:00 and spent 15 minutes playing with my new toy: an electric brush cutter, opening up the few rides I was planning to use, so we could get set up ready to go early on. It was, in fact, very misty and nothing started moving until gone 7:00.

I only set nets on the plateau area and didn’t set any along the perimeter track hedgerow, as follows:

The 2-Shelf nets were set along low level bramble bushes. The 5-Shelf nets were between or alongside bramble and blackthorn at a height of 2.5m. Lures were put on for a mix of possible migrant species at nets 3 and 4 and in between nets 5 and 6. The Mipit triangle had a lure purely for Meadow Pipit.

As I said, it was misty and a very slow start: a Whitethroat was caught in a net at 7:15 and a Dunnock at 8:25. Things improved after that somewhat, although several rounds were empty, the round at 9:15 produced eight birds, 10:15 five birds and the last round at 10:55 six birds.

Surprisingly, the biggest part of the catch were Blue Tits in nets 5 and 6, with a total of eight caught. Seven were dispersing youngsters, one was a retrap ringed at Blakehill in December last year.

The list for the day was: Blue Tit 7(1); Dunnock 2; Meadow Pipit 7; Blackcap 1; Whitethroat 1; Reed Bunting 2. Totals: 20 juveniles ringed from 6 species and 1 retrap, making 21 birds processed from 6 species.

The highlight was the arrival of the Meadow Pipits: all caught in the triangle. For those who don’t know why a Mipit triangle is set, the reason is that the birds are slow fliers and, as a result, they see the nets and can avoid them. You most commonly know they have arrived as you can see them sitting on the tops of the support poles and the top string of the nets. So, the lure attracts them into the middle of the triangle and, as the ringers approach the nets, they look to make a quick escape which is when they end up in the nets, as they take less care at that point, being focused on avoiding the people and forgetting about the nets. It works well and this is the result:

Juvenile Meadow Pipit, Anthus pratensis

This photo shows beautifully the characteristic pale fringing to the median and greater coverts that identifies this bird clearly as a juvenile. Both photos were taken by Teresa.

We shut the nets and took down at 11:00. The misty start to the morning had delayed the temperature rise but we had everything down and packed away by just after 11:30, just as the temperature was becoming an issue. Teresa finished her first ringing session with nine birds ringed from five species. I am sure that she will get to grips with it quickly.

It is still a little disappointing not to have caught any Whinchat or Stonechat at Blakehill yet. I plan to be back on the plateau 10 days time so, hopefully, we will get them at that point.

With the weather forecast to get extremely hot by midday, reaching 30^oC, I decided that a short session at Ravensroost Meadows would be sensible. I was joined by Miranda, Rosie (and Polly, her Cocker Spaniel), and then Laura and Adam. Adam with his last day of freedom before back to school! We met at 6:30 and set the following nets:

To be honest, I had not expected the area around the pond to be as horribly overgrown as it was. Last time I was there the vegetation was very open. Miranda was an absolute trooper: she took one of my slashers and cut a path to the 12m ride and then cleared the ride itself, whilst Rosie and I and then Laura and Adam set the other nets. For them we merely trampled down the vegetation, which was predominantly Common Fleabane, Pulicaria dysenterica. The dog-leg was set on the off-chance that we could catch some Swallows or House Martins coming in to drink. I put on a lure and we crossed our fingers. Unfortunately, we were unlucky and, despite there being sizeable flocks of both species flying around all morning, one felt the need to come down to drink. Perhaps the hot weather has prompted the insect life to move to higher strata.

The plan was to shut the nets at 11:00 and take down and be off-site before midday, which we managed. We had a reasonable, but small, catch of mainly Chiffchaff and Blackcap, as follows: Wren 2; Dunnock 2; Robin 2; Blackbird 1; Blackcap 6; Chiffchaff 8; Goldfinch 2. Totals: 23 juveniles ringed from 7 species.

The Goldfinch were the highlights: although I catch plenty in my garden, over the years I have caught just 18 by the meadow pond, and the last were caught two-and-a-half years ago. These were, therefore, the first that Rosie and Miranda have processed at the pond, although both have done them elsewhere (Rosie: one at Brown’s Farm and Miranda: two at Blakehill Farm).

As well as the catch and the multiple Swallows and House Martins, we had decent views of both Buzzard and Red Kite circling in the thermals over Ravensroost Wood. Apart from them, and a bit of both Magpie and Jay movement and calling, there was very little other bird movement.

Following on from yesterday’s look at the decline in warbler numbers, I have now had a look at the more regular resident species: Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long-tailed Tit and Wren.

Blue Tit:

As you can see straight from the off, the trend is every bit as downward as it is for the warbler species. Clearly, the catches in 2015 and 2019 could have exaggerated the recent decline, so I recast the data minus those two years. The decline is less precipitous but still there:

Great Tit:

Long-tailed Tit:

So far, so much the same. My thinking was that all of these species, except Garden Warblers, are, basically, gleaners, removing insects from leaves. I then had a look at those resident species that have different feeding strategies: Robin, Dunnock and Wren.

Robin:

As you can see from this, the trend for birds ringed is pretty well static and the decline in retrapped birds is rather shallow. Overall, they are a consistent contributor to our CES sessions.

Dunnock:

The only species that I have analysed that has a higher retrap rate than the ringing rate. There are very shallow declines at all levels, but not as pronounced as for the warbler species or the Blue, Great or Long-tailed Tits.

Wren:

Another species with a shallow decline. The biggest reduction, although nothing like as pronounced in the warblers and tits, is in the retrapped birds.

What is driving the declines?

This is clearly the $64,000 question. I have had my theory on the problems, but as it is a nature reserve run by the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, what I want to do about it has to fit in with their management plans. Fortunately, I had a meeting with both the Conservation Director and the Farm Reserves Manager of the Wildlife Trust and we have agreed upon a plan of action. In fact, the Farm Reserves Manager led the way in what needs to be done on the site. Fortunately, his ideas coincided completely with mine.

Since the Covid lockdown, two key areas of the CES have become overgrown. The canopy has closed over on those two rides, saplings have grown up and added to the thickness of the tree stock, filling in what used to be a nice open area. All of this has led to a darkening of the rides and, possibly more importantly, the wildflowers attractive to insects and other invertebrates have almost entirely disappeared from these two rides, leaving behind an under-tree flora consisting almost entirely of Stinging Nettle and Common Cleavers (Goose Grass, Sticky Jack, Sticky Willie).

The plan over this winter is to open out the undergrowth, cut back the canopy and thin the tree stock back to where it was pre-Covid and see if that improves the situation. We shall see what happens.