The quality of the catches that I am getting in my woodland sites this year is diabolical. Today I went to Red Lodge, on site by 5:30, joined by Rosie, Laura and Adam, and we set 10 x 18m nets, as below:
In the next four hours we caught six birds! The list was: Nuthatch [1]; Treecreeper [1]; Robin [1](1); Song Thrush 1; Chiffchaff (1). Totals: 1 adult ringed, 3 juveniles ringed and 2 birds retrapped, making six birds processed from 5 species.
It was the worst return that I have ever had at this site, and compares with an average catch of 30 birds in July sessions over previous years, ranging between 25 and 33 birds. Thoroughly fed up with such a poor return, we decided to shut the nets at 10:00 so we could go home and do something more rewarding, like catching up on some sleep! We had been joined by the rest of family C, with Mark and Daniel arriving soon after 9:00, so taking down and packing away was quick and easy.
Getting home at just gone 11:00 I decided, instead of sleeping, to sit in the garden and destroy my nerves by listening to the cricket. As I wanted something to occupy my hands as well as my mind, I thought I might as well open the two 6m nets I have in the garden, and put out my Potter traps, baited with mealworms, on the off-chance that a few Starlings might drop in.
Within a few minutes I had my first two birds: a couple of juvenile Blue Tits and then, soon after, the Starlings arrived. One immediately walked into one of the Potter traps. I went to extract the Blue Tits and that Starling, which obviously spooked the others. They didn’t stay away long and, when the next group arrived, four Starlings, a female Blackbird, two House Sparrows, plus two more Blue Tits, ended up in the nets, nothing in the Potter traps. At just after midday the wind got up, gusting strongly, and I needed to shut the nets. I took out another two Blue Tits whilst doing so.
As the Potter traps are not affected by the wind I left them open. They worked well and I caught another five Starlings before the rain started at 13:00 and I closed them as well and packed up for the day.
All of the Starlings and Blue Tits caught were juveniles undergoing their post-fledging moult.
What a smart bird!
The garden list was: Blue Tit [6]; Blackbird 1; Starling [10]; House Sparrow 2. Totals: 3 adults ringed from 2 species and 16 juveniles ringed from 2 species, making 19 birds ringed from 4 species.
It has been a bad couple of weeks. CES 6 was supposed to have taken place on Wednesday, 28th June. It was too wet and too windy so, with Friday’s forecast looking better, I moved it to Friday. We had everything set up and nets open by 6:00 when the first shower hit. After we waited that out, we managed to catch a few birds before another shower hit at 8:30. As that stopped the wind immediately strengthened and the session became untenable. We closed the nets at 9:30. I hoped to go back on Saturday morning instead, only it was blowing a gale and it was just unviable. That was the end of the available slot for CES6. The few birds we caught were: Wren [1](2); Dunnock [1](1); Robin [1]; Blackcap [2]. All of the birds caught were juveniles except for the two retrapped Wrens, which were both adult females in full breeding condition.
Unfortunately, the weather from Saturday onwards was far too windy for ringing, culminating in Tuesday with torrential rain and high winds.
Despite this not very encouraging run up to the day, but wanting to try and get a session within that particular window, I arranged to run CES 7 this Wednesday. The forecast was for it to be dry all day, with low base wind until midday, when the base would be 9mph, with gusts that would reach 20mph. We had first nets open just after 5:30 but, as has been happening regularly, we didn’t catch a bird until 6:40. As for the forecast, the first shower hit at 7:30 and the second at 9:00. Fortunately they were short and light, and the tailgate of the car kept the (few) birds and equipment dry. We took refuge in the car once they were processed. Fortunately, it then dried up.
We had an interesting morning listening to and looking for a family of Green Woodpecker. Having caught a male and female at the site in CES 4 and 5, Rosie came across a group of four whilst taking her dog for a walk. They called and were in the trees around the ringing station all morning. We did get views of a couple, definitely juveniles, as they flitted between trees. Unfortunately they didn’t go near the nets.
The highlight of the day was our first juvenile Treecreeper of the year. The list was: Treecreeper [1]; Blue Tit [2]; Wren 1[3]; Dunnock [2](1); Robin [1]; Song Thrush (1); Blackcap [4]; Chiffchaff (1). Totals: 1 adult ringed, 13 juveniles ringed from 6 species and 3 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 17 birds processed from 8 species.
The catch was disappointing when compared to the same session last year, which produced 47 birds: 2 adults and 38 juveniles ringed from 14 species and 9 birds retrapped from 8 species. However, it was actually numerically better than the equivalent session in 2021 (9 birds ringed and 7 retrapped from 11 species).
With the wind getting very strong and blustery, we closed and packed up the nets at 11:30, away from site a little after midday.
After lunch I set out to Avis Meadows where I was meeting Kevan Wind. Kevan has built some Barn Owl boxes suitable for internal barn sites. I have long wanted to replace the horribly dilapidated box in the derelict barn on site. There was once a plan to knock it down, which would have dealt with the box as well but it is now going to be allowed to deteriorate on its own timetable – which could be several more years, so we have replaced it with this:
We have two more that will get put up next week: at Clattinger and Morningside Farms. Possibly too late for this year but you never know: I have ringed Barn Owl chicks in September.
We did knock down the horribly dilapidated box: it had holes everywhere and it certainly was no longer safe for young Barn Owls: last year the brood of four youngsters were predated between discovering them having just hatched and going back a month later to ring them. Prior to that it had been the most consistent and productive of the boxes. Hopefully this one will become similarly successful.
A pretty decent month, on a par with the last three years. It could have been better if my car hadn’t decided to pack up on me at the beginning of the last week of the month and, after it was fixed, the weather hadn’t then decided to make sure that the last two days were a virtual washout / blowout.
The pullus count should start to increase over the next couple of months (and years). Jonny has had the endorsement for monitoring and ringing hole / box nesting pulli to his licence, after the big catch in May. Subsequently he has taken over a tranche of Tree Sparrow nest boxes for monitoring now and into the future. We are also working to get Swallow added to his endorsement. I still have a number of Barn Owl boxes to check. The Barn Owl situation is a bit different to previous years: although there was some intra-brood cannibalism last year in two of the boxes, in each case it was just one of the young. What was surprising about that was that there was a glut of voles last year and the cannibalism happened in August. This year it has started already in two boxes which, upon initial checking, had four chicks each and, by the time they were ready for ringing, had only two large and healthy chicks in the box. I have seen adults hunting in the daytime: which is never a good sign. I am not taking any risks on putting rings on food so am not ringing any chicks until they are growing primary feathers. In terms of pulli, last month’s report was missing two Stone-curlew that Andy had ringed and overlooked when finalising his data for the month. It will only be a light flogging!
Although we did catch fewer birds from fewer species because these comprised fewer full ringing sessions the actual catch sizes were slightly up. As my catches are resolutely staying below the 30 bird mark this is largely down to some quite astonishing catches at some of Jonny’s sites. Langford Lakes is always strong at this time of year but two of his farmland sites and one woodland site are providing really good catches: if only some of my Braydon Forest sites were performing that well! (Yes, I am jealous.)
Compared to last year, missing from the list of species caught (excluding pulli) are Canada Goose, Grey Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, Siskin, Sparrowhawk, Stock Dove, Stonechat and Woodpigeon. Added to the list are Barn Owl, Carrion Crow, Collared Dove and Jay, One of the Barn Owls and the two Carrion Crows were rehabilitation birds at Oak & Furrows. The other two Barn Owls were a male caught in one box with a solitary egg: possibly an early nest, we will find out when it is checked again. The second was a female caught leaving the box which contained one chick large enough to ring and two others to be ringed in a couple of weeks time.
As a result of this catch we have had our best ever second quarter since the group restructured in January 2013, and just my car and Saturday’s weather prevented it from being our best ever first half year since then:
Alongside my ringing permit issued by the BTO I also have a Natural England / BTO Schedule 1 permit for monitoring and ringing Barn Owls in a number of areas around north Wiltshire.
It has been an interesting beginning to the Barn Owl breeding season in 2023. Last year we monitored 21 Barn Owl boxes in and around the Braydon Forest. It was a pretty good year. Of those 21, we found youngsters in eight occupied by Barn Owls, three with Stock Doves and one with Jackdaws. Two of the boxes were being used as roosts by adult Barn Owls (of which we caught and ringed one). Three of the boxes had been occupied by Jackdaws that had fledged and left before our first visit. Essentially, of the 21 boxes, 15 were occupied by birds at some point and, for the reasons set out below, 13 were proven successful in fledging young, of which six were successful in producing Barn Owls.
One of the Barn Owl boxes, our most dilapidated and scheduled for removal, on first inspection did have two warm eggs and 2 small chicks in the nest. Upon next inspection one month later the entire brood had been predated. This was the first time since I started this monitoring work that I have experienced that (so our owls, and I, have clearly been lucky to date).
Over the course of the season we ringed 20 Barn Owl chicks and one adult, three each of Stock Dove and Jackdaw chicks. For the first time last year we came across some intra-brood cannibalism at two of our boxes, with the smallest (unringed) member of the brood serving as food for its siblings. This was somewhat surprising as it was such a good vole year last year that many of the boxes we checked had voles left in the box, as you can see below:
Ironically, this was one of the boxes in which intra-brood cannibalism took place. There was one horrendous end to the season when the entire brood of three ringed youngsters from one box, all three on the verge of fledging, if they hadn’t already and were using the box as a daytime roost, were found to have been predated. They were almost certainly taken by a bird of prey, given how they were found (head and chest missing, mat stripped completely but wings and legs still attached to the spine) and the fact that they had to be more than capable of flight to avoid any mammalian predator. It was the last box we checked, on the last check run of the year, and an awful way to finish what had otherwise been a successful breeding season for them.
So to this year: we have so far checked on 15 of our boxes, with another 13 to check. As you can see, we have added another seven boxes so far, with another four to be erected when we can find the time. Of the boxes checked so far we have found seven occupied by Barn Owls (two of which have held adults roosting, rather than nesting and we have ringed two adults as a result) and four with Jackdaw nests, two holding young, two already fledged. Two of the boxes had been taken over by Grey Squirrel: we cleared those out, as they aren’t being used by them for breeding.
We have already ringed two Jackdaw broods and eight young in four of the Barn Owl boxes. Interestingly, two of the Barn Owl boxes, when first checked at the end of May / beginning of June, held four chicks. When we came to ring them a few weeks later there were only two chicks in each box to ring. Again, I would suggest intra-brood cannibalism is responsible, because the remaining two chicks in each box were a good weight and very healthy. I suppose the question is: has this recent very hot weather impacted on the availability of prey or have they just succumbed to the heat?
One box we checked on Thursday evening, which had one newly hatched youngster plus four eggs at the beginning of June, had one chick large enough to ring, two chicks that are too small to ring and one cold, presumably infertile, egg. We will revisit in a couple of weeks and see how the two small ones are faring.
We will be checking on another 10 boxes next week: it will be interesting to see what we find.
As I was working solo again today, and operating in a public area, I decided to keep things simple and set just 7 x 18m nets. I arrived on site at 5:00 and had the nest open by 6:00, but didn’t catch my first bird until 7:15.
I didn’t set the usual nets either side of the crossroads, because I wanted to have virtually a full view of the setup from the ringing station, just in case. I needn’t have worried: everyone I met was pleasant, interested and helpful. Without exception, the dog owners volunteered to keep their dogs on leads until they were past the nets.
I wasn’t expecting a large catch: and I wasn’t disappointed. Unfortunately, there were large gaps between catches and I had forgotten to bring my book, my phone was running out of battery (which I had to save in case of needing to take a photo or two) and O2 decided that I have apparently used 80% of my 2Gb data allowance for June, whilst my phone is telling me that I have used less than half my data allowance. I will need to keep an eye on that. What all that means is that there were some fairly dull patches during the session. Those were filled with plenty of bird song still: which is why it was a little frustrating that more weren’t hitting the nets.
I started with two birds at 7:15 (adults Chiffchaff and Dunnock), then nothing until 8:30, nothing again until 9:15, then 9:30, 10:10 and 10:30 and nothing thereafter until I shut the nets at 11:00. I took down in stages to give the busiest nets (those nearest the ringing station in the car park) a chance to possibly catch some more (they didn’t).
Despite the small catch there were several highlights. At 9:30 I caught our first juvenile Goldcrest of the year:
One of the bird species providing a rather lovely musical background to the morning was Willow Warbler. Unfortunately they were adding to my mild frustration and I was resigned to not see them today, until on my last catching round I extracted a juvenile Great Tit and two Willow Warblers: one of which was my first juvenile of the year:
The adult Willow Warbler was well into both its wing and tail moult, as was the adult Blue Tit extracted at 9:15. One can expect that the Blue Tit, having completed its breeding season, would undergo post-breeding moult. I was a little more surprised by the Willow Warbler, as I am pretty certain they will be producing at least one more brood this summer.
The list for the day was: Blue Tit 1[3]; Great Tit [2](1); Marsh Tit [1]; Wren 1; Dunnock 1; Robin 1; Chiffchaff 1; Willow Warbler 1[1]; Goldcrest [1]. Totals: 6 adults ringed from 6 species, 8 juveniles ringed from 5 species and 1 retrapped bird, making 15 birds processed from 9 species.
As mentioned I started taking down at 11:00 and, taking it easy as the sun had finally fully come out, was packed away and left site just on midday.
With reports from reliable sources of Spotted Flycatcher being seen around our usual ringing rides, I decided it was time to have another session in Ravensroost Wood. I have been reluctant of late, mainly because the catches have been rather poor, but this was inducement enough for me to arrange the session.
Miranda and I met at 5:30 and we set 9 x 18m nets:
First out of the nets were three Wrens: one of which was an absolute nightmare. Miranda very kindly passed it on to me (it is my own fault: the key rule I give my trainees is that, if a bird is proving too difficult for them, call me, don’t persevere and risk the health of the bird). I do rather like the difficult birds to arrive after my first coffee of the morning! We also extracted a juvenile Robin.
As all of our sessions seem to go, we had one good round with plenty of empties and low numbers. That is not to say that it wasn’t enjoyable, because we had some very pleasing results in amongst our catch. Following on from the first juvenile Blackcap a week ago at the Meadow Pond, this morning we caught another three and another couple of juvenile Chiffchaff. However, our first juvenile Marsh Tit of the year was a bonus:
Marsh Tit photo courtesy of Miranda. With the catch having died down, at 10:45 I did the usual “if there are no birds next round we will shut the nets” so, naturally, we took four more birds out of the nets. This included our first juvenile Chaffinch of the year:
I love the “Oi! What are you looking at?” attitude. During the same round we also extracted this Great Tit, showing just exactly how harrowing trying to raise a brood can be:
Of course the difference between a Great Tit and a similarly follically challenged male human is that the Great Tit’s head covering will grow back naturally.
One other interesting plumage seen this morning was a second calendar year male Blackbird:
Although in the field male birds of this age generally look black, that is probably because of the impact of their body and tail feathers. As you can see from this photograph, the wings are still very substantially brown. It has three retained greater coverts from the set that it had when it fledged.
The list for the day was: Nuthatch 1(1); Blue Tit [1]; Great Tit 1; Marsh Tit [1](1); Wren 1(2); Robin 1[4](1); Blackbird 1(1); Blackcap [3](2); Chiffchaff [2]; Chaffinch [1]; Bullfinch 1. Totals: 6 adults ringed from 6 species, 12 juveniles ringed from 6 species and 8 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 26 birds processed from 11 species.
As well as the birds caught and processed, we were surrounded by several other species that did evade the nets. These included Willow Warbler, Song Thrush and Great Spotted Woodpecker (but not the Goldcrest that Miranda’s app said was singing close by. I might be old but I can still hear Goldcrest singing and calling, and there were none in the vicinity). There were a few butterflies about: particularly Red Admiral and Speckled Wood, plus an unidentified Skipper. One of the passers by who stopped to chat had mentioned that there was a White Admiral up near the entrance to the reserve and I am pleased to say that I did see it as I was locking the gate upon leaving.
We did finally shut the nets at 11:45 and were away from site at 12:15. My car had been sounding a bit rough this morning (and for a few mornings before that, if truth be told) and there was a bit of a smell of something burning, as Miranda mentioned, but it got me home. Unfortunately for my wife, when she took the car into Wootton Bassett afterwards, it got her there okay but didn’t want to bring her home. Our friendly mobile mechanic got her started and sorted enough to get them both home. He called me and suggested I look under the bonnet, which I did:
I think that explains the roughness of the engine, the smell and the failure to start! Hopefully he will have fixed it by the weekend, otherwise I will have to have a lie-in rather than the pleasure of getting up at 5:00!
One final thought: no sign of the Spotted Flycatcher!
With the way that catches have been going at Lower Moor Farm recently: small catches, the bulk of them early in the morning, and then just the odd bird thereafter, I was more than a little concerned about the likelihood of a successful ringing demonstration today, particularly as it had a 9:00 start time. I was running it in conjunction with our Constant Effort Site session 5, so we were on site before 5:30, with the first nets open by then. In order to try and increase the catch we did set up an extra net set. In the event, it picked up just a single bird: the last of the session and worth the effort. More of that later.
After a week of high temperatures and dry weather the Met Office and Meteo / BBC were forecasting similar temperatures to Friday (26oC) and less than a 5% chance of rain. I took a large garden umbrella to give us protection from the forecast hot sun. As I arrived on site I noticed a few rain spots on my windscreen. I didn’t panic.
I was joined by Rosie, Miranda, David, Laura and Adam. A special shout out to Laura and Adam for coming to site at 5:30 knowing that they would not be able to stay once the demonstration started (as ever, it was already sold out). Adam first, and then Laura, did me the great favour of cutting a new net ride for the extra nets that I wanted to put up. As he had played his part, Adam got to ring several birds this morning before they wandered off just before 8:00 – and just before the heavens opened. Throughout the morning there had been a few short, very light showers, which didn’t require us to shut the nets. But at 8:00 we had a downpour! We shut the nets and huddled under the umbrella waiting for it to stop. At 8:30 Robin Griffiths, from the Swindon Wildlife Group, on whose behalf we were running the demonstration, arrived, swathed in waterproofs and looking seriously concerned. Robin had to go back to the car park to meet with the attendees arriving for 9:00. As it was still chucking it down, at 8:55 I decided to go over to them and cancel the event (no mobile phone signal on the site). As I was walking over, the rain began to ease and, by the time I had got there, it had stopped! Whilst we chatted and agreed to give it a go, the sun came out, which was a clincher.
Between opening the nets and the start of the demonstration, we had a decent haul of birds: massively helped by a family group of three newly fledged Great Tits and a larger family group of Dad Blue Tit plus seven of his offspring. A nice early surprise was our first juvenile Wren of the year! In fact, by the start of the demonstration we had processed more birds than in any one of the previous four sessions! Obviously I was worried about the usual falling away of the numbers, but I need not have worried as we continued to catch throughout the morning.
The attendees were treated to a procession of different species: Wren, Blackbird, Long-tailed Tit, Dunnock, Robin, Garden Warbler and, finally:
The star bird of the morning! Thanks to Robin Griffiths for the photo, I was a bit busy holding on to her! A female, as you can tell from the completely black malar stripe. She also had a well-developed, well-veined brood patch which also showed a few small eczema type patches. Hopefully that won’t compromise her brooding ability! Another lovely bird to catch was our first Garden Warbler juvenile of the year.
The list for the session was: Green Woodpecker 1; Blue Tit 1[8]; Great Tit [3]; Long-tailed Tit [5]; Wren 2[1](2); Dunnock 1[1](1); Robin [3]; Song Thrush (2); Blackbird 1(1); Cetti’s Warbler (1); Blackcap 1(2); Garden Warbler [1]. Totals: 7 adults ringed from 6 species, 22 juveniles ringed from 7 species and 9 birds retrapped from 7 species, making 38 birds processed from 12 species.
If I am surprised at all, it was that there were no Chiffchaff in the catch whatsoever: we could hear them pretty much everywhere but they never hit the nets. Anyway, we ran the session until midday before closing the nets and taking down.
I got a lot of thanks from the audience as they left, which is always gratifying, but I did make a point of asking them to thank the team who did all of the grunt work that made the demonstration possible. From me, a big thanks to my entire team for their help today. They did all of the processing before the demonstration began, but very little more than monitor the nets and extract birds for the rest of the morning. Then, also with thanks to David’s dad, Trevor, we got the nets down and everything packed away just before 13:00.
I would like to say that I love this time of year but it is hard to be enthusiastic at 3:30 in the morning! One of the problems is that your thought processes are not quite in gear: why else would I have decided to wear shorts to a site that is rife with stinging nettles? Anyway, I was on site by 3:50 and started putting up the nets. Rosie had offered to join me at 4:00 but, as she has to come over from the Forest of Dean area, I told her to have a lie-in and get there for 4:30 (I am all heart), which she did!
We had the nets open by 5:45, but before embarking on our mist netting exercise, we had a Barn Owl box to check. I had first checked it on the 1st June and found four nestlings which were too small to ring at the time. Rosie climbed the ladder and opened the box, only to find that our four had become two! We can only assume that during the ensuing two weeks food had become scarce and sibling cannibalism came into effect: the reason why Barn Owls start brooding eggs as soon as they are laid, to stagger the hatching and the growth of their young. Oddly, there was a vole in the owl box. However, we did watch one of the parent birds quartering the field looking for more prey in broad daylight. That is not usually a good sign for prey availability. Anyway, we ringed our first Barn Owl nestlings of the year.
Unfortunately, between the start of the netting session and when Rosie had to leave at 8:00, to go and shear some sheep, we caught only nine birds. As a “thank you” for her efforts, I let Rosie process all of the birds netted until she had to leave. Between 8:00 and 9:25, I caught only three birds, and then nothing until 11:00, when I decided to shut the nets and pack up. Of course, that meant that I found another seven birds in the nets! By way of improving the outcome of the session, these included my first Blue Tit and Blackcap fledglings of the year:
The list for the morning was: Barn Owl {2}; Blue Tit [3]; Great Tit 1(1); Wren 1(1); Dunnock (2); Robin [3]; Blackbird (1); Blackcap [1]; Chiffchaff [2](1). Totals: 2 adults ringed from 2 species, 9 fledglings ringed from 4 species, 2 pulli ringed from 1 species and 6 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 19 birds processed from 9 species.
Given how poor the catches have been recently, and that these Passerines are all insectivorous, it was surprising to see the sheer volume of insects that were flying around the site and the adjacent meadows. Not quite clouds of butterflies yet but certainly getting there. Alongside that, there were plenty of day flying moths, and around the pond, plenty of gnats and small flies: it doesn’t seem as though a shortage of food is the key issue.
Although today was dry and warm, hot by the time I had packed away the nets, it was breezy on and off all morning. In fact, wind seems to have been the key feature of our weather. I was going to say “recently” but it does seem to have been the case for the last year or more, which does tie in with the reduction in my catches. Anyway, I was packed up and off-site by 12:30.
With the weather forecast to be windy on Wednesday I decided to head into one of my woodland sites. Webb’s Wood was next on the list and, given the forecast wind direction, would be the most suitable. I knew that Rosie wouldn’t be able to make the early shift, having been out mothing until 1:00 in the morning, but was joined by Miranda for 5:30. We set up 9 x 18m nets in the most sheltered areas around the ringing station:
It wasn’t the busiest session we have ever run: on a par with most of our recent sessions. The list for the day was: Nuthatch 1(1); Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 1; Great Tit 1(2); Long-tailed Tit 2[1](1); Wren 2; Robin (1); Blackbird 1; Blackcap 3; Chiffchaff [1](1); Willow Warbler 1. Totals: 13 adults ringed from 9 species, 2 juveniles ringed from 2 species and 6 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 21 birds processed from 11 species.
We caught a small flock of Long-tailed Tits, all close together in one net. I was fully expecting one or two adults and a couple of juveniles and was somewhat surprised to find that there was only the one youngster. The retrapped Long-tailed Tit was ringed as age unknown in October 2019, so at least a fourth year bird. Not bad for a bird that has a typical lifespan of 2 years (BTO BirdFacts) and a maximum age from date of ringing of 8 years and 11 months.
There was another juvenile Chiffchaff in the catch. Apart from that, the best part of the catch was a pair of Nuthatch: a male and a female caught close together in the same net.
There were a few nice flowers around: the Cinquefoil, Potentilla reptans, was just coming into bloom:
Most of its flowers were still in bud. There was also this rather lovely blue flower which I didn’t know, but on further research is known as the Skullcap, Scutellaria galericulata:
Having caught just 10 birds between 6:00 and 11:00 we decided to pack up. Naturally, next round we caught 6 birds and in the following round another 4, as we were closing up the nets. We were off site at about 12:45.
I had arranged with Rosie that we would go and check some Barn Owl boxes after she finished work Wednesday afternoon. I have the appropriate licences issued by the BTO on behalf of Natural England, as this is a Schedule 1 species, to allow me to do this. She and I headed off to check on the boxes around Webb’s Wood. These boxes are all on private sites, so I will not be identifying the exact locations. As we approached the first box to be checked, to the west of Webb’s Wood, the adults flew off from the box. Inside we found four downy chicks. One of them was reasonably large, but the others were too small to be ringed. We will revisit them in a week or so, by which time they should all be big enough for ringing.
The next box was completely empty: no sign of it even being used for roosting. It has been used previously, both for roosting and for breeding. Our third box also had both adults within. As we tapped on the box to alert any occupants that they were about to have visitors, the adults decided to leave. The second to leave left me with a lovely present:
They would make great dive bombers! Anyway, we did find one newly hatched chick and four other warm eggs. We will pay them a visit again in a couple of weeks. Our fourth box has been vandalised by squirrels: they have ripped open the bottom corner of the box and built a nest inside. At least, without further evidence, that is our current opinion. It is certainly unlike any bird’s nest that either Rosie or I have seen before. We didn’t get to look at the planned last box: someone had kindly parked across the entrance to that part of the farmyard we needed access to. I tried phoning the farmer but it was going to voicemail so, as it was already approaching 20:00, we decided to call time on the session. It is very pleasing that we have a 50% occupancy by Barn Owls of the boxes checked.
We will be doing a lot more box checking over the next week and then on throughout the summer. A long day but a successful one.
Finally, a session that produced more than the same session last year: even if it is just one bird more! It was a very enjoyable session for so many reasons. To start with, I wasn’t working solo. I was on site by 4:45, with David joining me at the agreed time of 05:00. We had all of the nets open by 5:30, but didn’t catch the first bird until 6:15. It was a second year male Bullfinch in stunning plumage.
As has been the case with most sessions recently, the bulk of the birds arrived early, with 18 of the 29 birds caught being before 8:00. Following on from the male Bullfinch, we caught our first recently fledged Chiffchaff of the year:
The key to the size of the catch being 13 birds extracted at the 7:25 net round. This was mainly due to the arrival of a small group of Long-tailed Tits, including three recently fledged juveniles:
Lovely birds: envious of the hair style! Like the Chiffchaff, our first juveniles of this species this year.
Soon after this catch we were joined by family C: Laura, Mark, Adam & Daniel plus, soon after that, family H: Claire, Nick, Zara and Samuel. Laura is beginning to get the idea that she is the one jinxing the numbers, because they fall away after she arrives, but as we are still having an issue with the midweek sessions, I don’t think I can blame it on her. She helpfully took over scribing duties, allowing me to get on and process some birds.
About 8:30 we were joined by Sarah Binnie. I, and several other ringers running CES projects, were asked by the BTO if we would allow her to join us at one of our sessions. As I understand it, she is a PhD student investigating insect abundance on CES sites. So she joined us and set up a number of pitfall traps, frass collection plates (frass is caterpillar poo) and other assorted insect paraphernalia. Unlike us, she will be active until 18:00 this evening. I am looking forward to finding out what her results are. Goodness knows what she will find but the place was alive with both dragonflies and damselflies. As usual, there was an abundance of Common Blue, Enallagma cyathigerum, and Azure, Coenagrion puella, damselflies. I was delighted to see, for the second time (the first being the previous CES session) a Red-eyed Damselfly, Erythromma najas:
Unfortunately, my phone has taken out the red eye! They were a very deep red. In addition, there was a plethora of Dragonflies: so many emerging, expanding their wings and drying off. However, speciation will be difficult for a while: they all seemed to be green, with little or no colour variation.
I understand that their pigmentation will develop over the next few days so, perhaps by the time of the next CES session (and ringing demonstration) on the 17th, they might be more easily identifiable. This one was almost ready to fly and is probably a female Black-tailed Skimmer, Orthetrum cancellatum:
(Thanks to Rob Turner for giving me the heads up on the Dragonfly ID.)
The bird list for the day was: Green Woodpecker 1; Treecreeper (1); Great Tit 1(2); Long-tailed Tit 4[3](1); Wren 2; Dunnock (1); Robin [2]; Blackbird (1); Cetti’s Warbler (1); Blackcap 1(1); Chiffchaff 1[1](3); Bullfinch 1; Reed Bunting 1. Totals: 12 adults ringed from 8 species, 6 juveniles ringed from 3 species and 11 birds retrapped from 8 species, making 29 birds processed from 13 species.
It is always great to catch a Green Woodpecker. Of the 16 ringed by my team, all bar two have been caught at Lower Moor Farm. Specifically, all bar one of those has been caught in the wildlife refuge area. This area is absolutely covered with ants’ nests, hence why it is favoured by this species.
Another interesting catch was the retrapped Cetti’s Warbler. When it was ringed on the 24th May it weighed in at 16.5g, upon recapture today it weighed 4g less. I can only think that when ringed it was carrying eggs, either that or it has been wearing itself out finding food for youngsters!
Throughout the morning there was so much going on: bird-wise we just missed out on a Sparrowhawk that flashed through and just past the net chasing after a female Blackbird, that escaped into the safety of a thick bush. We also had a nicely marked Buzzard circling around over the site for a large part of the morning. It had large white patches on the underside of the secondaries.
We also had some excellent views of other flying creatures, well, machines actually. Clearly something is being planned to commemorate the 79th anniversary of D-Day as we were treated to the sight of a Bristol Blenheim light bomber, with full invasion markings on wings and fuselage fly through, and sighting of a Westland Lysander, used for reconnaissance and dropping spies in behind enemy lines in World War 2, that flew around several times. We didn’t get to see the Supermarine Spitfire that Trevor (David’s dad) told us was seen flying over Swindon, as well as the Blenheim and the Lysander.
At midday we closed the nets and, with the help of family C and Trevor, got packed away quickly and easily. Big thanks to Laura for providing me with the photos of the dragonflies and allowing me to post them on the blog.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 