Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond

Having been unable to get to Webb’s on Wednesday due to the weather, I decided to have a go today. On Thursday morning I set up a couple of feeders at the ringing site (one peanut, one mixed seed (no wheat)), on the off chance a few birds would have found them by today.

Okay, so what is this title about? Where I set up my feeders we discovered plenty of rotting wood and lots of fungi. As with last year, there were a few clumps of Yellow Stag’s Horn fungus, Calocera viscosa. However, for me, the most striking of them was this, because I have never seen it before:

Green Elf Cup, Chlorociboria aerugonescens. Not only are the fruiting bodies this fabulous turquoise colour, but the blue of the mycelium completely pervades the log upon which it is growing, as you can see on the bottom photo. Obviously, where you have elf cups you must have elves to use them! (Sorry!)

So to the real business of the day. I was joined by David for the session. The Forestry England contractor had been in during the week and tidied up the ride edges and opened up some areas. I am delighted to say that, unlike at Somerford Common last winter, the work has improved the ringing prospects. I made a small change to the net setup:

FS = Feeding Station RS = Ringing Station

It is a nice compact site when set up like this. The feeders had been found and the birds had made small inroads into the food, so I was expecting an increase in the numbers of titmice, but not an explosion in numbers. We set lures for Redwing plus a finch mix (Lesser Redpoll, Siskin & Brambling) on the 3 x 18m net set and the finch mix on each of the other net sets. The Redwing lure worked immediately and we started taking them out of the nets pretty much straight away. Whilst doing our first round Mark and his children, Daniel and Adam, arrived and, soon after that. Claire with her children, Samuel and Zara. I have arranged to do a talk on ringing, followed by a practical demonstration, at Zara’s school in January. It came about because Zara was talking about bird ringing in class and that she had been allowed to ring some birds, and her class mates were interested in learning more. The school in question, Abbey Meads Community School in Swindon, has its own little forest school, wildlife ponds and natural habitats, with lessons that make use of all of them. It will be a pleasure to show them. That said, being 8 year olds, some did originally think that ringing was about pairing the birds up for breeding, so I was told today.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. It was a decent session. Both Redwing and Lesser Redpoll responded to the lure and we caught and ringed some 46 birds: Blue Tit 12(6); Great Tit 4(6); Coal Tit 1(1); Robin 2(3); Redwing 8; Goldcrest 1; Lesser Redpoll 2. Totals: 30 birds ringed from 7 species and 16 birds recaptured from 4 species, making 46 birds processed from 7 species.

The number of Goldcrest was well down compared with previous sessions. We did catch two, but one showed signs of cold stress, so I didn’t process it. They are such small birds it is why I don’t lure for them until at least 10:00 in the morning, and once the temperature has reached a reasonable level. I have a very simply remedy for dealing with any stressed birds (don’t get too concerned, perhaps one in a thousand birds extracted might show signs of stress), particularly cold stress: I pop them in a bag and drop them down my front next to the skin. It always works: I am not sure if it is the warmth or the smell that helps, perhaps it is the combination! With this one, he wasn’t responding as well as I wanted, so I took him out of the bag and popped him back in again. Ten minutes later he was crawling all over my chest. When he reached my armpit I took him out and he flew off strongly into the top of an adjacent tree and started foraging for food. Job done!

Because of the way that the birds were coming in, I didn’t have time to allow the children to do any ringing during the main part of the morning. However, they all took turns to release the birds once each was processed. All of the rides caught, but 2 x 18m ride was not as successful as it usually is. That is the problem with ringing birds: you cannot predict their movements. The catch died off soon after 10:30 and, with it still being pretty cold, Claire and her brood departed soon after. With things having quietened down, I could work with the other two children, Daniel and Adam, and allow them to ring a bird each. By then that was all that we had left for them to ring.

David and I started shutting the nets at 11:45, extracting the last few birds and processing them before taking down and packing away. We left site by 12:45 after a cold but fairly productive morning.

The following post is by Jonny Cooper:

Sometimes you come across a brilliant ringing site just by chance. This is what happened with the farm I ring on just outside of Calne. The landowner also owns some land adjacent to my site at Sutton Benger and, through the grapevine, heard about my ringing and asked if I wanted to give his farm a go. That was at the start of the year, in the half a dozen or so sessions since, the site has proven to be amazing.

I rolled up on site Monday morning hoping to ring some of the early winter flocks of finches coming into the cover crops put down for them alongside some Redwing. I set the nets and in the first round had a nice flock of Redwing plus a few Goldfinches. The session then ticked along nicely for a couple of hours, with each round producing a few birds, and I was content.

Things took a more exciting turn during the 10am round. The first thing to get the heart racing was a Stonechat (a lovely male). This is the first ringed at any of my sites. The spotlight was swiftly snatched from the Stonechat, as the next net produced a stunning Merlin. Safe to say at this point I was over the moon.

In Wiltshire Merlin are a reasonably widespread but uncommon winter visitor. However, this bird is only the second actually ringed in the county (the first being in 2020) so it was a real red-letter day.

After the Merlin things really took off as the day started to warm up. The session finished with 90 birds processed. The totals for the day were: Merlin 1, Blue Tit 12(2), Great Tit 3(3), Chiffchaff 1, Wren 1, Redwing 38, Robin 2(1), Stonechat 1, Dunnock 6, Meadow Pipit 2, Chaffinch 5, Goldfinch 8 and Reed Bunting 4. A total of 84 new birds from 13 species and 6 re-traps from 3 species.

Overall, a brilliant ringing session. In addition to the birds ringed there were flocs of Linnets and Yellowhammer flitting about all morning with Lapwing coming down to feed in the stubble fields. A great example of how farming and nature can work hand-in-hand.

Editor’s note: the first Merlin caught by the West Wilts RG was in July 2003. That was a retrapped bird, caught near Beckhampton, about 4km away from where Jonny caught his one. I don’t have the details of where it was ringed. The only other Group record was another retrap caught on the Imber Ranges, Salisbury Plain Training Area, in November 2019. That bird was ringed near Glenshee, Aberdeenshire.

Having realised that I cannot use Somerford Common for the BTO’s Winter Constant Effort Site trial, because it precludes the use of sound lures, and it is my best site for Lesser Redpoll, Siskin and Brambling, last year it was also my best site for Redwing, all of which required the use of lures, I have decided to trial it in my back garden. Today’s weather was perfect, the nets are already set up, so I can start at 7:00, and have breakfast, tea, coffee and other essential facilities on hand: a win : win situation.

It was a decent session with the Blue Tits arriving early on, and a couple of Goldfinch soon after. One of the interesting factors is the count of birds when ringing, compared to the counts made for the BTO’s Garden Birdwatch Scheme. My GBW count for Blue Tits for this morning is two: because that was the maximum I saw at any one time, whereas the session delivered 14 of them (six ringed and eight retraps). The key to the GBW figures is that the numbers are known to be inaccurate, but the inaccuracy is consistent across all counts. What is important for GBW is the proportion of counts in which the species appears, whereas ringing allows, through catch, mark, recapture, for an approximation of the population size / dynamics.

One of the things I have noticed with Blue Tits this autumn is the number of them that have moulted all bar one of their greater coverts. However, it is not the outer one that is retained, it is the second one from the distal edge:

(It looks clearer in real life!)

The real reason that I wanted to ring the garden today was that the Starlings have been gorging themselves on the fat balls in the garden, so I reckon they owe me the chance to ring a few. Three of them obliged. I was joined for coffee at 9:30 by my friend and C-permit trainee Steph. She was taking a day off from her new business (Cotswold Canine Care in Cirencester), and popped in to ring a few birds and have a chat. We were having a lovely chat when we were interrupted by a text from Jonny Cooper, with a picture of a stunning bird – but that is his story to tell in a different post and I am not going to spoil the surprise. Suffice to say that once Steph left, just after 10:30, the birds decided that they had had enough and disappeared as well.

It has been a decent session: I was delighted to catch my third Great Spotted Woodpecker for the garden (in 10 years!) and, overall, it was a reasonably varied catch: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1; Blue Tit 6(8); Great Tit 2; Coal Tit (1); Wren 1; Dunnock (1); Starling 3; Chaffinch 1; Goldfinch 5. Totals: 19 birds ringed from 7 species and 10 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 29 birds ringed from 9 species.

I left the nets open for a few more hours but, as my wife was working in the garden, no more birds were caught, and I shut them just as the rain arrived only getting slightly wet but recognising that I need to reproof my waterproof, as rain trickled down my neck through the hood!

This must be the first time for years that I have gone 10 days between full sessions. Apart from the rain, it has been extremely windy in this neck of the woods. Wednesday was set to be wet and windy, so we moved the session to Thursday. On Thursday, Rosie and I tried for a session at Somerford Common, which, whilst dry, proved too exposed to the wind, so we went round to Ravensroost Wood, where it was more sheltered, but in two hours we caught one bird, so I packed up and went home. Friday looked better but I was ill, so I was delighted to be able to get out this morning.

I set up a feeding station at Somerford on Friday of last week, and was pleased, when we arrived on Thursday, to find that it had been emptied already. I refilled it on Friday afternoon ready for today. I was joined this morning by David and Anna. We only set five nets, three around the feeding station and two on the main path:

The nets were open by 7:30 and we immediately caught our first three birds at the feeding station nets: all Marsh Tits! One new and two retraps. It turned out to be a good morning for Marsh Tit: two ringed and six retrapped. All six of the retraps were adults and the ringed birds were both juveniles.

Just after 8:00 we were joined by the Childs family: dad Mark and sons Adam and Daniel. The two children spent some time refreshing on the safe handling and release of birds. Later in the session they were taught how to measure wing lengths and successfully get them into the weighing pot and, towards the end of the session, they were taught to ring their first birds. Each ringed a Blue Tit and a Great Tit, and their stoical acceptance of being pecked by both species was admirable.

Following on from the success we had catching the species in these nets at Somerford Common last year, the net set on the main ride was fitted with a lure for Redwing but, after two hours with there being no sign of them, I changed it to Goldcrest – and the effect was immediate. Within a couple of minutes we had eight of them in the net. By the end of the morning we had caught 17: 15 ringed and two retraps. The feeding station nets had lures for Brambling, Siskin and Lesser Redpoll. Only the last of those were caught this morning. The list was: Blue Tit 15(10); Great Tit 5(6); Coal Tit 1; Marsh Tit 2(6); Long-tailed Tit 3; Wren 2; Robin 2(2); Goldcrest 15(2); Lesser Redpoll 3. Totals: 48 birds ringed from 9 species and 26 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 74 birds processed from 9 species.

We shut the nets at 11:30, took down and packed away and were off site at midday.

It was a really pleasant, easy session: a good number of birds and reasonable variety. What I found slightly surprising was the lack of Great Spotted Woodpecker and Nuthatch: virtually nailed on certainties at Somerford Common once the feeding station is setup. Next time!

I had intended to get to Blakehill Farm on Monday but, after trudging around all morning in Wellies on Sunday, my arthritic right ankle decided I wasn’t going anywhere. So, I rescheduled the session for this morning. I knew it was touch and go: the forecast was for it to be dry until after lunch, but for it to be breezy, and with it gusting to 30+mph. The wind was scheduled to come from the south-west, which meant that it would have to pass through the perimeter track hedgerow to get to the nets. I hoped that the hedges would act as a bit of a windbreak and we would be able to get something of a session. I was joined for the morning by Miranda. We met at 6:30 and had the nets open by about 7:15. As we moved up the perimeter track there must have been 100 Redwing put up by our approach.

It is hard work putting nets up there: although the edges of the perimeter track look grassy, and supports a surprising amount of vegetation, just below the surface is hard standing that has not yet degraded. Knocking holes in it, to insert the supporting poles, is hard graft: so I had a good early morning work out.

I set lures for Redwing, Reed Bunting, Brambling and Linnet. Almost immediately we had four Redwing hit the nets adjacent to the lure: one managed to wriggle free before we could get to it. Later we caught another but, unfortunately, by 8:30 the nets were billowing and the pockets were just blown out. There was also the double whammy of the sun shining on the nets. The combination of wind and sunshine made the nets highly visible. After 8:45 we caught just two more birds: one at 9:15 and then nothing until the last at 10:15. The wind was becoming much stronger, so we shut the nets then.

It wasn’t a bad morning, in that we did catch some birds, and it bodes well for the next calm day, as there was a lot of movement around the site. Flocks of Redwing, Fieldfare, Starling and Goldfinch, plus plenty of other birds in the hedgerow. Unfortunately, we saw a lot of those birds fly out of the hedge, see the net, and fly back straight back into the hedge.

The list for the morning was: Wren 1; Robin 2; Redwing 5; Blackbird 2; Reed Bunting 3. Total: 13 birds ringed and processed from 5 species.

By the time we had taken down and packed away we left the site just before 11:00. I am sure we will do better next time.

Not the easiest month, with lots of wind and rain and then other things, like restrictions to sites.  Jonny lost access to Langford Lakes and I lost access to Lower Moor Farm, as the Trust take precautions against the current avian flu epidemic.  This will stay in place presumably until the area is deemed clear of the disease.  Langford has certainly suffered with dead wildfowl but, so far and touch wood, Lower Moor Farm has not.  To be fair, neither of us tend to do much on those sites over the winter but I would have liked to get a couple more sessions in this year.  You never know when a Yellow-browed Warbler might turn up (the one I caught there was on the 26th October 2016 – gratuitous photo below).  

I have also lost access to the Firs, as the Trust have contractors in removing the Ash trees.  That work is expected to keep me out of there until after Christmas.  Somewhat disturbingly, one of the locals who normally uses the Firs to exercise her dogs bumped into us at Webb’s Wood on Sunday, and told me that the contractors are also felling a large number of mature Oaks, as a cost mitigation for the Ash clearance work.  It will be interesting to see what is left of the wood once they have finished and what impact it might have on the bird life.  Having had the best catch of Marsh Tits for the site in my solitary session in there this month, four ringed and one retrap, hopefully not too much.  Also, the Trust have banned the setting up of any feeding stations on their sites this winter: acting on the “precautionary principle”. Forestry England have not imposed any restrictions – yet.  Nor has the BTO suggested stopping feeding.

It hasn’t been the most stunning month, with notably lower numbers of two of the autumn / winter keynote species: Meadow Pipit and Redwing.  Meadow Pipit numbers were less than half of last year at Jonny’s East Tytherton sites and I just did not manage to get out on the plateau at Blakehill Farm, which just about makes up the shortfall.  As for Redwing: last year we caught 28 of them at Somerford Common in October, this year I caught just one there.  Whether that has anything to do with the ride clearance carried out there last winter I don’t know.  That said, the 2022 catch is very close to that of 2020.  Apart from that, Blue Tit numbers were well down.  It is certainly something that I have noticed in my own catches, particularly in the woodlands.

On the plus side, Goldfinch numbers were well up, with double last year’s numbers at Jonny’s Sutton Benger and East Tytherton sites, the Sutton Benger site being particularly prolific, and a good contribution from my back garden, equalling the East Tytherton sites. 

However, there was one highlight for me this month: my first catch of Brambling at Webb’s Wood.   Since they started arriving in the Braydon Forest, with four caught at Somerford Common and one in Ravensroost Wood in February 2019, none in 2020, they were caught again at Somerford Common and one in Red Lodge in 2021, and now these two at Webb’s Wood. Only the Firs to go now!

Also, I caught the first two Lesser Redpoll for the Blakehill Farm West site. It is such a big open space, but with good hedges and established treelines mixed in around the perimeter of the site, away from the plateau, and little by way of extensive woodland. We did catch one other, almost five years ago to the day, in the perimeter track hedgerow on the Chelworth side of the site, which was probably more surprising. It is a good start to the Lesser Redpoll season in the Braydon Forest, with birds caught at Somerford Common and Webb’s Wood, as well as Blakehill. Unfortunately, whilst we saw them in the treetops, the session in Ravensroost Wood did not catch any.

I was working solo this morning, being joined by Laura and her son Adam as observers later in the morning, so set a manageable number of nets: just 6 x 18m:

The forecast was for the wind to build throughout the morning, coming from the south. I knew that the three-net set would be sheltered but was hopeful that the sheer volume of woodland between the edge of the wood and the ringing site would mitigate any potential problems. Fortunately, the wind did not become a factor until 11:00, by which time I was happy to shut the more exposed nets.

Having woken up at 5:30 GMT (please can we have BST all year round, as has often been proposed?), I was on site by 6:00 with all nets open before it was fully daylight. I set nets to the background of male and female Tawny Owls exchanging calls. It was a very easy and pleasant start to the morning. I set lures for Redwing, Lesser Redpoll, Siskin and Brambling.

The first birds hit the nets at 7:00: a retrapped Wren, a new Wren and two Redwing, responding to the lure set on the 3 x 18m ride. Another Redwing responded at 7:20, the only bird that round. There were no more and at 8:30 I changed the lure to Lesser Redpoll. Talking of which, after last year’s bumper crop of Lesser Redpoll at Webb’s Wood I am interested to see what we might catch this winter. The next round delivered two Goldcrest and the first Lesser Redpoll for Webb’s this winter. Later that was joined by another three, responding to lures on the single net and the double. Unfortunately, one other managed to get out of the net when it became stuck on a protruding twig. Vengeance was mine: that tree had a wee trim up.

At 8:30, soon after Laura and Adam had arrived came the birds of the morning:

Two juvenile male Brambling were caught immediately adjacent to the lure in the two net ride. Since we caught the first six for the Braydon Forest in February 2019 (five at Somerford Common, one at Ravensroost Wood), there were no records in 2020 and one bird ringed in Red Lodge and one recaptured in November 2011. So Brambling is still a very uncommon catch for us in the Braydon Forest, which explains why I was more than a little excited to catch another two this morning.

Whilst I was processing these birds we heard a loud bang, followed a few minutes later by another. I said that it was probably the deer stalkers and Laura said that they had passed another vehicle in the wood, which probably explained it.

After 9:00, with the weather being quite warm, I decided it would be okay to put the Goldcrest lure on the three-net ride. It did its usual trick and Goldcrest became the largest part of the catch.

It was never very busy, but every round produced a couple of birds and by the end of the morning I had processed 30 birds. The list for the morning was: Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 2; Great Tit 2; Coal Tit (1); Wren 2(1); Robin 3; Redwing 3; Goldcrest 7(2); Brambling 2; Lesser Redpoll 4. Totals: 26 birds ringed from 9 species and 4 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 30 birds processed from 10 species.

With the wind increasing significantly I shut the nets at 11:30. It took a fair while, with the three of us extracting hundreds of leaves from the three-net set and considerably fewer in the more exposed nets. How is it that, with the wind blowing from the south at least one third of the leaves were in the north side of the net? Having got all the nets shut and empty, I thanked Laura and Adam for their help, and said that I would finish off taking down. Five minutes later I got a call from Laura, on leaving the site the deerstalker had clearly decided to lock up after him / herself. I quickly finished clearing away and released them back into the wild and we were all away from site shortly after 12:30.

I had to move this session from Wednesday, because it was forecast to be windy and wet, and Tuesday was forecast to be somewhat less windy, and not wet until at least midday. I also wanted to move this session to Red Lodge, as that would offer some protection from the wind, but Forestry England’s permissions team were unable to confirm whether or not they had any work scheduled for today. Driving past, on my way home, I could not help but notice that there was no forestry work going on there. I am not a fan of bureaucracy.

Fortunately, the forecast had changed, with the wind not materialising until midday, and Blakehill Farm became a possibility again. I decided that the nets in the field behind the Whitworth building would be directly in the face of any wind that might spring up and, not fancying extracting nets from bramble and blackthorn, I decided to leave them out of the equation for this session.

Rosie was on hand to help me set up again, and we caught three birds in the first round: two Blackbirds and a Redwing, which she processed before heading off to work at 8:30. To say it was slow to start with would be a massive understatement. In fact, it was slow all morning, except for one round at 10:30, which delivered 17 birds.

I did rounds at 8:30, 8:50, 9:05, 9:20; 9:40, 10:05, 10:30, 10:50, 11:10 and 11:30. The rounds produced one bird at 8:50, one at 9:05, one at 9:20 and two at 11:10. Apart from that and the 10:30 round, nothing. The list comprised: Blue Tit 8(1); Long-tailed Tit 1(5); Robin 1(2); Redwing 1; Song Thrush 1; Blackbird 2; Lesser Redpoll 2 and Reed Bunting 1. Totals: 17 birds ringed from 8 species and 8 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 25 birds processed from 8 species.

The bird out of the net at 8:50 was a Lesser Redpoll: which is a nice catch for a site with minimal tree cover. That I caught another in the round at 11:10 was a very pleasant surprise. The highlight for me was a juvenile female Reed Bunting:

We do catch them regularly at the site, but mainly on the opposite side of the plateau. This was only the fifth for this area, and the first for 5 years, whereas our eastern site has delivered up 174 ringed in the same period.

The Long-tailed Tits were primarily recaptures of the flock caught at the last session two weeks ago, with one new bird. More surprisingly, given that they were previously caught with a flock of Blue Tits, the Blue Tits that they were caught with today were all new birds. The solitary retrapped Blue Tit was in the 11:10 round. The numbers of Blue and Long-tailed Tits are the key difference between this session and the one two weeks ago that delivered 59 birds.

All morning there were flocks of Redwing and Fieldfare flying around the site. Unfortunately, the Redwing lure (aka the Latvian love song) did not work its usual magic and the single Redwing extracted in the first round was the only one of the day.

I got to meet Nick Self, from the Wildlife Trust, and taking on the management responsibility for the northern reserves. We had a good chinwag, as I had plenty of time on my hands, and I think we are both singing from the same song sheet.

I closed the nets after the 11:30 round, and spent (a pleasant) 45 minutes removing the leaves from the nets as I was taking them down. I then packed up the ringing station and left site at 13:00.

This is a guest blog by Paul Irving: a naturalist and ringer based in north Wales. All views his own (but I just happen to agree with him 100%).

Some little while ago I wrote on Facebook about the success this year of Hen Harriers, that much maligned and persecuted raptor of our uplands. Since then I have requested more information from Natural England about this and got it. However, firstly let’s revisit the figures from the United Utilities estate in Bowland, which has, since 1981, had RSPB wardens monitoring these birds during the breeding season.

This year there were 13 attempts, with 11 successes rearing 39 chicks. That is a pair every 770 ha and a successful nest every 900 ha, with a mean of 3 chicks per attempt.

Now if our grouse moors had that sort of density and success rate (and in the natural world they should) that would be 387 successes out of 452 nests, rearing 1356 chicks. Rather better than what has actually happened.

Let’s look at grouse moors ( excluding United Utilities estates in Bowland):

On tenanted moors there were 7 nests, with 4 successes rearing 15 young.

On owned grouse moors without brood meddling and / or diversionary feeding:

Durham: 2 nests, 1 success, 1 fledged, 0.5 per attempt

Cumbria: 3 nests, 3 successes, 9 fledged, 3 per attempt

Lancashire: 3, nests 3, successes 7, fledged, 2.33 per attempt

North Yorkshire Moors: 2 nests 0 successes and 0 reared

On owned Grouse moors with brood meddling and/or diversionary feeding

Durham 1 nest, 1 success, 1 fledged, 1 per attempt

Cumbria: 1 nest, 1 success, 4 fledged, 4 per attempt

Lancashire: 1 nest, 1 success, 4 fledged, 4 per attempt

North Yorkshire Moors: 5 nests, 5 successes, 14 fledged, 2.8 per attempt

So, to me, both sets of Durham nests look highly suspicious: one might suggest illegal egg shaking as an explanation. The North Yorkshire nests without figures also look highly suspicious. Hardly 1000+ chicks from over 450 nests is it? WTF is the grouse shooting industry bragging for?

Away from grouse moors there were 9 attempts with 6 successes rearing 21 chicks 2.5 per attempt.

The moorland owners keep saying how good the figures for grouse moors are and, frankly, without United Utilities estates, with its RSPB wardening, or the awful brood meddling, or artificial diversionary feeding, they are clearly not. Remember that next time they brag about it. The other thing to note is that, of the failures on grouse moors, 8 were suspicious and reported to the police.

Also, on the Moorland Association website it puts forward the claim of 200 pairs of Merlins on grouse moors in North Yorkshire, which is about half the number found in the ’94 survey when the population was at an apparent peak. The real figure will be considerably less than 100 pairs I suggest.

*Editor’s Note: The following are my personal views, and are not necessarily shared by the other members of our ringing group.

For those not aware of the idea of brood meddling and diversionary feeding, these are the mechanisms within Natural England’s Hen Harrier Action Plan to try and stop grouse moor owners and their minions from breaking the law and illegally killing Hen Harriers. The Hen Harrier Action Plan was disowned by the RSPB, who were initially involved in the scheme, but left it once the details were announced and it became clear that its principal aim is to allow grouse moor owners to limit the number of Hen Harriers on their land to an arbitrarily determined density of one pair per 10 ha, and failed entirely to address the illegal actions associated with the industry. Brood meddling is the removal of chicks from the nest, to be reared elsewhere, and released away from the moors, in the hope that this wide-ranging species would not return to the area. Diversionary feeding is the provision of food for the adults feeding young, so that they don’t hunt for food and take the odd Red Grouse chick.

What Natural England’s plans are for stopping the illegal slaughter by these grouse moor criminals of Goshawks, Peregrines, Buzzards, Red Kites and Short-eared Owls has not yet been disclosed.

One last point: the RSPB manage their heather habitats needed by Red Grouse by mechanical means, rather than the quick and dirty, peat destroying, carbon dioxide and methane releasing, burning of the heather, as practised by most commercial grouse moors.

Since the beginning of 2013, I, and latterly, me and my team, have been ringing in the Braydon Forest woodlands, with the permission of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and Forestry England. The bulk of our catches over the years in the woodlands have been Blue Tit, Cyanistes caeruleus; followed by Great Tit, Parus major; and smaller numbers of Coal Tit, Periparus ater and fewer for Marsh Tit, Poecile palustris. Of them, we have ringed the following numbers of each species:

Whilst the numbers are as I would expect for the frequency of each in our catches, I decided to do a bit more digging into the figures. I wanted to have a look at how they divided up into adults and juveniles, and also look at the numbers processed per session. To be clear, and possibly a bit contentious to any other ringers, I have defined juveniles as those fledged within the year, plus those identifiable as fledged last year, prior to the start of the breeding season. These are age codes 3J, 3 and 5 in the BTO recording scheme. I also wanted to look at the trend in numbers ringed over the period. To do that, I counted the number of ringing sessions carried out in the Braydon Forest woodlands throughout the period. I used those figures to calculate the percentage of each species caught per session. What this is not looking at is survival / mortality rates. Many of the juveniles will not have survived their first winter. It is purely about trends in the numbers ringed.

For each species I graphed the numbers ringed per annum and the average number ringed per session. These were done for the total, adults and juveniles ringed. For each graph I also chose a trend line for the average ringed per session, to identify whether there were any significant changes over the period.

These were the total number of sessions per year:

Blue Tit:

The overall trend in ringing Blue Tits is stable. However, the juvenile trend is slightly on the increase and the adult trend is slightly on the decrease. Whilst I haven’t (yet) carried out any statistical testing, neither trend looks significant.

Great Tit:

Although there was a short spike in 2021, the overall trend for Great Tit ringing is downward. It would seem to be mainly a reduction in the ringing of adult birds, with a reduction from 1.4 to 0.4 over the period. That certainly looks like a significant reduction. Compare that with the juveniles, where the trend is much shallower: from 2.8 to 2.2. Overall, the reduction is from 4.3 to 3.7. Interestingly, I have looked at the catch for 2022 to date and they are quite interesting: 110 have been ringed so far this year, 98 juveniles and 12 adults. It looks like it will be very similar to 2021.

Coal Tit:

Again, the overall trend is a reducing one. However, in this case the key reduction is in the number of juvenile birds being ringed, from 1.30 to o.9. The adult trend is slightly positive, but at less than 0.02% per session, definitely unlikely to be significant. Overall, this gives a downward trend of 1.5 to 1.2.

Marsh Tit:

So to Marsh Tits, the least common titmouse in our catch. They are the only one of the four species that has shown a positive increase in frequency – albeit starting at a very low base. It has increased from 0.36 to 0.47. However, what is really weird about this is that the result for adults being ringed has shown a significant decrease, from 0.14 to 0.03, with juveniles showing an increase from 0.17 to 0.47. Obviously that is counter-intuitive, and could just be an anomaly based on the comparatively low catch of this species.

Conclusions: Obviously, the Blue Tit data is the most reliable simply because of the volume of data. That their figures seem to be stable across both juveniles and adults does rather fly in the face of the idea that their numbers are increasing significantly. This also ties in with the data from the BTO’s Breeding Bird Survey which shows zero change in results between 1995 and 2018.

Looking at the results for Great Tit, although the BBS doesn’t split between ages as I have, they show two distinct trends: overall from 1995 to 2018 their population has increased by 36% in England but the recent trend, from 2008 to 2018, there has been a reduction of 5%. This rather reflects what is being illustrated by our data.

The downward trend in Coal Tits is not reflected in the national figures, with the BTO Bird Trends showing an increase of 9% to 10% in England, as opposed to our decrease of approximately 16% over the same period in the Braydon Forest. This is possibly down to changes in habitat: with Forestry England replacing much of the non-indigenous conifers in the Forest with native broadleaved trees as part of their management plan for the Forest.

Marsh Tits are well known as a species in trouble, with huge population decreases since 1995 of over 37%. Many theories have been put forward as to why. For a species that is largely sedentary, habitat loss and fragmentation is bound to have had a major impact. We have only ever had one Marsh Tit recovered more than 1km away from where it was ringed: one ringed in Webb’s Wood and recovered in Red Lodge about 5 years ago. The upturn in numbers does correspond with a recently noted upsurge in both England and the UK since 2016.