Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond

On Wednesday of last week, I decided that it was time I ran my first full session since my spinal operation. Not wanting to overdo it, I decided to set just 4 x 18m nets in Ravensroost Woods along the main track north of the public bridleway. Rosie, as ever, came along to help me set up, and stayed until she had to go off to work at 8:00. We met at 6:00 and had the nets open at 6:30. We caught three birds in between opening the nets and Rosie leaving for work : a Treecreeper, a Robin and a Blue Tit. Unfortunately, those were the only birds, caught until I got fed up and packed away at 10:00.

So to today. Nobody was available to help me over the weekend, but Ellie said that, as she was working from home on Monday, she could come and help me set up and do some ringing until just before 9:00 and, even better, come back at 12:30 to help me pack away at the end of the session, whilst having her various meetings in between. We met at 6:00 and had the nets open by 7:30. There was a bit of a wait before things started to move, and we didn’t catch our first birds until just before 8:00. It was never the busiest session: four or five birds per round but it was enjoyable, although the last hour, when packing away, was too hot. Next time I will start an hour earlier and finish an hour earlier.

Just before Ellie had to leave, she came back with a pair of juvenile Bullfinch from what is designated ride 2. The very next round, from the same ride and the same net, I extracted another couple of them. I am pretty sure that they were all four from the same brood.

It was a varied catch but, like my other sites this year, no sign of Whitethroat or Lesser Whitethroat. It is a little concerning. The top bird of the morning was a very fresh, young, Reed Bunting. It was the first of that age that we have caught at the site for over three years.

The list for the day was: Treecreeper [1]; Blue Tit [1]; Great Tit [2]; Long-tailed Tit 1; Wren [2](1); Dunnock (2); Robin [6](2); Blackbird (2); Blackcap [7](1); Garden Warbler [1]; Chiffchaff [1]; Willow Warbler [1]; Bullfinch [4]; Reed Bunting [1]. Totals: 27 juveniles ringed from 11 species; 1 bird ringed of indeterminate age (the Long-tailed Tit was too far gone through its moult to tell adult or juvenile apart) and 8 birds recaptured from 5 species. Of the recaptured birds the Dunnocks, Robin and Wren were also juveniles.

A couple of photos to finish. The first is a juvenile Blackcap in the last throes of its post-fledging moult: the head is showing black feathers coming through the juvenile brown on the head, identifying it as a male:

The second is a bird I find particularly difficult to photograph: a Treecreeper. I have settled on a wing shot to show up the key diagnostic feature for distinguishing juveniles from adults once they have completed the post-fledging moult:

The reason I find them so difficult to photograph is that, with their down-curved bill and habitually humped shoulders, they always look so miserable and I have had quite enough of others making negative comments about photos of birds in the hand (usually other ringers, they aren’t all as relaxed and easy going as me).

We got cleared away and left site by 13:15: in time for Ellie to get back to her first meeting of the afternoon and me to get home and realise I have a way to go yet before I am fully fit again.

What a month! The headline has to be Jonny’s Icterine Warbler at Langford Lakes.  An absolutely stunning catch: only the fourth record of the species in the county.  The first was a bird heard singing back in June 1944!  The second, and first one of the species ringed, was near Longbridge Deverill in August 2009.  The next was ringed by Graham’s team on SPTA in August 2020 and now the first for the West Wilts group was at Langford Lakes on the 23rd July.

The results for the month were:

As you can see, the average catches were much larger but the variety was somewhat lower.  Missing were Barn Owl, Carrion Crow, Grasshopper Warbler, Nuthatch, Skylark, Coal Tit, Grey Wagtail, Tree Pipit and Whinchat.  Interestingly, the Carrion Crow and Nuthatches were caught and ringed in Biss Wood, the Grey Wagtails at Langford Lakes, the Coal Tits at Webb’s Wood, the Tree Pipit at New Zealand Farm and the Grasshopper Warbler, Skylarks and Whinchat were all at Ladywell in the Imber Valley.  What I don’t understand is why this site is visited so rarely: just three times since 2017! In my mind there is a serious issue over the allocation and utilisation of sites on Salisbury Plain. I have asked the Defence Infrastructure Organisation on a couple of occasions what their strategy is for monitoring habitats and wildlife on the Plain. To me it is piecemeal and unstructured and pretty much worse than useless for managing the area. Their response was to complain to the BTO that I was harassing them. I won’t say any more on this other than to confirm that the BTO were not supportive and the likelihood of me ever getting the chance to carry out my usual consistent surveys, reporting and analysis to the landowners is not going to happen anywhere on Salisbury Plain any time soon.

The lack of Barn Owls is entirely down to my being out of action from the 7th of the month until I managed a small session at the Ravensroost Meadow pond on Saturday. That was a weird session: all of the Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroat that were there in good number at the end of May were completely missing from the site. It is hard to understand when, given the weather, the site has excellent nesting habitat, water and insects galore to feed their young.  I wonder what the cause was?  Given that Lesser Whitethroat were missing from my site, it was one of the species caught this year that was not caught last July.

This year we added the aforementioned Icterine Warbler, more Canada Geese and Lesser Whitethroat.  Why the massive increase in numbers? Simply: Blackcap and Chiffchaff numbers were massively improved over last year.  Increased numbers of Cetti’s Warbler and twice as many Wren as last year,  Amongst the retrapped birds, the key increase was in the number of Blue and Great Tit recaptures. So we averaged nearly 20 birds more per session.

As mentioned, I have been incapacitated due to spinal problems, an operation, and then a bout of sciatica, which has just about gone now, but has severely impacted on my activities and will continue to do so for a few weeks yet.  So, thanks to Jonny for taking on two of my CES sessions.  Hopefully enough of my team will be available to help me through the three remaining sessions.

We are also saying au revoir to Alice.  I am delighted to say that she has been awarded her S-permit, and will be teaming up with Oliver Padgett to create the Oxford Ringing Group.  It has been an absolute delight having her as a trainee, and I am so pleased for her achievement. Who’s next?

This was my first session out since my spinal operation on the 12^th July. It was a bit of an experiment to see how I / my body would cope. The first few outings I have had have been more than a little sore. My post-op regime, proposed by the hospital’s physio department, has been regular 20 minutes sitting and then a brief period of exercise, and repeat. That pretty well sums up a bird ringing session: 20 minutes sitting and processing the birds before carrying out the next extraction round.

I had the estimable Rosie come along to help me set up, before disappearing to work, and David joined me for the whole session. Trevor, his dad, arrived in time to help us with the taking down. All in all, I coped pretty well, except for the last 10 minutes of taking down the nets, which meant I was on my feet for about 40 minutes, and I felt it. That rather draws the line under what I am currently capable of.

To the session itself. It was rather odd: where have all of the Whitethroat disappeared to? They were very obvious by their presence in my last session there in late May. Lots of evidence for breeding and, on this date two years ago, we caught ten of them: nine juveniles and one adult. In fact, the same can be said for Lesser Whitethroat, same number at the last session in May and none around today.

The list was actually dominated by juvenile Wrens, as follows: Blue Tit [2]; Wren [5]; Dunnock 2; Robin [2]; Blackcap 2[1]; Chiffchaff 1(1). Totals: 5 adults ringed from 3 species, 10 juveniles ringed from 4 species and 1 bird retrapped, making a total of 16 birds processed from 6 species. Not the biggest catch but, as David hasn’t been out for over a month and me for two weeks, it was enough.

We had a lure of for Swallow, and there were plenty skimming the fields, but they weren’t dropping in for a drink and they missed the causeway net. That net did provide a Chiffchaff, two Blue Tits and a Wren. It also provided a Chaffinch, with the worst case of Fringilla papillomavirus that I have seen for a very long time.

After David and Trevor had carried all of the kit back to the car for me, I had a sit to enjoy the peace and quiet (and recover a bit) watching the Swallows, when the tranquility was disturbed by the agitated calling of a Jay. For the few minutes I was treated to this Jay making life very uncomfortable for a female Sparrowhawk. A very fine finish to a quiet but enjoyable session.

Jonny once again stepped in to run my CES for me whilst I continue my recovery. Ellie joined him first thing, until she had to leave for work at 9:30, and I put in an appearance between 9:00 and 10:00, thanks to my lovely wife, Lilian, driving me to site.

It was nice to ring a few birds again, especially when one of them was my team’s first (of two) newly fledged Bullfinch for the year. Jonny beat us to it, with one on his Sutton Benger site 5 days ago, but it is always a good catch.

I love the way they look at you, so indignant.

This year’s catch was considerably better than the equivalent session last year (24 birds from 12 species) compared to this year’s 55 birds from 16 species. The list was: Treecreeper [2](1); Blue Tit 1[2](2); Long-tailed Tit [1](1); Wren [2]; Dunnock [1](1); Robin [1](2); Song Thrush 1[1]; Blackbird (2); Cetti’s Warbler (1); Blackcap 1[5](1); Garden Warbler [1]; Whitethroat [1]; Chiffchaff 1[16](2); Willow Warbler [2]; Chaffinch [1]; Bullfinch [2]. Totals: 4 adults ringed from 4 species, 38 juveniles ringed from 14 species and 13 birds retrapped from 9 species, making 55 birds processed from 16 species. Of the retrapped birds, 6 were juveniles from 4 species, so the total number of juveniles processed was 44.

We left Jonny to it and wandered over to the Dragonfly Cafe for coffee and cake – only the cakes hadn’t arrived yet! I had to settle for a toasted teacake, which was very nice. As we were getting ready to leave, the cakes arrived! I resisted!

Jonny carried on for the rest of the session and packed up by midday. Hopefully, I will be able to do the next few myself, as I plan to start ringing again on Saturday: which should mean I can start doing some proper blogs again, instead of waffling on!

Jonny was ringing this weekend at one of his sites. The site is not open to the public, and the landowner does not want the site named. As, according to the records, this is only the fourth record for the species in Wiltshire and it is a sensitive site, the caution is warranted.

The other records are interesting. Wiltshire’s first record was near Salisbury on the 11^th June 1944. This bird was identified by song, rather than by observation or catching for ringing. Our second record was a bird caught and ringed in August 2009 near Longbridge Deverill. Most recently, one was caught and ringed by the North Wiltshire group on the Salisbury Plain Training Area on the 16^th August 2020. Thanks to Rob Turner for providing this information.

So to this bird. I was sitting at home, unfortunately still housebound after my operation, when I saw I had a missed call from Jonny. I called him back and, after a bit of phone tennis, we had a chat. He was, rightly, so excited. As he put it, he was extracting birds, a number of Phylloscopus warblers, when he noticed that one was somewhat larger and, although the plumage was superficially similar, different to what he had handled before.

He had already done the hard work, taking all of the appropriate biometrics, as follows:

1. Wing Length: 79mm (75 – 83mm)*
2. Weight: 14.2g
3. Tail Length: 54mm (49 – 55mm)*
4. Tail / Wing Ratio: 68.4% (62 – 71%)*
5. Bill Length: 16.2mm (15 – 17.5mm)*
6. Distal Bill Length: 9.2mm
7. Proximal Bill Length: 5.0mm
8. Tarsus length: 21mm (19.5 – 22mm)*

* Reed and Bush Warblers: Peter Kennerley and David Pearson, illustrated by Brian Small. Helm Identification Guides, 2010

Jonny and I had a long discussion about ageing the bird and hadn’t come to any firm conclusions. He then sent me over a number of his photographs, a selection follows:

I have to say that this first photograph gave me some concerns regarding ageing the bird: is that barring a natural part of its plumage or are they fault bars. If the latter, it would strongly indicate that it is a bird of this year. However, there is also a fair amount of wear on the retrices, which would indicate adult. However, Jonny then sent over a picture of the wing:

This photograph is almost identical to the photograph of a post-breeding adult Icterine Warbler in Jenni & Winkler’s second edition of “Moult and Ageing of European Passerines”, Fig. 233 pp 146, with wear on P5 to P9, counting descendantly from the outside. Interesting, but we settled on it being an adult bird. If anyone with more experience of the species (this is only the second I have seen: the other was one I ringed on Skokholm in 2015) has any information regarding ageing of this bird, please contact me through the blog feedback.

A great find and hopefully ringing it will generate more data on its future movements. It would be too much to hope that it might be recaptured next year.

This is a truncated report, as I wasn’t there to join in. After several months of pain, I was in hospital yesterday having a wonderful procedure called a lumbar decompression of L4 and L5. They were going to carry out a discectomy, if it wasn’t too badly fused, as I also have a prolapsed spinal disc in that region. Unfortunately, it remains but the pain has gone. The story of how I got to the point of being operated on is the stuff of nightmares and not for a nice blog about bird ringing. All I will say is that the recent introduction of a clinical pathway for spinal pain seems designed to delay diagnosis, start treatment before they have diagnosed the problem, possibly making things worse, and making you suffer as long as possible before treatment.

Jonny Cooper very kindly has offered to carry out the next couple of CES session whilst I recover, as I am not allowed to drive for a couple of weeks and not allowed any heavy lifting for 6 to 8 weeks. With the weather looking too hot for the end of the week, he decided to carry out the session Wednesday. He was worked solo, and was active by 5:45, having driven over from Chippenham to get set up, and proceeded to catch a smallish haul for the day. The key difference between this session’s catch and the last catch was the complete absence of Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tits from this catch. However, it was a much better catch than the equivalent session last year, when only 21 birds were caught. The key is that there are more juvenile birds around this year.

The catch this session was: Treecreeper 1; Wren [7](1); Dunnock [1](1); Robin [6](2); Blackbird [1]; Cetti’s Warbler [2]; Reed Warbler 1; Blackcap 1[4](2); Garden Warbler [1]; Chiffchaff 2[1](1); Willow Warbler 1. Totals: 6 adults ringed from 5 species, 23 juveniles ringed from 8 species and 7 birds retrapped from 5 species. Of the retrapped birds, the Blackcap and the Robins were also juveniles.

Jonny brought the session at 11:45 because only mad dogs and Englishmen stay out in the midday sun. Hang on – he’s English, clearly not mad though. Thanks Jonny.

Before getting into the meat of today’s session, just a couple of small updates.

Ravensroost Wood: Monday, 4th July 2022: my plan for the wood this year is to do sessions in different parts of the wood, as I now have more access to other sections of the wood now. This Monday, Rosie and I set 5 x 18 m nets along ride 30. I used to set nets along this ride regularly and the catch was always decent. However, things change over time and after three birds in three hours I knew that horse was well and truly dead and any additional flogging would be a waste of time.

I arranged with Alice to meet up Tuesday afternoon to put up a delayed Barn Owl box. It is a new one in a completely new position on Lower Pavenhill Farm. I had also agreed to put up a Little Owl box built by the owner of Somerford Common, and we planned to do that as well. I had also hoped to check a couple of Barn Owl boxes but the famer contacted me to let me know that he had just moved livestock into the areas where the boxes are, so could I hold off for a few days. Alice was still happy to make the trip done from Oxford to help with the boxes. We got the boxes up. For the Barn Owl box we were accompanied by a significant number of horses. Not a problem, except for the wanting to bump into the ladders and lick the car to death. I now have some very nice slobber patterns on the windows and bodywork. In comparison to the Belted Galloways I would say the horses are better: the Belties also like to give your car a good rubbing with their hairy coats and are not particularly careful about where they poo. As a potential reward for her help, I remembered that one of the Barn Owl boxes we had checked a few weeks ago, whilst having one failed brood of Stock Doves, had actually a warm egg in the nest, so we went to check on that to see if the bird had hatched and was of a size whereby it could be ringed:

This is Alice’s first Stock Dove pullus. It had just started to grow its flight feathers and was quickly returned to the sanctity of its box.

So to this morning and CES session 7. I was joined by Rosie and Miranda for the session and, although the catch wasn’t as big as last weeks, it did follow a similar pattern with a few birds at the start and end of the session, with one big fall in the middle making up the bulk of the birds. It compared very favourably with the equivalent session last year, when a mere 16 birds were caught from 12 species. Rosie did her usual of helping set up and ringing a few birds before heading off to do a day’s work for the Trust.

What we are definitely seeing this year is that Blue Tits and Great Tits have had a decent breeding season. However, the highlights for me were threefold: the first juvenile Garden Warbler and Cetti’s Warbler of the year plus a retrapped female Green Woodpecker, ringed as an adult last year. She was caught in the wildlife refuge area: the ant hills we trip over whilst putting up the nets are clearly what attracts her in. Hopefully we will catch her youngsters later in the summer.

Garden Warblers are one of my favourite birds: they look so ordinary, with no flashy distinguishing markings, but I just think they look wonderfully understated, classy:

The first Cetti’s Warbler ever ringed at Lower Moor Farm was in July 2018. I checked with the previous ringer when we caught it and he had never heard them at the site, let alone caught one. Since then we had ringed 7 adults and 14 juveniles, so they are a consistent presence on the site now. This was our first juvenile of the year. It played a bit hard to get on the photograph, continually closing its eye so it didn’t have to look at me but, by repeated shooting, I managed to get one decent shot for the blog. It was only a couple of minutes before it was released and flew off strongly into the hedgerows:

The list for the day was: Green Woodpecker (1); Treecreeper [2](1); Blue Tit [11](1); Great Tit [5](1); Long-tailed Tit [3]; Wren 1[2]; Robin [2](1); Blackbird [1](1); Cetti’s Warbler [1]; Blackcap [2]; Garden Warbler [1]; Chiffchaff [3](2); Willow Warbler [3]; Bullfinch 1(1). Totals: 2 adults ringed from 2 species, 36 juveniles ringed from 12 species and 9 birds retrapped from 8 species, making 47 birds processed from 14 species.

All in all, a very satisfactory morning’s ringing but, also, a very pleasant morning’s birding: Great White Egret; multiple Kingfishers buzzing around the site and, perhaps oddest of all, what I am sure was a Common Sandpiper that perched on a branch in full view on the island just in front of the Lower Moor Farm farmhouse. Visible through my binoculars but, for once, I wished that I had packed my scope!

Although the forecast for the day was for it to be clear and sunny, it was warm with quite a lot of cloud cover. It was fine for ringing but it was very sweaty when packing away at the end of the session. With the birdlife having dropped off at about 10:45, we started packing away at 11:30 and left site soon after.

Another little record for us this month – improving on last year’s catch which was, at that point, our best June result since the great schism in January 2013.  It could have been a lot more but Jonny spent a week in Iceland in the middle of the month, Alice has been busy  carrying out fieldwork for her PhD and, due to my recurring crippling illness episodes, I had to cancel four sessions this month. I had an MRI scan this morning so, hopefully, after 5 months they might be able to diagnose what the problem is and come up with an appropriate therapy, rather than just bouncing me around more and more addictive / strong painkillers (the morphine is my favourite so far).  One downside of my condition is that, for the first time, I missed a CES session outside of the Covid restricted 2020.

The thing that stands out most to me is that we caught 44 different species this month.  Normally we wouldn’t get near that except during autumn migration.  Jonny got his hands on some more Canada Geese, and we had Sparrowhawk, Goldcrest, Meadow Pipit, Kingfisher and Siskin in addition to last year but were down one Water Rail, making a nett 5 species difference.

The main difference between this year and last is the improvement in the catch of our resident Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tits and Robins.  Apart from Blackcaps, which showed a strong improvement on last year, all other summer visiting warbler species numbers were down on last year.

One major knockback this month was the loss of a brood of Barn Owls. Our most consistent, most dilapidated box in the condemned barn in Avis Meadows which has produced young every year. When checked at the end of May we found two naked chicks and two eggs, one of which was in the process of hatching, they were clearly not ready for ringing, so we left them alone. We went to check the box three weeks later, hoping to ring four chicks, only to find the box completely empty. I have no idea what predator would have carried that out. There were no obvious signs to indicate whether avian or mammalian. Despite that, we did manage to ring 14 Barn Owl chicks and one adult Barn Owl this month, we also ringed ten juvenile Swallows and one juvenile House Sparrow, all of which have subsequently fledged successfully.

To say that this year’s CES has been a bit of a struggle would be an understatement. I had to miss CES3 due to a combination of illness and bad weather. This morning we had to curtail our session early because the wind got up and rendered it potentially dangerous for catching birds, not to ignore the fun of extracting nets from the surrounding vegetation. However, in the short time we had the nets open (5:30 until 9:45) we actually caught and processed significantly more birds than in the equivalent session last year.

I was joined for the session by Rosie and two Lucy’s (or should that be “Lucies”?). Lucy M, back from her work on Ascension Island monitoring and working on turtle conservation, stopping off for a morning’s ringing, before heading north to take up her new role as a reserve warden at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Caerlaverock: just a wee jaunt up to Scotland. Also Lucy O who is currently volunteering with the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and has joined in with some of the Barn Owl checking (see previous post) and Swallow nest checking in the last couple of weeks.

We had the nets open nice and early, with four sets of hands to help, and started catching immediately. The first couple of rounds were light and productive. Star bird of the morning was:

My team’s first Sparrowhawk of the year. Although it didn’t have particularly obvious heart-shaped markings on the breast, it was very definitely a juvenile male. The biometric measurements showed it was a male and the brown colouration, particularly around the nape of the neck, was indicative of its age. There were a couple of grey feathers on the upper tail coverts but nowhere else.

Everything changed at 8:30. In our net ride that runs along the edge of Mallard Lake we had a fall of, primarily, Blue Tits and Long-tailed Tits plus a few Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and the odd other species representative: over 40 birds in three nets. The catch was: Sparrowhawk [1]; Treecreeper [1](1); Blue Tit [16]; Great Tit [6}; Long-tailed Tit [10](2); Wren [4]; Dunnock [1](1); Robin [2](1); Blackbird 1; Cetti’s Warbler (1); Blackcap [1](1); Garden Warbler 1; Chiffchaff [5](1); Willow Warbler [2]. Totals: 2 adults ringed from 2 species, 49 juveniles ringed from 11 species and 8 birds retrapped from 7 species, making 59 birds processed from 14 species. In fact, even the two retrapped Long-tailed Tits were juveniles, ringed at the last session there on the 15th June.

Once we had finished processing that lot, the breeze had got up and I decided we needed to shut the nets, bringing a premature end to the session. It was the right decision, the wind was just getting stronger and there were no pockets left in the nets. With three of us to take down, Rosie having left to actually go to work for the day, it didn’t take long to get everything sorted, so, we were off site by just after 10:00. At least that gave Lucy M plenty of time for her long journey north!

Last year was our best year for Barn Owls in the Braydon Forest and my part of north Wiltshire. I have a special Schedule 1 licence issued by the BTO, on behalf of Natural England, to monitor the nesting attempts of Barn Owls and to ring their offspring. We monitored 18 boxes of which 8 successfully produced 26 Barn Owl young that fledged. We also ringed one adult female in another roost box. We never found where she was nesting. One thing I learned about Barn Owls last year is that the parents occupy the nest whilst the young are small, but once they are fully downy the parents roost elsewhere. We also found two Stock Dove nests in new Barn Owl boxes, each with one chick, both of which were ringed and fledged. Two of the boxes were occupied by Jackdaws. We missed the youngsters at Blakehill Farm but ringed two youngsters that later fledged from a box near Somerford Common. We had five unoccupied boxes and one which had four cold Barn Owl eggs. We checked it again six weeks later and they were still there and cold. That was our only real failure of the year.

Over the winter I purchased a number of replacement boxes. The Wildlife Trust have done a great job of replacing worn out, falling apart boxes but these were for our private landowner sites. I did try for a grant to help finance it but, to be frank, the Community Landfill Trust really aren’t interested in dealing with an individual and, despite the BTO being extremely helpful, in the end it got so onerous that I decided to just fund them myself. At this point, a huge thank you to Vivara Pro who honoured the quotation they had given me way back in July 2021 when I started looking into this process.

We managed to replace eight of them before I was struck down with a crippling issue that has dogged my ringing activities ever since. The three boxes I have in the Wiltshire side of Waterhay, in the fields around Upper Waterhay Farm, were replaced and we added one new one. A big thank you to Andy Rumming, who not only helped me with the four boxes on their farm, but when he found out that I had paid for them myself offered to contribute towards the cost. When I demurred, he insisted on giving me a box of the grass-fed beef that he produces. What can I say? Definitely better than money – the best beef I have ever tasted: https://www.andyrummingsbeef.co.uk/

With the help of Tanya, then working for the Wildlife Trust, we managed to replace four of the boxes within the Braydon Forest before she departed for the wilds of Shropshire and a new job.

Jonny and I did a round at the end of May checking on the five boxes in the Ravensroost complex. The grotty, dilapidated box in the condemned barn did, as usual, have a brood. It comprised 2 naked young, plus one egg in the process of hatching and one egg. They were clearly in no position to be ringed so we secured the box and left. We caught an adult male in the vicinity in a hand net: unringed and therefore new to us.

Of the other boxes in the Ravensroost complex, one was empty, another had two Stock Dove eggs, but they were cold. We left them in place, just in case she hadn’t started brooding them yet, and the third had a couple of Stock Dove chicks in it. They were of a size to be ringed, so we did.

We then visited our boxes at Blakehill Farm. There had been a lot of reports that a Kestrel was using the box nearest the farmyard. Unfortunately, it was completely empty. The other box held a brood of Jackdaws, which we were able to ring. Their primary feathers were half-grown. By now they will have fledged. I will check on that quite soon. I will be hoping that the empty box is now hosting Barn Owls.

This year, as well as the Barn Owl boxes, we decided to monitor the Swallow nests in the stable block at Clattinger Farm. Rosie, Lucy and I did a check on the Swallow nests on the 10th June. There were five active nests, one of which was inaccessible. For three of them the young were all too small to be ringed yet, one nest enabled us to ring the three chicks (one for each of us). Whilst we were ringing those birds we noticed something scurrying along the floor. It turned out to be a fledgling House Sparrow who had departed the nest a bit prematurely. This drew our attention to another nest in which one remaining House Sparrow was sitting. We were able to ring it, but it then flew off quite strongly, which made me wonder how we managed to catch it in the first place.

After checking on the Swallows we headed off to check on the Waterhay owl boxes. The results were interesting. We approached the Chancel box first and two Jackdaws flew out. Checking the box it was clear that they had taken it over for the year. I didn’t know if they had already bred and their youngsters had fledged, or if they were preparing to lay, so we left it as it was. The next box, a couple of fields further over from the Chancel, was, as usual, occupied by Barn Owls. There were three small owlets in the box. Far too small for ringing. The third box, behind the paddock, had four owlets, one of which was large enough to ring:

On the 14th June, Rosie and I visited the five owl boxes in the Firs / Wood Lane area. The Plain Farm box had three owlets which were ready for ringing. The Drill Farm boxes and the Echo Lodge box were all empty but the Home Farm Barn box never lets us down and we ringed four downy owlets.

Rosie and I returned to check on the Swallows again on the 20th June. They were much more developed. The birds from the inaccessible nest had fledged, as had the young from one of the other nests. They were either sitting on the rafters still waiting for their parents to feed them or out foraging but frequently returning to the stable block for a rest. We were able to ring the young from the other two nests, a total of eight ringed. They were at the stage known as “feathers medium”, i.e. the primary feathers were two-thirds grown, but they will be fledging within the next few days.

Having dealt with the Swallows, we then went back to the Ravensroost complex to check on the boxes to see how they had progressed. We first went to the box we knew had owls in it, and were devastated to find it completely empty: no sign of the chicks or the eggs, except for half an eggshell in the box. Clearly the entire brood had been predated. What by, I have no idea. The Stock Dove box with the two cold eggs still had those eggs but in another corner of the box was a warm egg. We removed the infertile eggs, leaving the other to, hopefully, produce a youngster.

On the 22nd June I met up with the owners of Gospel Oak Farm to check on his two boxes. One of those produced three young last year with the second box being used as a roost by the parents. This year is very different: the box with owlets had a Stock Dove fly out as we approached it and when I checked there were two warm eggs in the box. The box used as a roost last year was occupied by a female adult. There wasn’t much sign of multiple occupancy, but the owners did say that they had seen both adults roosting in the trees around the edge of the field, and that they had both been observed hunting across the fields.

Finally, for this post, Rosie and I revisited the Waterhay boxes. The new box is empty and clearly hasn’t been found yet. The Chancel box is deserted but was one-third full of Jackdaw nesting material, so I cleaned it out. Hopefully the Barn Owls might use it for a second brood. The next box still had three owlets, and some cached voles in the box. However, one of them was still very small and we decided it was likely to end up as food for its siblings so didn’t ring it. We did ring the three remaining owlets in the box behind the paddock.

It looks as though we might well be on the way to matching last year for Barn Owls, Stock Doves and Jackdaws. Regardless, there will be a lot to do between now and the end of the year.