Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond

A bright and early, and cold, start to a session at the Firs this morning (I had to de-ice the car before setting off at 5:45!). Whilst the catch wasn’t huge, it turned into a lovely session: a combination of good birds, good company and lovely calm, sunny weather. Apparently the big chill hits tomorrow!

I set my usual nets down the central glade: 3 x 18m from the bottom of the slope to the ponds and then 3 x 18m and 1 x 12m on the opposite side of the glade, down to near the end. Having set the nets I thought there was still a bit of a gap that needed filling, so I put an additional 9m net at the far end of the ride. It turned out to be a fortuitous decision.

My first round was just before 7:00 and the first two birds out of the net were a pair of Treecreepers. I say “pair” with some deliberacy on this occasion: they were extracted from the same net, the same shelf in the net, they were immediately next door to each other and one was a male and the other a female, so my determinations is that they are almost certainly a breeding pair. That I took them out of the net at a 90 degree angle to where I have put up a Treecreeper nest box gives me hope that they might consider using it. We shall see. The first round also delivered a retrapped Chiffchaff. I identified it as a female with a developing brood patch, and was delighted to find when I entered the data up this afternoon that it was ringed last year as an adult female. I might be wrong but I am consistent.

The morning was never very busy, but I don’t expect it to be at this time of year. I removed the feeding station last week so the titmice have dispersed, the resident species are busy establishing breeding territories and the summer visitors are arriving slowly at present. Which is a roundabout way of saying that over the course of the morning I only caught one Blue Tit and three Great Tits and no other Paridae (or Aegithalidae come to that).

About 9:00 I was joined by Annie and her daughter, Elara. They stayed for a couple of hours. This was only the second time Annie had been out since Elara arrived 19 months ago, so I reintroduced her to the delights of handling and ringing birds. I eased Annie in gently by giving her a couple of male Blackcaps to process. Elara was fascinated by the birds, particularly watching them fly: an instruction she gave them each time one was released! Annie got her to say the names of the birds as they were processed. She managed Robin and Blackcap came out as “Cap”. It was a lovely interlude.

After they left I decided that I would check the nets and, if empty, close them up. One of the things you can rely on is that, if you have a long section of nets stretching down the entire length of the glade, even if there are no birds in the nets nearest to the ringing station, there will be one in the net furthest away. On this last round there was a female Blackbird in the second net and a solitary warbler in the very end net: the 9m net that I had added to the ride as an afterthought / filler. I was delighted to find that this last bird in the last net was the first Willow Warbler of the year:

A lovely specimen in good body condition and carrying a reasonable amount of weight for a newly arrived migrant. I couldn’t remember having a Willow Warbler this early before and so I looked up the records before starting this write up: this is the earliest we have ever caught a Willow Warbler since the group was constituted under its current structure, 1st January 2013. Mind you, I did find out that it is by just one day, as I caught one on the 5th April 2017 at Lower Moor Farm and another on the 6th April 2019 at Somerford Common. Still, it is the earliest by any of the current team.

The list for the day was: Nuthatch (1); Treecreeper 2; Blue Tit (1); Great Tit 1(2); Wren 1(1); Robin 3(1); Blackbird 3; Blackcap 5; Chiffchaff 3(1); Willow Warbler 1. Totals: 19 birds ringed from 8 species and 7 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 26 birds processed from 10 species.

The morning was full of bird song and drumming. The Great Spotted Woodpeckers were in full force all morning, with the occasional Yaffle joining the throng. First thing though, there was a tremendous row from the northern end of the wood: the Jackdaws were going ballistic, a lot of calling and a lot of mobbing. I can only think that some poor Tawny Owl hadn’t found itself a nice secluded place to roost.

After a very satisfying morning’s “work” I packed up and left site by 13:15. It is hard work setting up and taking down when going solo – especially at the Firs. It might be a small wood but don’t be fooled by the two-dimensional map, it has a very decent 100m slope down to and, therefore, up from, the central glade. By the time you have done a dozen net rounds, including two journeys carrying, as I was this morning, 20 x 1.8m aluminium net poles, it is hard work. The total distance covered is in the region of 6km, of which 1.2km is up a reasonably steep gradient. For a fat old pensioner that is the very definition of hard work!

One year on from the first lockdown, we have been pretty busy. The lockdown / Covid-19 requirements have certainly changed the team dynamic, with far more solo work going on.  As we currently have 6 C-permit holders and 3 A-permit holders there is a lot of scope for ringing sessions. That said, we carried out only 5 more sessions than in March of last year.  Looking back to last year’s records, we were confined to barracks after the 23rd March, so we had most of the month to get out to our usual sites.  Last March was our best since the 2013 split, and this March was better than that.  Here are the results:

Whilst the average ringed per session was down, the number of retraps were considerably higher.  The significant numbers seem to be the increase in retrapped Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tits.  Whilst I am always surprised at just how many new Blue and Great Tits we catch in the woods over winter, given how regularly those woodlands are ringed throughout the year, I noticed the change in proportion of retraps with my sessions, and particularly with Great Tits at the Firs and Red Lodge, and then Jonny’s sessions at Green Lane Wood and Meadow Farm tell the same story.

There was a significant difference in the numbers of Chiffchaff and Blackcap arriving on site between last year and this.  In March 2020 we had just the two Blackcaps, in March 2019 we had one and in March 2018 none at all.  What was particularly pleasing was catching a female at Lower Moor Farm yesterday. That is the earliest I have caught one at any of my sites.  Jonny also caught one at his Meadow Farm site the same day, and one at Green Lane Wood on the 29th.  I think we can be confident that these last two birds were birds arriving (comparatively low body weights) as opposed to over-wintering birds about to leave. Andrew caught a female in his garden on 7th of this month but she weighed in at 21.2g, which suggests she was fattened up ready to leave. Similarly Jonny had one in his parent’s garden on the 24/03/2020 and that also weighed in at over 20g (20.1g). in fact, his one in Green Lane Wood weighed in at 19.8g: incoming or outgoing?  His Meadow Farm bird weighed in at 15.4g and my Lower Moor Farm bird at 17.7g, which suggests arrivals for this breeding season.
As far as the Chiffchaffs go, this is also our best March catch:

Let’s hope for a decent breeding season for both of these species.  Their numbers have definitely been down at Lower Moor Farm and in the Forest over recent years.  

There was a nice increase in the numbers of Treecreeper and Song Thrush. On a bit of a trend: our best March for Treecreeper. 

This is quite surprising given that two sites where Treecreeper is a regular catch are currently off limits:  I am not working in Ravensroost Wood, because of the huge increase in footfall in the wood since people started using it for their lockdown walks, nor Webb’s Wood, because they are carrying out a massive thinning exercise and the track is only passable with a high clearance off-road vehicle. 

Spring has arrived – hopefully next month will see an expansion in the number and variety of species in our sites.

Taking advantage of the lovely weather forecast for today I headed for Lower Moor Farm. It was surprisingly balmy at 5:45 when I left the house. Since the onset of lockdown last year my activity at Lower Moor Farm has been restricted to the wildlife refuge area. However, having discussed it with Ellie Jones, the Reserves Manager, I have been given access to the old Heronry ride, not that the heronry exists any more by the looks of it, as that is currently designated out of bounds to the public. That is going to become a permanent exclusion as the Trust want to help the wet woodland to become wetter and see how it develops as a second potential wildlife refuge.

So today I set my primary nets in the wildlife refuge (R1 and R2 on the previous Lower Moor Farm’s post diagram) and 3 x 18m nets along the Heronry ride area outside of the woodland itself. I had the nets open and catching by 6:45. The first two birds out of the net were, entirely predictably, a Wren and a Robin. It was a long, slow morning, livened up by the arrival of Steph and toddler Beatrice at about 9:30. They stayed for a couple of hours, so Steph could ring some birds. Anyway, Steph spent most of the time chasing after Beatrice and playing catch with her. Beatrice is very good at understanding that she is not to touch the nets. I am sure we will have Beatrice ringing some birds as soon as she is old enough to understand the care that needs to be taken. Her big sister started at age 7: that seems about right.

I was hoping that we would have a few more Chiffchaff than we had last time and that we might be lucky enough to catch an early Blackcap. The only Blackcap we had caught previously in March at Lower Moor Farm was on the 23rd March 2019. The earliest date for catching a female Blackcap was on the 5th April in both 2017 and 2018. In fact, I haven’t ever caught a female Blackcap at any of my sites in March. So I was delighted to have a male Blackcap in the nets in my second round of the morning. Over the rest of the morning I caught another 4 males and the last one I took out of the net was a female:

Great though it was to catch them, neither was my bird of the morning, this was:

I love Jays, and this is the first that I have caught since one at Ravensroost Meadows in July of last year. Yes, they have sharp claws on their feet (I gave it a pen to hold, seems to occupy them) and if that beak gets you they draw blood (I bled) but they are beautiful. The Care Farm staff were out and about with their charges this morning and whilst chatting to one of the staff he said that he always thinks of Jays as the UK’s equivalent of parrots: that raucous voice and stunning plumage. He has a point. This was a second year female bird.

The list for the morning was: Jay 1; Treecreeper 1; Great Tit (1); Wren 2(4); Dunnock 1(2); Robin (2); Song Thrush 1(2); Blackbird 2; Blackcap 5(1); Chiffchaff 5(1); Bullfinch 1. 19 birds ringed from 9 species and 13 birds retrapped from 7 species, making 32 birds processed from 11 species.

I decided to pack up at 11:30 so, naturally, a couple of Chiffchaff flew into the nets whilst I was closing them up and, eventually, I got away from site at 12:45.

One unfortunate result of lockdown has been the reduction in the number of sites currently available to me and my team. Ravensroost Wood has just become far too busy with visitors and, since the incident last July, plus the increased footfall, we need to rethink the activity there (plans have been discussed with the Wildlife Trust, so hopefully we can get back on site in the near future). Tedworth House has pretty much closed its doors, and is too far to travel under current conditions. Consequently, I have handed that site over to Jack Daw, who actually works there and lives in the town. Brown’s Farm is the other side of Marlborough and, I feel, too far to travel in the current circumstances, much as it pains me to not have access to the only site I have where Yellowhammer is a regular catch. Webb’s Wood is currently undergoing a major harvesting / thinning operation, with far too much activity and heavy machinery for me to run sessions there. Besides, the impact of the machinery on the main path has made it impassable for anything that doesn’t have high ground clearance (hopefully they will flatten / restore the path as part of the clean up operation). This leaves me with Lower Moor Farm, Somerford Common, Red Lodge, the Firs and, coming into the equation as the summer migrants arrive, Ravensroost Meadows. This is why my recent reports have been an almost continuous cycling around these first four sites.

Over the last four months I have been providing supplementary feed at these sites. February and March are the lean times for wild birds. It enables some to survive that might not otherwise have done so and, to the benefit of my team, we have to set fewer nets, as the activity is more localised. However, as the weather warms up and territorial behaviour and pairing up for breeding starts to pick up, the activity at the feeders drops away and I will remove them this week. This was our last session at Somerford Common before I remove that feeding station and we relocate where we set the nets. I was joined for the session by Ellie and Lucy. Lucy has received her T-permit this week, so is now a fully licensed trainee bird ringer.

The weather forecast was a bit iffy, and constantly changing. We had expected rain to arrive late morning but, having arrived on site at 5:45 and got the nets erected, we had to briefly close them again between 7:30 and 8:00, as it chose to rain then instead.

It wasn’t the busiest of sessions but enjoyable, nonetheless. We caught a total of 20 birds from 6 species: Blue Tit 1(4); Great Tit 1(3); Marsh Tit 1(3); Long-tailed Tit 1; Dunnock (1); Chaffinch 5. So, 9 birds ringed from 5 species and 11 birds retrapped from 4 species. Another session where the number of retrapped birds outnumbered those ringed. That balance will change with the arrival of the summer visitors. Unfortunately, a Great Spotted Woodpecker managed to extricate itself from the net before we could get to it.

It was good to catch 5 Chaffinch, all of which had clean legs and could be ringed – unlike at Red Lodge on Monday when 2 of the 8 Chaffinches caught had to be released unringed due to Fringilla papillomavirus.

Another new Marsh Tit is always a bonus, but so is the continuing recapture of previously ringed birds of the species, proving that they have survived, hopefully to breed this year.

There was a westward flight of about 20 Fieldfare at 9:00, so some winter visitors are still hanging around (also as evidenced by the pair of Siskin in my garden on Monday).

Unfortunately, the wind got up at 10:30 and the nets were becoming entangled in the trees and vegetation, so we called a halt, took down the nets and got away from site just after 11:00.

Jonny Cooper joined us briefly at about 9:30 to discuss tactics for the tagging of Curlew in the Braydon Forest. Jonny is running the project and he will be carrying out most of the the work, with a little help from me and, as Ellie is the northern Reserves Manager for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, on whose land a key part of the project will be carried out, we needed to have a discussion on how best to test the strategy and evaluate the results before rolling it out to other parts of the Forest where Curlew are to be found. We should be starting Easter weekend.

I had planned to get out to Red Lodge on Friday, and have a quieter week this, after a fairly full on couple of weeks, with just Somerford Common this Wednesday, but it rained on Friday, so I postponed until this morning.

I was working solo, so set my usual 4 nets around the feeding station. However, as we are in the quiet time for bird ringing, I also set a couple more nets between the ringing station and the pond:

The first bird out of the nets this morning was a female Nuthatch:

Always good to have a lull before the pecking onslaught of Blue and Great Tits. It was a cold morning, despite a forecast saying it would be mild, and the bird movement was lower than I was expecting. I put on lures for Lesser Redpoll and Siskin, having had them in my garden in the last couple of days, especially a lovely pair of Siskin yesterday:

Unfortunately, I drew a blank, despite luring for them for the early part of the morning. Once I decided that they would be a no show, I decided to change the lure to Chiffchaff, as there were several males calling close to the site. Needless to say, nothing, not a one for 2 hours, so I decided to switch the lures off. Immediately afterwards I caught a male Chiffchaff, my last bird of the morning!

For a small catch there was a reasonable variety: Nuthatch 1; Blue Tit 4(2); Great Tit (6); Coal Tit 1; Wren 1; Robin 1; Blackbird 1(1); Chiffchaff 1; Chaffinch 3(1); Goldfinch 1(1). Totals: 14 birds ringed from 9 species and 11 birds recaptured from 5 species, making 25 birds processed from 10 species.

Not having caught any Goldfinch in the wood since a solitary one in 2017, I was pleased to have caught another in the last session, and two more today makes me hopeful that they might become more regular. There were actually four in the vicinity: two on the feeder and two in the net. Possibly, if I hadn’t blundered in when I did, I might have caught them all. One of those caught was a bird that I ringed in my Purton garden in March of last year – then my first lockdown session. Hopefully they will become a regular feature of the catch.

Having got rather chilled, I packed up at 11:00 and headed for the warmth of home at 11:30: the benefit of only setting half-a-dozen nets is it takes very little time to take them down.

For the second session in a row: no Blue or Great Tits. To be fair, both sessions had small catches but it is still noteworthy. I was joined for the session this morning by Ellie: getting an opportunity to ring at one of the nature reserves that she manages. Ellie had an early appointment, so I was setting up on my own (I love those 5:30 starts – looking forward to them getting earlier (he lied))

It is hard work at this site when solo or duo, so I only set five nets around the plateau bushes (2 x 6m; 2 x 12m and 1 x 9m) and a single set of 3 x 18m nets along the perimeter track. Whilst I was there in the pre-dawn dark the Skylarks started singing and, as the sky lightened, they took to the skies. They were ever present from then on and there had to be at least 20 singing males in the area within which we were working.

I put lures for Wheatear, Stonechat and Meadow Pipit out on the plateau and Redwing on the perimeter track. Clearly, I was hoping we might get some of the winter visitor Redwing that are still hanging around the area. The latest Redwing the group has ever caught was one on the 28th March 2019 at Tedworth House by yours truly, so late Redwing are possible.

I was also hoping for an early Wheatear, as we know they are currently arriving in the country. However, we have never caught one in the Braydon Forest and the earliest any have been caught was one in mid-April back in 2004.

Initially, the only lure that worked was the Meadow Pipit. Later on I changed the Redwing lure to Linnet and, I am pleased to say, it worked almost immediately.

It was a nice catch: Long-tailed Tit 1(1); Wren (1); Meadow Pipit 2; Dunnock 1; Robin 1; Chiffchaff 1; Linnet 1; Reed Bunting 1(1). Totals: 8 birds ringed from 7 species and 3 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 11 birds processed from 8 species.

The highlight of the catch was a Reed Bunting, Z936307, which was ringed as a juvenile back in October 2015. It had not been seen again until today, five-and-a-half years later.

Alongside the ringing, we were delighted to see the return of Curlew for another breeding season. It is known that two pairs nested at Blakehill last year, with one pair thought to have successfully raised their brood and the other, sadly, being predated by the local foxes (the key predator of Curlew eggs and chicks). Jonny Cooper is running the lowland Curlew monitoring project in north Wiltshire, and we are hopeful that the nests can be identified and protected this year. The use of thermal imaging technology should help in that.

It was quite funny how the Curlew manifested themselves this morning. In the paddock behind the perimeter track is a small group of Herdwick sheep. I walked along the track to the nets to extract a Robin that had been caught. The sheep followed me along and, as I turned away from the net ride I heard a sort high-pitched mewing coming from, what seemed to be, the group of Herdwicks. I spent quite a few seconds looking to see which of the sheep was making the noise when a Curlew flew off from behind them. It flew up, flew around and started the much more familiar bubbling call. This was answered by another bird and, all of a sudden there was two of them. We saw and heard them regularly throughout the morning.

One of the reasons for the small catch was the weather. It stayed particularly cold all session, which was exacerbated by an unforecast breeze coming from the north-east, so, Skylarks apart, there was not a lot of movement around the site. I had to close the plateau nets early, as they were billowing and catching in the bramble and blackthorn. Blackthorn is a particularly bad net killer – and I have enough mending to do from normal wear and tear without the added issue of blackthorn damage. We packed the plateau nets away by 11:00, when Ellie had to leave.

I went to take down the perimeter track net ride and found the Linnet sitting almost on top of the lure. I love it when a plan comes together. Returning to the ringing station I was pleased to find Jonny had turned up to check out the Curlew. He very kindly lent a hand with the packing away of the ringing station and I was away before midday.

The starts are getting earlier, waiting for the clock to spring forward at the end of the month. I set the alarm for 5:45 but, unfortunately, was awake by 5:30 and out of the house before 6:00. By the time I got to site, 15 minutes later, it was full daylight. Clearly, some earlier mornings are needed!

I was joined by Lucy at the agreed time of 6:30, by which time I had the first ride set and was two thirds through the second ride. These two rides and one along the lakeside were all we set.

It wasn’t a huge catch but it was a very pleasing one. 17 birds and no Blue or Great Tits is most unusual. Arriving on site there were plenty of Chiffchaffs calling from the trees and brush alongside the stream. The first round delivered our first Chiffchaff of the year, a few Long-tailed Tits, a new Blackbird and a retrapped Song Thrush.

The Song Thrush was ringed at my last session at Lower Moor Farm, and I found it difficult to age then: even more so now. It’s plumage is absolutely pristine. Had it not had a clear cloacal protuberance today, indicating it was a breeding condition male, I would have thought that it was a recently fledged bird. All I can think is that the bird fledged late on in 2020. I would love to know what the minimum time is between fledging and sexual maturity. We know that they breed in the year following fledging, as do all (as far as I am aware) small passerines, but I wonder if anybody has managed to make that calculation?

Lucy has a thing for Lesser Redpoll and, despite joining me at least once a week, every week I have been out since she came on board, and despite our having processed 31 Lesser Redpoll in that period before today’s session, none of them were at Lower Moor Farm. In fact, we have only ever caught them previously at a feeding station in the education area on the other side of the reserve. Somewhere that I have not ringed since 2017. So at 9:30, as Lucy started extracting a Chiffchaff, I told her to leave it for me and to extract the bird I was looking at – her first Lesser Redpoll with me. It was a stunning male bird at that.

That was followed by a second at 10:00. I think it made her morning!

The list for the day was: Long-tailed Tit 2(3); Dunnock (2); Song Thrush (1); Blackbird 1; Chiffchaff 5(1); Lesser Redpoll 2. Totals: 10 birds ringed from 4 species and 7 birds retrapped from 4 species, making 17 birds processed from 6 species.

The morning kept threatening to warm up, with the sun peeking through the haze, but it was never strong enough to burn it off, the ambient temperature remained cold, and there wasn’t a lot of movement so, after two empty rounds, we packed up at just gone 11:00 and headed off to get warm.

After an eight day hiatus it was good to get back out into the woods and to do some ringing. It is that time of year when the catches are at their smallest and, often, the least varied. The winter visitors are making their way back to their breeding grounds and the summer visitors are on their way, but are only arriving in small numbers at the moment. That was the case today. Not that I am complaining.

As I was working solo, I only set 5 nets: 2 x 2 x 18m nets down the main ride in front of the feeding station and a 12m net behind it.

Whilst I was setting up I had the good fortune to hear a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker drumming. I managed to work out which tree it was in, and then got good views of it flying to another tree and resume drumming. Even more exciting, it got an answer from the other side of the wood.

Over the course of the next couple of hours I also had excellent views of a couple of Great Spotted Woodpeckers, as well as their persistent drumming. Interestingly, the Great Spotted Woodpeckers did not start up until after the Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers had finished. Almost all morning two Green Woodpeckers were trading “yaffles” from either side of the wood. I did put on a lure for Green Woodpecker but, if I can anthropomorphise for a moment, I suspect both of them decided they were happy with what they had and couldn’t be bothered to investigate this stranger.

The first bird out of the nets this morning was a recaptured Marsh Tit. Always nice to know that they have survived the winter. This bird was ringed in February 2020. At mid-morning I met a birder, Brian Piercey, who has been fairly regularly spending time at the Firs, and we had a good chat about lots of things but Marsh Tits in this wood was a key part of that. It really has improved as a habitat for them since the Trust opened up the central glade and thinned some of the side areas. I told him about my colour ringing scheme. Brian went off for a wander and when he came back reported that he had managed to identify the colour rings on a Marsh Tit. You can guess can’t you: the same bird that I processed first thing. I am pretty confident that there are at least three territories in the Firs. Brian has expressed an interest in joining a few more sessions. He had a taste of ringing a few years ago, perhaps it is time to have another go.

There was then a steady progression of small numbers of Blue and Great Tits, broken only by a Treecreeper, a Robin, a couple of Coal Tits and some Chaffinches. The list for the day was: Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 8(13); Great Tit 4(14); Coal Tit (2); Marsh Tit (1); Robin 1; Chaffinch 2(1). Totals: 16 birds ringed from 5 species and 31 birds retrapped from 5 species, making 47 birds processed from 7 species.

When Brian came back from one of his circuits of the reserve he mentioned that there were still some Redwing hanging around at the bottom of the wood. I put on a lure, to see if they could be enticed in but, as the catch shows, they weren’t interested.

The Firs is the best exercise that I get these days. Trudging up and down that hill, through the mud, a 500m round trip, fifteen or more times, is hard work. I estimate it at approximately 15,000 steps per session: not bad for an old, unfit ringer.

Somerford Common is my favourite woodland in the winter: I have a feeding station set up in the paddock on the east of Stoppers Hill Road and that is where I do most sessions. The paddock is a coppiced area with stands of Silver Birch and the odd conifer, as well as the Hazel coppice. However, to the west of the same road is a large commercial conifer plantation. We don’t ring there often but when we do it can be surprisingly good (two Buzzards in one session, for example) and is usually an excellent site for Coal Tit and Goldcrest. Indeed, at my last session on this part of the site, last December, of 31 birds caught 13 were Coal Tits and 11 were Goldcrests and only 2 were Blue Tits. To encourage birds to congregate in an area suitable for setting our nets, I set up a feeding station on that side of the wood on Monday, 1st March. The feeding stations (stars) and relative net positions (black lines) for both sessions are marked on the diagram below:

On Friday morning, Jonny, Steph and Lillie joined me for a session in the conifer planation area. We set two 6m nets either side of the feeding station and two sets of 3 x 18m nets along the ride in front of the feeding station. Unfortunately, it seems that the birds we were after had deserted that corner of the wood. It was a very small catch: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1; Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 4(1); Great Tit 5; Coal Tit 4(1). Totals: 15 birds ringed from 5 species and 2 birds recaptured from 2 species, making a mere 17 birds processed from 5 species.

It was good for Lillie, who got to process her first Great Spotted Woodpecker. Apart from that the only highlight was the Ravens that were touring around the wood, hopefully looking for a nest site.

After doing some preparatory work at Blakehill Farm for the Braydon Forest Curlew project, Jonny stopped off at the coppice area to see what was still making use of the site. Although I had been out five times in the previous seven days, he having seen an unringed Brambling and a couple of unringed Marsh Tits, I let Jonny persuade me that it might be worth another go at the site today, Sunday. Jonny and I were joined by Lucy for the morning and we set up our usual nets, as described in previous posts.

The catch was not as varied as I had hoped, but it was not that the birds weren’t around: they were, but they weren’t coming down to the nets, either to the lures or the feeding station. Whilst sitting waiting, and watching, we had excellent views of a couple of flocks of Lesser Redpoll. Unfortunately, that is all we had: good views. They stayed up high and then flew off. I also had excellent views of a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers. Definitely a pair: a male and a female, flying into a large Oak tree and foraging together through the branches. They were the second and the third of the morning, as Jonny was busy extracting another one from the nets at the same time. Interestingly, the bird he was extracting was the female Great Spotted Woodpecker that Lillie ringed on Friday.

The list for the session was: Great Spotted Woodpecker (1); Blue Tit 3(3); Great Tit 5(5); Coal Tit 1; Marsh Tit (3); Wren (1); Dunnock (1); Song Thrush 1; Goldcrest 1; Chaffinch 3; Bullfinch (1). Totals: 14 birds ringed from 6 species and 15 birds recaptured from 7 species, making 29 birds processed from 11 species.

Although it did warm up latterly, the activity never really warmed up in the way that it did at Red Lodge yesterday, and the birds just didn’t come in to the feeders as expected. As the catch numbers went to single figures, we did our last round at 11:30 and were away from site just after midday.

This will most likely be my last session until next weekend: tomorrow’s weather is okay but the car is off the road and it is looking wet and windy until next weekend.

A fairly quick return to Red Lodge this morning. I was joined by Lucy and David for the session and Richard Williams, a local birder with whom I have interacted on Twitter, came along to see what Red Lodge is all about. It was a cold start, with the temperature just below zero, and the birds did not start moving in any number until after 9:30, by which time it had warmed up (a bit).

It was, as expected, a rather Blue Tit heavy session, both with new birds to ring and a good number of retraps. However, there was one new bird that we could not ring:

As you can see, the lower right leg and the foot have atrophied. There was no sign of disease and no sign of anything cutting off the circulation to the leg. Those of us who handled it did a precautionary sanitising of our hands once it had been released. It seemed perfectly fine in every other respect, so is obviously coping with its problem.

Apart from that, Lucy mentioned that she hadn’t yet had a chance to extract and / or ring a Goldfinch. As seems to be the way at the moment, her wish was granted pretty soon afterwards. This was actually only the second Goldfinch that we have ever caught in Red Lodge. The first was caught in April 2017, so not common for us in this wood (although, as one of the residents of the Forest Cottages adjacent to the wood said, they get plenty in their gardens eating the sunflower hearts – my seed mix cannot compete).

My birding highlight of the session was a Coal Tit, D837461, which was ringed by me as an adult on the 22nd February 2014. So, over 7 years since it was ringed but has to be at least 9 years old (because it was a full adult when ringed it could not have been fledged in 2013, so it would have had to have been fledged in 2012 at the earliest). The longevity record for a Coal Tit is 9 years 2 months and 25 days from date of ringing. That bird was a first year bird. The survival rate for adult Coal Tits is just 43% and the typical lifespan is just 2 years. This is clearly a venerable example of the species.

Our list for the day was: Nuthatch 1(1); Blue Tit 20(8); Great Tit 3(3); Coal Tit 2(1); Marsh Tit (1); Song Thrush 1; Blackbird (1); Goldcrest 2; Chaffinch 2; Goldfinch 1. Totals: 32 birds ringed from 8 species and 15 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 47 birds processed from 10 species.

We closed up the nets at midday and left site by 12:30. I am sure Richard found it interesting. He was good company, and is welcome to join us again should he wish to.