Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond

After a very frustrating time trying to get out for a ringing session, the weekend was abysmal, Monday to Wednesday weren’t too bad – but they were forecast to be wet in the morning. They weren’t, but I can’t take chances as Ellie has to come from Cheltenham and I would hate to waste her time (and fuel). We finally managed to get out this morning. The rest of the team are on holiday, so it was just me and Ellie.

We met at 6:30 and set the nets: just the usual CES nets along the Heronry Ride and the first two arms of the Wildlife Refuge: I am deliberately not putting a photo up because I want something rather more special to adorn the social media posts. You can check in earlier posts if you wish to find out where they are set.

After a couple of irritating net issues, we had the nets open by 7:30 and started catching almost immediately. The first round was a Blackcap and a Robin: pretty much to be expected. However, the next ride produced five Blackbirds: two juveniles and three adults. As was par for the morning: all of the retrapped birds were adults, all of the ringed birds were juveniles! However, the sixth bird of that round was our first Lesser Whitethroat caught at the site since 2020, when three were caught. The sad thing is that, until 2019, we could regularly catch double-figures of the species.

The rest of the session was spent showing lots of people birds, just a couple each round, but the people enjoyed it. At 11:00 I went to check the Heronry Ride nets. I thought there were lots of birds in the nets, but they weren’t, they were leaves of different sizes. However, as I did the proper thing and walked along the net to check it all, I saw a biggish bird in there and, next to it, a very bright blue bird.

We usually catch Green Woodpeckers in the Wildlife Refuge, as the field there is full of ants’ nests. This was only the third caught in this net, and the first since July 2017.

Next door to this was the first Kingfisher that we have caught at Lower Moor for two years:

We decided to shut the nets at 11:30, starting with the Heronry Ride, which was empty. Unusually, it was actually our most productive ride this morning. Normally am debating with myself whether to bother setting it. I am so pleased that I decided to stick with the usual setup. Then we went and checked the Wildlife Refuge rides and found a few more birds, so we processed them and went to shut the rest of the nets, taking a couple more birds out as we did so.

The list for the session was: Kingfisher 1; Green Woodpecker 1; Great Tit 3; Wren 5; Dunnock 1(1); Robin 3(1); Song Thrush 1; Blackbird 2(3); Blackcap 2(2); Garden Warbler (1); Lesser Whitethroat 1; Chiffchaff 1. Totals 21 juveniles ringed from 11 species and 8 adults retrapped from 5 species, making 29 birds processed from 12 species.

A lovely morning, with a reasonable size catch, but three stunning birds in the mix, for different reasons. I let Ellie process every bird caught, because that’s the sort of trainer I am. One of the nice things about a catch like today’s is that there was plenty of time to focus on training on some of the less common elements, in this case, moult scores. It is only really available for training in the few months after the breeding season ends. Most of the adults were undergoing some form of moult, be it a female’s breast refeathering as she had finished breeding, to primary feather and tail scores.

Anyway, with everything packed away we were ready to go by 12:30. Very satisfying session.

One last highlight of the morning: we were showing some birds to a family having a walk around the reserve, dog on lead, very pleasant, chatty people. Their daughter suddenly blanked everything and everyone out. I immediately thought that she must be a teenager: in fact, she was trying to focus in and get a decent photo of a Great Crested Grebe on the other side of Mallard Lake. This was special: the adult had two humbugs on its back. I have been going there for 15 years and have regularly seen an adult pair. I have seen them carrying out their courtship displays but, in all that time, I have never seen them with chicks, until today! Just lovely! I hope they survive.

Autumn is definitely arriving early this year:

You can tell when the autumn berries and fruits are beginning to ripen: bird poop stains your hands purple. Today’s was the first I have had this year: it came from an adult female Blackcap. Her brood patch is just about ready to feather over and her wings and tail were already well advanced in their moult, so her breeding season is over. She will now be stuffing herself on berries and drupes to put on fat for her winter migration. Time to start looking at the fat deposition rates on migratory birds.

I had hoped to do the northern part of the wood but, as I was working solo, I decided to stick to the usual area, with my usual nets. Whilst putting them up I did manage to drop one of the nets onto a floor full of leaf litter, twigs, bramble cuts offs and a whole heap of other detritus. So, in the intervening time between rounds, I spent many minutes removing aforesaid detritus, and my lovely wife finished the job for me this afternoon!

Once upon a time, I would not have thought twice about working solo in that area, but it is very open, and the nets are set along the main paths for a lot of the way. Back in July 2020, soon after the Covid restrictions were lifted, I had a deeply unpleasant experience, with two women ignoring all of my signs, trashing one of my nets to get a Blackbird out and then having the gall to complain to the BTO that I had ranted and raved at them and threatened them with a machete. Fortunately, I had two independent witnesses to the fact that they were lying through their teeth about everything. Unfortunately, the BTO complaints team refused to accept their statements! If it hadn’t been for the police stepping in things might have gone badly wrong for me. However, it has had a long-term negative influence on my confidence of working solo in an open area.

Anyway, back to today. I was on site by 6:30, nets open by 7:30, nothing caught until 8:20. It didn’t get much better: just the odd bird every half-hour or so. Still, the weather was nice, I was there, lots of people stopped for a chat and were very friendly (well – apart from the one woman who shouted at me as I was setting my nets “You do this far too effing often!”, I just suggested she keep her dog on its lead and to make sure it came nowhere near me. I didn’t specify why not. Now, where did I put that machete? A joke based on the previously mentioned incident.)

I was in the wood, relaxing, until I decided to pack up at 11:30. I closed the least productive ride, then checked the others and processed the bird that was in the end one. I then took the closed ride down and packed it away and checked the other side (rides 2 and 3 if you have one of the previous diagrams). From there I removed another Robin and two juvenile Bullfinches. Nice to have the Bullfinches again. Anyway, after processing them, those last rides were also empty, so they were shut and taken down. What with all of the nattering with passers by, I didn’t get everything packed away until 13:20, with just 13 birds processed: Wren (1); Dunnock 1; Robin [4](1); Blackcap 1[2]; Chiffchaff (1); Bullfinch [2]. Totals: 2 adults ringed from 2 species, 8 juveniles processed from 3 species and 3 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 13 birds processed from 6 species.

It was a lovely morning, if less productive than I would like. The silence of the wood was regularly interrupted by the calls of juvenile Buzzards demanding food, and also quite a lot of Nuthatch calling within the wood: a shame we didn’t catch any.

A somewhat different blog today. With the temperature due to be up at 30^oC+ on Saturday and Sunday, and needing something to pass the time, this blog post is about an event scheduled for last Friday and Saturday at Lower Moor Farm. The plan was to provide an event for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust Watch Group, their junior branch, based at Lower Moor Farm. We set up in the grounds of the Lakeside Care Farm at LMF. The event was organised by Rosie and Nic, Rosie works for the Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, having worked for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust for a good few years (and is one of my ringing trainees), whereas Nic works for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.

The Care Farm is a place for vulnerable and / or challenged young people and was featured on the BBC’s Countryfile programme back in 2019. My lack of modesty allows me to mention that it was the second time that I had demonstrated bird ringing on Countryfile, the first time was at the Help4Heroes rehabilitation site at Tedworth House in early 2014, where I ran monthly sessions for the beneficiaries, staff and visitors from 2013 until it closed, due to the impacts of Covid, in 2020.

Friday evening was going to be bat finding and moth trapping, Saturday was intended to be bird ringing. Unfortunately, the forecast for the Saturday was far too windy for setting nets at LMF, so Ellie J set a couple of nets for Friday evening instead. One of them was just too blowy from the outset and caught nothing and we closed it early. The other caught just four birds: all of which arrived and were processed before the target audience arrived at 20:30. Two juveniles: a Chiffchaff and a Wren and two adults, a Great Tit and a Blackcap. After the children and their parents arrived, although we left the net open until dark, we didn’t get another bird: that might have been something to do with the enthusiastic noises coming from the attendees.

The children were great: I took about 50 small pots with me, all of which disappeared, all of which came back with a variety of insects and other invertebrates for me to identify (or blag my way around it if I couldn’t). The first things that they started bringing back were the excuviae of dragonflies, they looked mainly like Broad-bodied Chasers but there are so many species of both dragonfly and damselfly there, it is definitely worth a visit for them alone.

I set the moth trap away at 20:00 and, at first, all we saw were hordes of midges and mosquitoes. I was pleased that, for once, I had remembered to pack the insect repellent: not a single bite! Eventually a few moths started turning up alongside the midges and we ended up with a perfectly reasonable catch:

Moth List:

Some photos of the moths, in no particular order:

Agapeta hamana

Blackneck

Brown-tail

Calamatropha paludella

Common Footman

Dingy Footman

Drinker

Common Wave

Elephant Hawkmoth

Flame Shoulder

Grey Tortrix agg. (i.e. impossible to identify without dissection)

Muslin Footman

Ringed China-mark

Ruby Tiger

Fan-footed Wave

Smoky Wainscot

Striped Wainscot

Dusky Thorn

Peach Blossom

I might have got a few wrong but, on the whole, I think it is pretty accurate. Those Waves are a bit difficult at the best of times, and when so many of them are pale and interesting, it an lead to error.

The key thing is that the children, and their parents, had a really good time of it – and made it totally enjoyable for us as well. They all started leaving at just after 10:30 and, after packing up, and potting up as many moths as I could for photographing the next day, I got away about 11:30, grateful that I wasn’t getting up at 5:00 the next morning to set nets for ringing!

The following blog was written by the newest member of my ringing team, Ellie L. As I now have three Ellies in my ringing life, I think I had better start distinguishing which is which. Ellie J was the second trainee that I took on, and is now an A-permit holder. Ellie P. is a key contact of mine at the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and helps keep an eye on nesting Swallows at their properties and rings them with me when we get the chance. Ellie L is the one who is now a regular trainee with the team and proving to be very helpful and skilled at what she is expected to do (and is making me ever so slightly jealous!).

Her blog:

To introduce myself, I’m a new (ish) member of West Wilts Ringing Group and have been training with Simon and team since March.

The opportunity recently came up to join a trip to Portugal to ring European storm-petrels and, having spent the year studying their vocalisations at university, it seemed about time to see some in the wild.

The ringing trip takes place each June and contributes data to a >30-year-long project run by Dr Rob Thomas from Cardiff University and the A ROCHA Portugal Field Centre. Most birds are caught on their migration route past Portugal on their way north to breeding grounds in the UK, Faroe Islands and the Republic of Ireland, but some may come from more local Mediterranean breeding populations.

European storm-petrel Hydrobates pelagicus (Photo by Ben Porter, June 2024)

Close-up showing ‘tube nose’

The ringing process:

Storm-petrels are caught at night on a wave-cut platform on the south coast of Portugal by playing a tape lure of a colony on a (very!) loud speaker.

Wave-cut platform where ringing takes place

The usual biometric data is collected as well as information on the condition of the birds’ feet (storm-petrels often lose feet due to entanglement in fishing gear or attack from predators, or even fish, as they hover over the sea surface to feed). Faecal and vomit samples are collected for dietary analysis and weather-related data (wind speed and direction, SST, air temperature, cloud cover) is collected hourly. This data collection allows for long-term changes in catch rates, foraging behaviours, weight etc. to be studied.   

A one-footed storm-petrel (Photo by Kayleigh Bargus)

Ringing has to be carried out under white light in this area, as red light is used as a signal by drug smugglers here, meaning birds can become slightly disorientated as it takes a while for their eyes to re-adjust to darkness. As a result, releasing the birds involves sitting with them near the edge of the cliff and making sure they fly off in the right direction or bringing them safely away from the cliff if they go too near the edge before beginning to fly.

Overall, just over 100 storm-petrels were caught this year, two of which were re-traps which had been previously ringed at breeding colonies (one of these was confirmed to be from West Wales). The number of storm-petrels caught was lower than in recent years which seems to be part of a longer-term decline in catch rate at this site since 1993 – this could be due to a decline in storm-petrel populations but could also be due to changes in migration routes/timings or foraging behaviours.

There were a few bonus extras caught including a desert locust (which flew in from the seaward side of the net!) and a couple of these:

Cory’s shearwater Calonectris borealis (Photo courtesy of Beth Rawles)

Overall, it was an incredible experience, storm-petrels are lovely birds to ring and it was worth staying up through the nights to do so!

I had just a few boxes to check this morning: particularly the box at Plain Farm which had two small chicks in last time we checked. Ellie and I set out at 9:30, first stop Plain Farm. There we found and ringed just the one chick:

This is Ellie’s first Barn Owl chick and she handled it perfectly. The G-rings aren’t always the easiest to get right first time, but she certainly had no problems fitting and closing the ring properly.

This chick was pretty healthy, weighed in at a decent 350g, with a reasonably full belly. How much of that was its now, no longer in existence, nest mate I don’t know, but it looked in good condition.

We then went over the road to Drill Farm. Back on the 13th June we caught the adult female on the nest and found four warm eggs. Today we found three chicks and two warm eggs. The chicks were too small for ringing. In fact, even the largest was still naked and was only just opening its eyes. Its nest mates were very definitely naked and bind. We will visit again in three to four weeks to ring what may be left. They do seem to be being well fed. This was the largest of the chicks:

Just look at the belly on that: makes me look positively svelte! A shame it is Ellie’s legs that are in focus and not the chick!

We checked a couple of boxes at Gospel Oak Farm: the Jackdaws had fledged from the bottom box and the owner had cleaned it out subsequently. The upper box, which had previously held a squirrel drey was still empty. We then went over to Clattinger Farm to look at the new box there: no sign of any activity or poo adorning the greenery under the box.

Our final stop was at Oaksey Moor: this was frustrating: plenty of evidence of owl occupation, plenty of white splash all over the vegetation all around the base of the box and beyond, so it looks active. Unfortunately, it was inaccessible using the ladder. It is going to need either permission to cut a swathe through the brush trees around the base of the tree (mainly Blackthorn) or a tree climber to get in there. As it is part of a Wiltshire Wildlife Trust reserve, one has to follow the Health & Safety protocols, which means two tree climbers!

By then it was approaching midday and getting very hot, so we called it a day! Ellie was happy with her first experiences of Barn Owls and ringing her first of their chicks: the first of many I expect.

A really nice session today: thoroughly enjoyable. I am not sure that I give my team enough credit in my blog pieces: I am very lucky with the people that I have the privilege to train. Apart from being massively interested in our birdlife and the importance of the ringing scheme, willing learners and committed helpers, they are all thoroughly nice people, with whom it is a pleasure to spend time.

That’s enough of that, down to business! I was joined this morning by Laura and Ellie at 6:00 for a session at Ravensroost Meadows and we set the following nets:

We started with a Wren that got into the nets before they had been opened. They are bad enough to extract when the nets are fully open but this one crawled through three pockets of the net, got the nets up around both thighs and angel-winged itself on both wings: just what you want for your first extraction of the morning after no coffee to wake you up and, having set Laura and Ellie other tasks I had to get it out. Suffice to say, I did, safely and with only a minimum of curses.

Anyway, it was an interesting morning for a number of reasons. It wasn’t the busiest of mornings, with some quite long gaps between catches, but there was plenty to appreciate. Our second round produced two of these:

Of course, those of us who are lucky enough to catch Bullfinch regularly will recognise this pose as far more typical:

He might look ferocious but they are one of the few birds that are more than happy to sit on your outstretched hand until you decide it is time for them to move on. Anyway, these were our first juvenile Bullfinches of the year.

A bit later on, at 10:30, we caught our second first juvenile of the year:

In addition to our catching these first juveniles of the year, we also caught two adult Lesser Whitethroat: a male and female in full breeding condition, which were also my teams first of this species for the year.

The total list for the session was: Treecreeper [1]; Blue Tit 1[3]; Wren 1(1); Dunnock 1; Robin [4]; Song Thrush [3]; Blackcap[1]; Whitethroat 2; Lesser Whitethroat 2; Chiffchaff 1[7]; Bullfinch [2]. Totals: 8 adults ringed from 6 species, 21 juveniles ringed from 7 species and 2 retraps from 2 species, making 31 birds processed from 11 species.

Given how the weather has been these last couple of weeks, we were lucky that the sun stayed behind cloud pretty much for the whole morning, coming out and into full force just after 11:30, just before we started to take down and pack up at midday.

Quite the most astonishing month, for all sorts of reasons.  Firstly, our biggest June catch to date:

The same number of species but more ringed and fewer retrapped.  Of those ringed, we added Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Kingfisher, Marsh Tit, Meadow Pipit and Spotted Flycatcher and pulli from Lapwing and Stock Dove.  Missing species this year, ringed in June last year, were the totally astonishing Redwing, not really surprising, and Yellowhammer and pulli from Jackdaw and Kestrel.  

To those figures in more detail, the Canada Goose was, unsurprisingly, caught by Jonny at Langford Lakes.  Andy and Ian have ringed Lapwing chicks out on SPTA Imber Ranges, indeed Ian did another there this month.  The other 23 were ringed by Jonny and Aurora and the Project Peewit team – who invited me to ring my first ever chicks: three of them at one of my Barn Owl sites.  

The two Stock Doves chicks were found, with their mother, by Jonny in a Barn Owl box.  My experience of Stock Doves this month was somewhat less pleasant: the only box we found in the Braydon Forest area had an adult and two chicks: one was dead, the other looked in poor condition. We removed the dead one and left the other in peace.  In my journeys out with the Salisbury Plain Raptor Group we have come across a few nests: one had two dead adults killed and eaten in the box, another had a dead adult uneaten in the box and a third had a clutch of two very cold eggs.  We also saw four other boxes inhabited by pairs of Stock Dove but didn’t bother them.

On the Barn Owl front: they have started breeding much later this year: a lack of voles has pushed them back. One good thing about that is that the Jackdaws have finished breeding: so some rapid cleaning of boxes and there will be less competition for nest spaces from other species.  We have done a lot better than on SPTA, who had ringed nothing on the Plain until just two last minute ones for Justine at one of her off Plain sites.  We have ringed three broods, totalling eight chicks: one at Echo Lodge and two at Blakehill Farm.  There are also two broods developing at Plain Farm and Drill Farm which will be ringed in July if all goes to plan.  The numbers are lower than last year, but at least they are succeeding. One good point: we are finding dead voles inside the boxes.

With regard to the Jackdaw pulli, it is a lack of opportunity, due to my being out on Salisbury Plain and the Lower Wylye Valley checking their boxes, plus my lack of a roof rack after changing my car from a dead one to a much younger model.  Thanks to Laura for providing the roof rack and car for our box checks.

The Kestrels last June were fortuitous, ringed by Jonny and myself because, in my case, Justine was away and unable to deal with the brood at an appropriate time, so I got to do them.  This year the only Kestrel chicks ringed have been on Salisbury Plain: with quite a variety of age.  They seem to have swapped diet from small mammals to small birds, with Goldfinch and Skylark appearing quite often in their diet.

I am hoping to put up some Kestrel boxes in the Braydon Forest for next year.

Amongst the other catches: there was a quite excellent haul of Marsh Tits ringed.  It is our best June ringing catch ever.   The previous highest was seven in June 2014.  In fact, it is tied as our best monthly ringing catch with October 2019, which was influenced by supplementary feeding. Apart from that, 10 in August 2018 was the only other month when we ringed double figures of this species.  The Meadow Pipit is also notable: two adults were caught on the Imber Ranges in June 2022, this is just the third June catch of the species by the Group.

For me, the best moment of my month had to be ringing three Lapwing chicks, but it was a real toss up between them and this:

This is only the thirteenth Spotted Flycatcher caught by the Group since January 2013 – and the ninth caught in the Braydon Forest.  Perhaps more remarkable is the fact that this is the fifth caught in the Firs: the smallest of the five woods ringed in the Forest, at 10ha: a quarter of the size of Ravensroost Wood, one tenth the size of Red Lodge and one twentieth the size of both Somerford Common and Webb’s Wood.

Let’s hope that July delivers as well as June has.

After another car problem (see last post) I had to cancel Sunday’s visit to Ravensroost Wood, so I could check that the car issue had been resolved. It has, fortunately, and I got permission to run a session this morning at Ravensroost Wood but, unfortunately, none of my team could make it. I have to check these days as the Trust have employed a contractor to reduce the population of Roe Deer and Muntjac, in an effort to enable the understorey to regrow following Ash die-back remediation work, that also coincided with 25 year coppicing of a large part of the northern end of the wood. I am just hopeful that it will give the Bird’s Nest Orchids and the Violet Helleborines a chance to expand their somewhat tenuous status in the wood. It is not their usual habitat, which makes them being there even more special.

I arrived on site at 6:30 and set the usual nets: 3 x 18m nets in R 28 and 4 x 18m + 1 x 12m nets in R38. I had them open and the ringing station all set up by just after 7:30 and started catching at 8:00. I had only one round with a good number of birds, the third, with nine birds from six species at 8:30. Because of the heat, I did far more rounds, with less time in between, than I normally would: twelve rounds in three and a half hours. Fortunately, the net rides were properly sheltered from the sun, and I also managed to put the ringing station into the shade, so it was actually a very pleasant session and it didn’t get really sweaty until I started the take down (I am sure you all needed to know that).

The highlight of the morning for me was this:

We have had one visiting our garden for the last week or so, and Laura did ring one in her garden when we ran a session there earlier this month, but that was just outside Cirencester and very much in Gloucestershire. This is the first for the year by anyone in our Wiltshire ringing group.

The list for the morning was: Great Spotted Woodpecker [1]; Great Tit [1]; Wren [4](1); Dunnock 1; Robin 1[6]; Song Thrush 2; Blackbird [1]; Blackcap 2[4]; Garden Warbler [1]; Chiffchaff 1[3](2). Totals: 7 adults ringed from 5 species, 21 juveniles ringed from 8 species and 3 birds retrapped from 2 species, making 31 birds processed from 10 species.

It is clearly a good year for Robins: we have ringed 22 in the Braydon Forest so far: 21 in June and one in May. This table shows just how variable the breeding efforts of Robins are in the first six months of the year within the Braydon Forest:

Essentially, this is an above average year. Goodness knows what happened in 2014! Of course, the plague year was the best of them all proportionately. It is quite surprising how good the catches were that year, given the restrictions.

Anyway, it was a lovely morning. Lots of people out passing through almost all stopping to chat. Even the dog owners were keeping their pets on their leads. I think it is the first time ever that I have seen 100% compliance.

As I was working solo I did my usual takedown routine of: one set at a time, extract any birds and close, leaving the other rides open. Process birds, take down nets, repeat for each net set.

I had planned to be away by midday but with so many people wanting to chat about how things are going this year, on the birds, and what’s happening with the butterflies from the peeps with the big cameras. Answers: Silver-washed Fritillaries plenty, White Admirals noticeabel by their absence, Ringlets plenty, other common species doing well, Brown Hairstreak about on the edge of the woods, Purple Hairstreak not really showing yet. The big one, because it is so new to the area: Purple Emperor, possibly a couple seen so far.

In the end I got away from site just after 13:00 after a nicely satisfying session (and not a Blue Tit to be seen).

I met up with Dick and Mark at Westdown Camp this morning at 8:30 and we headed out to cover the south-west of the training area. It was certainly an interesting day: nearly everywhere you looked there were tanks, lorries, armoured cars, rocket launchers and soldiers! They had been on a major exercise for the last two weeks, i.e. since our last foray onto the Plain, and were now packing up and clearing away at the end of it before heading off to their home barracks area. I have to say, in that heat, in those uniforms and helmets, I didn’t envy them.

We had a busy session, and found quite a lot. The Barn Owl story is still very slow in developing this year. Today we checked on 11 Barn Owl boxes: thankfully, four of them contained adult Barn Owl pairs, but no eggs nor young in the boxes yet. Two boxes had Jackdaw nests in but they have fledged now, so we cleaned out the boxes and replenished them with wood shavings ready for Barn Owls to take up residence. It is a late start, but Barn Owls can breed late into the year, they often have two broods, so starting late is not such a big deal for them.

The saddest part of the Barn Owl boxes were the four that had been utilised by Stock Doves. That is a fairly standard occurrence. Two of the Stock Dove nests had healthy chicks, developing nicely, and should fledge within a couple of weeks. Another of the nests, however, had what was clearly a long dead adult (it was buried in the nesting material in the bottom of the box) and an infertile egg. The last Stock Dove occupied box had two predated adults in it. Their chest muscle had been picked clean. My thoughts are that they were predated by either Weasel or Stoat, Sparrowhawk / Goshawk would have made much more of a mess, as they rip their prey apart.

Now to the success stories of the afternoon: the Kestrels. We checked 16 Kestrel boxes and found four successful broods of Kestrel. The first brood were surprisingly small: just two small, downy chicks, but big enough to ring:

These were our smallest of the day. The next box had another two chicks to ring. These were a bit bigger:

At this stage they are a real handful: all beak and claws. We ringed four chicks in the next box. They were very close to fledging:

They were so close to fledging, in fact, so close that two of them flew from the box. Their flight isn’t that strong and we just monitored where they went, then Mark collected them and brought them back for ringing. When Dick put them back in the box it was done very carefully, controlling the access to the box, so that they didn’t panic and fly out again. Delighted to say that was totally successful.

The final Kestrel box with Kestrels in, actually didn’t. As we drove towards the tree within which it is sited we watched three juveniles fly off to trees elsewhere. There was one sat on the top of the box. We sat and watched until it also decided to follow its brood mates. So four broods, three ringed, comprising eight chicks. What is slightly weird is that each brood was at a later stage than the previous, from downy chicks just big enough to ring, to fully fledged and leaving the next box! Great script.

Alongside that, two of the boxes had Jackdaw nests, young probably fledged already, four had breeding pairs of Stock Dove in them and six of the boxes were empty.

Although Barn Owls are having a slow time of it, Kestrel are doing much better on the Plain: these eight ringed yesterday take the total of chicks ringed this season to 51!

We got back to Westdown Camp at about 15:45.

Postscript: Returning home after our pleasant day out on Salisbury Plain, as I got to Devizes a tyre pressure warning came on in the car.  I stopped at the garage on the way out of town, pumped up the tyres, off-side front being the worst and headed for home. Just before the Bristol, Marlborough, Avebury roundabout on the A361 the front tyre deflated rapidly. I pulled into the bus stop layby and the tyre was as flat as a pancake.  I couldn’t make head nor tail of the inflation kit, so called my friendly local recovery agent, who said he’d be there on 45 minutes. I looked at tyre shops that he could take me to to get a replacement, only to find that all, even Kwik-Fit, were shutting at 5.00, so no good. I canceled him and looked at mobile replacement services. I was just picking myself up from the floor at the price I had been quoted  when a white van pulled in behind me.  This guy climbed out, covered in tattoos and piercings and, in the broadest Wiltshire accent I have ever heard, asked “What’s the problem, mate?”   I showed him and he said he would sort it for me. He tried the tyre inflation kit but the valve remover is plastic and it just broke. So he said he lived locally and would head home and come back with his tool kit . 10 minutes later he got back, took out the valve, squeezed in the tyre sealant and put on the compressor to pump up the tyre.  Five minutes later it was still saying zero pressure in the tyre.  We rolled the car along a bit and found a rather large hole: 4mm at least. “Don’t worry” he said, “I am a biker and repair these all the time, I just need some more kit”.  He got on the phone and 6 minutes later his wife arrived with another box of tricks and a bottle of cold water for me, assuming I would need it having been stuck out in the sun all that time. Jan gets on with repairing the tyre, plugged the hole and sealed it. I said I would take it slowly on the way home, he said no need that repair will last as long as the tyre treads.  He was right.  He wouldn’t take anything for it and I am just awestruck that someone like that exists in this day and age: that there are two of them in a relationship is even better.  I have insisted they let me take them out to dinner next week but I suspect it won’t happen as they just didn’t think they had done anything out of the ordinary.

I had planned to go out and check Barn Owl boxes yesterday but, of course, the wind decided to gust up to 40+mph, plus a few heavy showers of rain, put paid to that, so this morning Laura, Daniel and I went to do what we had intended to do yesterday. Our first stop was Echo Lodge Farm where, on our last visit there, on the 13th June, there were two chicks that were too small to ring. Two weeks later and they were just right, so we ringed two chicks. We invited the landowner along to see what her land management was helping, and she was delighted. It turns out that she is friends with the other farmer whose land is currently supporting the other two Barn Owl nests we knew have either eggs or chicks.

We went from there to check that a Jackdaw at Somerford Farm had fledged and cleaned out the nest box so that it was fit for a Barn Owl. This box has been up for a good few years but last year was the first time that it was successful. Hopefully it won’t be too late for them to try again this year.

Our next stop was one that we couldn’t get near to last time due to some mental Belted Galloways in the field at Ravensroost who just wanted to chase our car all over the place. I have spent enough time wiping Beltie drool off my car to want to do it again! This time we parked up on the verge, climbed over the gate and carried the ladder down to the box. They were still bouncy and enthusiastic, but were also scared of the ladder it seemed, so they never got close. This was a sad encounter: as we opened the box an adult Stock Dove flew out. There were two chicks in the nest: one was recently dead and the second was very floppy. The dead one had clearly starved, it’s crop was absolutely empty. I removed the dead bird and left the other behind in the hope that the adult might be better able to cope with just the one. I will check again in a few days to see how it is getting on. We didn’t ring it.

From there we headed to the two boxes on the west side of Blakehill Farm. These were just about the first boxes we visited this year, way back on the 14th April. There were pairs of Barn Owl occupying each of the two boxes. However, there were no eggs, no signs of breeding, so we gave them a good long time to get down to business without being disturbed. I think it is a good job that we did. From first egg laying it takes, normally, 32 days for the eggs to hatch so, even if they had laid in the next few days, that would have taken to mid-May before they hatched. Once hatched they are in the nest for, typically, 53 days and they become able to be ringed at approximately 30 days post-hatching. That is once their feet have grown large enough for the rings not to slip off.

Arriving at our first box, in Pouchers Field, we nearly caught the female in our hand net as she came flying out of the box upon our approach: a hopeful sign. A much better signal was the hissing we could hear emanating from the box! Upon opening we found four chicks: three were the right size for ringing, the other will need another couple of weeks, so we ringed three of them.

I know that some people who aren’t ringers worry about whether or not the birds are stressed by the experience. All I can say is that this one certainly wasn’t:

I suppose if I had eaten quite as much as this youngster has clearly done I would probably feel that sleepy myself. Just look at that belly!

Having ringed these three we then went off to Allotment Field to check on the box there. Absolutely delighted to find another three healthy and well-fed chicks.

Our final box of the day, final because the wind was really whipping up by then and Daniel, who will possibly be climbing rigging in these sorts of winds next week, was more than uncomfortable at the top of the ladder. This was at White Lodge. As we were driving down to the box, I have never seen the fields and sky so full of Jackdaws. Later, as Daniel was cleaning the box out, the sky became dark with two huge flocks of Jackdaw. We are not talking tens, we are talking hundreds of them! Unsurprisingly, this box had clearly been a successful Jackdaw nest again this year.

After this long delay in the commencement of Barn Owl breeding, it is such a relief to find that, of the 16 boxes we have checked so far this year in the Braydon Forest, we have ringed chicks in three, have another box to ring another three in in the next two weeks, and another on eggs which, hopefully, we will ring in about five to six weeks. It isn’t as though the other boxes have failed: although the Stock Dove probably will be a complete failure, at least three of them had Jackdaw chick success, with chicks ringed in two and one known Jackdaw failure plus, sadly, one containing a dead adult Barn Owl. However, five boxes out of sixteen containing breeding by the target species is a good proportion.

A big thank you to Laura for providing the car with a roof rack (how long does it take a roof rack to get to the UK from Belgium?) and to both Daniel and Laura for doing the vast majority of the grunt work today, in particular doing all of the dirty work clearing out emptied Jackdaw nests.

I am out with the Salisbury Plain team tomorrow: let’s hope we can get similar results tomorrow!