Tag: birds

I love working at Blakehill Farm. Despite it being, essentially, a grassland farm, grazed by sheep and cattle, there are plenty of different microhabitats within the site.

These are the five areas within the site that I have run ringing sessions. Area 1, the Chelworth Industrial Estate side is my key area. The fields either side of the Whitworth Building, area 4, is my secondary area. Being close to the farm buildings produces a very different catch to what we get at area 1. The ponds and surrounding fields at area 3 I use early in the year, as it is where I am most likely to catch Snipe and Jack Snipe, plus it is a good area for Redwing. For some reason I have only done area 5 once: it was highly productive but, crucially, there always seems to be cattle out there when I think it could be worth a go. Finally, today we went to area 2. It comprises sparse hedgerow with even sparser trees, but the fenced off area, that you can make out from the photograph below, was seeded with a large variety of weedy seedy flowering plants in an experiment which, unfortunately, didn’t work out, but it has left behind a great deal of thistle seed-heads, which can attract in a number of finches, particularly Goldfinch. Unfortunately, this time the plants have all gone over, and there was very little evidence of available seed-heads in the paddock, so we extended quite a way out from there with our net setting.

I have carried out two previous sessions at this part of the site: 21^st September 2022 and 15^th September 2023. Both sessions gave reasonable returns, with 30 Meadow Pipits and two Stonechats in the former and 22 Meadow Pipits in the latter. Because of the weather issues in September I didn’t manage to get back to the site until today (the Chelworth side has to take precedence, based on results over the years).

I was joined for the session by Laura, Mark and Adam Childs and we met up at 7:30. Laura and Adam are trainees and Mark is a very helpful addition, helping with the set up and take down, and we have good conversation besides when things are a little quiet. We set the following nets:

I had to carry out quite a lot of scrub strimming along the lines that were going to carry rides 1 and 2. Unfortunately, the left-side handle and arm of my brush cutter decided to break off. and it became a somewhat difficult job, and took a lot longer than expected. This meant that we didn’t actually get the nets open and the lures playing until 9:00. That said, there was not a lot of movement at the time: probably the 2^oC temperature didn’t help.

To say it was a slow start would be an understatement. We caught a Wren at 9:15 and then absolutely nothing until 10:00. At 10:00 we caught a Blue Tit, two Dunnocks and two more Wrens. We had a discussion and agreed that if we hadn’t caught anything else by 11:00 we would pack up. As luck would have it, at about 10:30 we started to see Meadow Pipit flocks flying around. That was the problem though: they kept flying around and weren’t coming down. I cranked the volume on the lure up to just under maximum and it did start to attract a few down and at 10:45 we caught five of them, plus a Reed Bunting and another Blue Tit. Thereafter, between 11:00 and midday, when we packed up, we caught another nine birds.

The entire list for the session was: Blue Tit 2; Great Tit 1; Long-tailed Tit 2; Wren 3; Dunnock 2; Meadow Pipit 9; Reed Bunting 2. Total: 22 birds ringed & processed from 7 species. Not our best session by any means, but it could have been a lot worse.

We did have a couple of very pleasant interludes: a ramblers group for people of a certain age (mine, just about) came by, and I spent a very pleasant 15 minutes talking to them about bird ringing, They were very interested, particularly as, whilst they were there a couple of Long-tailed Tits got caught and I extracted them in front of the group. Not something that I do very often: I prefer not to risk any complications, giving the wrong impression. Fortunately, it all went well.

Long-tailed Tit, Aegithalos caudatus

They are such fabulous birds. We had quite a lot of other passing foot traffic, so plenty more chatting and explaining. Nicely, everybody was interested and positive: we had no negative interactions.

From 10:30, until we left site at just after 13:00, we saw so many Meadow Pipits, flocks of 20 to 50 flying around, but so few landing on the grassland. The difference this year from recent years is the lack of Craneflies. Meadow Pipit catches were pretty small in the first three years of my working at Blakehill Farm: 6, 18 and 14 respectively from 2014. However, in 2017 the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust changed their management of the plateau, and reduced the amount of grassland cropped for hay. This left the areas where I do most of my ringing just to be grazed by the cattle over the year until winter, and not to be cut. The impact was immediate: so many more insects, particularly Craneflies, in the autumn. We now regularly catch 100+ each year. Even this autumn, with the rubbish weather and (anecdotally) a huge reduction in the insect population, we have still caught 68 so far – and there will probably be another two sessions there before the end of the month. But right now it seems the birds are spending a lot of time on the wing searching for food.

We started packing away just after 12:20, it was quick and easy and we were off just after 13:00.

This was my first visit to Lower Moor Farm since the last CES visit at the end of August. With the odd one being in the area, and one having been ringed nearby, I rather hoped that I might get a repeat of eight years ago, when I caught and ringed only the second Yellow-browed Warbler for Wiltshire. They have become much more regular on migration at coastal sites but are much more scarce inland.

Yellow-browed Warbler, Phylloscopus inornatus

Oh well! We didn’t catch one but it was a lovely session regardless. I was joined by David and Miranda for the session. I don’t usually do Friday sessions but at the beginning of the week the weather forecast was dire for the whole week, except today and Sunday. As you might have noticed from the last blog post: it changed, and we got out on Wednesday. Originally we were going to go for Somerford Common today, but the amount of standing water at Blakehill Farm on Wednesday suggested that any of the woodland sites would be a quagmire, so I changed the location to Lower Moor Farm.

We set the following nets:

We all woke to find frozen windscreens on our vehicles. Is Autumn over already? As it is the one site where there is seating available, in the picnic area where we set the ringing station, because I am a thoughtful trainer (whatever others might say about me) I took three seat cushions with me, so that we could all it without getting frozen or wet backsides whilst processing.

We met at 7:30 and started putting up the nets. For some reason, this morning it turned out to be a real pain and took far more time that usual. They were finally opened by 9:00, but we did start catching straight away: a Wren for openers. It is surprising just how often the first bird out of the net is either a Wren or a Robin. I might do some statistics next time I have nothing better to do.

It was a nicely busy session, and we had a lot of interaction with the general public, all of which was positive. A lot of people were happy to get the opportunity to see a good variety of birds up close and get a few photos. The weather warmed up quite quickly and it was a very comfortable temperature to work in.

There were two highlights: Meadow Pipits and the reasons behind the punning title. Back in September 2014 we caught our first ever Meadow Pipits at the site, with our Mipit triangle set in the same place on the location photo above, as we have done ever since the first successful effort. However, we didn’t catch another on the site until we caught one in September 2020. We caught them in the September of each year since, until this year, but that wasn’t surprising, as we didn’t have a session there last month. Today we caught one at 10:30. As I have done a few at Blakehill recently, and David and Miranda haven’t made those sessions, I got them to draw lots for the right to process it. David won. Fortunately, at 11:00 we caught another two, so we all got to do one.

The real highlight though was the Long-tailed Tits: 21 of them. We caught three in the first round, then no more until our last three rounds between 11:00 and closing up at 12:00. It was also a nice catch of Goldcrest. Our largest single catch of them was nine back in October 2016, since then we have had several catches of six in a session, which we matched today. These two species were the biggest hits with our transient audience. I think we explained the difference between Goldcrest and Firecrest at least three times.

Our list for the morning was: Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 1(1); Long-tailed Tit 16(5); Wren 2(3); Dunnock 2; Meadow Pipit 3; Robin 1(1); Blackbird (1); Blackcap 1; Chiffchaff 1; Goldcrest 5(1); Bullfinch 1. Totals: 34 birds ringed from 11 species and 12 birds retrapped from 6 species, making 46 birds processed from 12 species.

So far this month we have caught two Blackcaps: one on Blakehill Farm and one this morning. They weighed 17.7g and 17.5g respectively. If they were intending to migrate south for the winter I would have expected them to weigh over 20g, so I suspect that they are arrivals from Central Europe, to overwinter in the UK. I am not aware of any evidence of our summer visitor Blackcaps staying on for the winter, as Chiffchaffs are now known to do. It is a relatively recent phenomenon, proven by ringing recaptures, and a change from one of their previous migration routes, thought to be due to the garden bird feeding habits of the British population.

Miranda had to leave before the last round, she was spending the rest of the day setting up bat detectors for the wildlife group she is very active with in the Marlborough area (I suspect she is the driving force). David and I did the last round at 12:00, shutting the nets as we went, extracting the last few birds and processing them before taking down and packing away. We got away from site at about 13:00, after a very satisfying session.

One of us had an absolutely astonishing month, and it certainly wasn’t me!  Jonny found a Swallow roost which yielded an excellent 182 birds ringed in four sessions.  Not content with that excellent Swallow catch, he managed to include four Sand Martins and three House Martins during those sessions. If that wasn’t good enough, he had a couple of, frankly astonishing, catches at two of his farmland sites, with over 400 birds caught in just two sessions.  One of those sessions was boosted by a phenomenal catch of 161 Goldfinches..

Actually, two of the team had a great month: my current longest serving trainee Ellie has been awarded her A-permit!  It is thoroughly well-deserved, having put up with me as her trainer since January 2015.

Overall we caught fewer birds, but in fewer sessions, so the averages were all higher. 

Missing from the list this year were Bullfinch, Garden Warbler, Nightjar, Tree Sparrow or Woodpigeon.  Added to the list compared with last September were Linnet, Moorhen, Pied Wagtail, Sand Martin, Stock Dove, Stonechat and Whinchat.

The Moorhen is the only one ever ringed at Langford Lakes, according to the data in the online database.

The Sand Martins are the first caught since the group came into its current form at the beginning of 2013.

After a three year absence, I was pleased to catch four Whinchat back at Blakehill Farm.  Three of them essentially rescued my ringing demonstration for the Swindon Wildlife Group on the 7th of the month. It turned a small catch, although with a reasonable variety of some interesting birds, into a session that the attendees definitely appreciated.  

The Stonechat catch was interesting.  Two were caught at Langford Lakes: the only other catch of Stonechat at Langford Lakes was one in October last year.  Langford Lakes is certainly delivering now it is being surveyed more frequently.

The four Stonechat caught at Blakehill raise an interesting question. In February of this year we caught and ringed a male and a female at Blakehill Farm.  The first that we have caught Robin Griffiths, who spends his time as volunteer warden at Ravensroost, and surveying all of the sites around the Cricklade / Braydon Forest area, noticed that there were two breeding pairs of Stonechat at Blakehill, despite there being virtually no standard Stonechat habitat at the site. He also noted that both pairs bred successfully.  Although we cannot be sure if we have, it would be great if we have managed to ring some of this year’s local offspring (three were juveniles).

There were some rather large falls in the catch of some of the commoner species.  Blackcap numbers were well down at 160 against 382 and Whitethroat were down at 7 against 25.  Of resident species, Blackbird were at 8 against 18, Blue Tit were down to 85 from 165, Robin 42 from 65. As well as the Goldfinch catch, the Greenfinches also showed a good increase at 39 from 6.

So, a pretty good month all round.  It is shaping up to be a really good year again:

For the third quarter in a row we have exceeded our previous best numbers. 

Hopefully we will get some decent weather in October and keep the run going.

It has been a difficult month in my neck of the woods: too much rain and far too windy, far too often. With Jonny Cooper, with sites just 20 miles or so further south than mine, getting fantastic results on his farmland sites: 234 birds from 15 species on Tuesday (47 Meadow Pipits and an astonishing 148 Goldfinches) and 182 birds from 11 species on Wednesday (129 Meadow Pipits), I was desperate to find out what we could get at Blakehill Farm for the end of September. Autumn passage is always the most interesting time at Blakehill, but the topography is such that we cannot work there if it is other than close to flat calm.

So far this month we have had fairly poor results on the Chelworth side of Blakehill, with a total of 58 birds from 14 species. To be fair, that was mainly down to the ringing demonstration on the 7^th producing only 14 birds (even if three of them were our first Whinchats since 2021). 44 birds on my solo session on the 19^th was definitely an improvement. There have been some definite highlights: three Whinchat and two Stonechat (our first September catches since 2020), a Sedge Warbler (only our fifth at this site), another Redstart (our fourth, making it our best year for the species), 19 Chiffchaff and 13 Meadow Pipit. I was hoping for a better catch this morning.

Today’s forecast was for it to be dry, and to have fairly low wind speeds, a base of 4 to 5mph, with gusts getting up to 15mph by 11:30. I was joined for the morning by David, Sarah and the entire Childs family, so I thought we could set couple of additional nets. This is what we set up:

Although the weather started out as forecast, unfortunately the wind got up much earlier, at about 10:00, and interfered with some of the nets, particularly rides 1, 2 and 3 and made taking down ride 6 difficult as David, Sarah and I spent a pleasant 10 minutes extracting it from Blackthorn. In fact, we closed ride 1 early as birds were flying out and around it constantly but, because of the billowing of the net, just were not being caught. It also affected the Mipit triangle: it started well, but fell away as the wind increased: we could have 20 or so birds within the triangle but, if we were lucky, catch one or two.

The session started really well, with the first two rounds producing 30 birds, but unfortunately fell away quite quickly. The dogleg ride 4 finally, after two empty sessions, produced a few birds, as did rides 5,6 and 7. Rides 6 and 7 caught a good haul of Reed Bunting in round one, including one retrap that is not on our rings. I look forward to finding out where it was ringed.

The list for the day was: Blue Tit [1]; Great Tit [2]; Wren (2); Dunnock [1]; Meadow Pipit 6[10]; Robin [1]; Stonechat 1[1]; Whinchat [1]; Chiffchaff [8]; Reed Bunting [10](1). Totals: 7 adults ringed from 2 species, 35 juveniles ringed from 9 species and 3 retraps caught from 2 species, making 45 birds processed from 10 species.

I am pretty sure that, had the wind not got up, we would have caught more Meadow Pipits than we did: possibly doubling the number, but it was good to get out and add to our totals for Meadow Pipit and, particularly, Stonechat and Whinchat. This year, for the first time ever recorded, Stonechat have nested and successfully bred at Blakehill Farm. There were two nests and two young fledged – and we have ringed four Stonechat so far this autumn: three juveniles and one adult. I would love to know if we have been lucky enough to catch some of the birds that fledged at the site.

With the wind getting stronger, and the bird numbers falling right away, we decided to start taking down at 11:00, with ride 1. We did have a couple of birds to process after that. So we took down rides 4 to 7, before removing the Mipit triangle and ride 2, with three final birds to process before leaving: two more Meadow Pipits and one more Reed Bunting. That made it our third best September catch of Reed Bunting at 15 for the month, behind 19 in 2016 and 17 in 2019.

So, it was our best catch of the month at Blakehill Farm: by one bird! We had everything packed away and left site soon after midday. Hopefully we will get the chance to get back to the site within the first couple of weeks of October and add to our Meadow Pipit total. Now, if I can also find the opportunity to get a session or two on the other side of the site within those two weeks as well I would be well satisfied.

One final point: the end of our session was disrupted by someone flying their model aeroplane out over the plateau. There is a model plane club that has permission to use a number of fields over which to fly their toys, but the undertaking the club made in their agreement with the landowners is that they will not fly them over the plateau, so that they don’t disturb the cattle, sheep or wildlife. I drove round to where he was parked up and, politely, asked him not to fly the plane over the plateau. He was as arrogant about it as one would expect from someone who knows that they are in the wrong, but he did pack up, thankfully.

After the deluge preventing any ringing since last Wednesday, and with the rest of this week looking wet and windy, today was the only day that looked possible for any ringing in the near future. It was supposedly going to be windy, with the wind coming from the north-west, so it was going to have to be a woodland site. I haven’t been in Ravensroost Wood since the first week of July, so I decided that would be the place to go. As regular readers know, with the exception of the Firs, our catches in woodlands this summer have been disappointingly small. Ravensroost Wood, for example, has averaged just 17 birds per session. However, it was due for a visit.

I was joined by Rosie and Miranda to help set up at 7:00. As Miranda was walking down to where we were to start setting the nets she saw a small group of six thrush sized birds on the main path: she was certain that they were Redwing. Since our records for Redwing began, in December 2000, out of 3,476 of the species processed, none have been processed in September. However, I put on our lure for Redwing and, at about 9:30, a thrush-like bird hit the net. I rushed off to take it out but, unfortunately, a couple were walking their dogs down the path, and it is possible that they spooked the bird, which managed to extricate itself and fly off. The couple were not doing anything wrong: the dogs were on short leads and under control, it was just unfortunate timing. However, they know their birds and they told us that it was a Redwing! The earliest date that we have ever caught a Redwing was the 6^th October 2010.

The reason for the unfortunate interaction was my decision to set the nets down the main ride. This was because the side tracks are horrendously overgrown, due to weather, illness, etc, I haven’t had the time to get them cleared, so we decided to just set up along the main track. Our thoughts were that, with the weather having been so foul, and Ravensroost known to get very mucky underfoot, there would not be many people in the wood today. With just three pairs and one individual passing through, all with their dogs on leads, it was the right decision.

Rosie had to leave early, and I mean early: at 7:45, just after the nets were up and open. She had time to extract a Wren, the first bird of the morning, but not time to process it. As Rosie left, Laura arrived, after having done the school run! She extracted a Nuthatch (yes, another one) as she wandered up to the ringing station from the car park.

The first round proper flattered to deceive: nine birds from seven species. However, after that we did not catch another bird for nearly two hours! That was a single bird, 30 minutes after that we caught four more, all Long-tailed Tits and, as we started to shut the nets, we caught another two.

The list for the session was: Nuthatch {1}; Blue Tit 1[1]; Great Tit [1]; Coal Tit (1); Marsh Tit [1]; Long-tailed Tit {6}(1); Wren [1]; Robin (1); Chiffchaff [2]; Goldcrest [2]. Totals 7 unaged bird ringed from 2 species, 1 adult ringed, 8 juveniles ringed from 6 species and 3 birds retrapped from 3 species, making 19 birds processed from 10 species. Nice variety, if not great numbers. If only that Redwing had stayed in the net, and the Treecreeper that was running up the Oak tree just behind the net had got itself caught, it would have been a very decent session.

Annoyingly: the wind that was forecast by all of the forecasters did not materialise until we started packing up at 11:30, so we could have gone somewhere that was guaranteed to be more productive. Fortunately, tomorrow’s forecast has changed for the better, so I will be heading off to Blakehill Farm to try and catch a few more Meadow Pipits and any autumn migrants that might be passing through.