A week of two halves

We have managed to get out ringing three times over the past week. Most importantly we completed the final CES visit (without missing any) at Fleet Pond on the 29th. Unfortunately it was a bit of an anti-climax with only 5 new birds and 4 retraps (especially after 40 + birds on CES 11).

31st August was a quick visit to Ascot racecourse again for a couple of hours before the wind speed picked up and there was a steady movement of young warblers through the site. We also had 1 whinchat seen nearby the ringing area.

The real bonus of the week though was a session this morning at a new site just down the road from our CES. It is an area of scrub on an ex-landfill bordered by heathland. We set a few nets nice and early and ended up with 80 new birds over the morning. A good number of blackcaps and a young tree pipit for interest were the highlights. There did seem to be a complete lack of whitethroats though despite ideal habitat. I expect we will ring there more often over the autumn and into the winter.

It's starting to feel like autumn...

We have managed to get out ringing a couple of times over the past week. Starting with a trip to another local site in the middle Ascot racecourse. This heath/scrub site holds a surprising number of birds and we processed over 40 birds in the morning, mostly consisting of juvenile goldfinches.

  

            A sure sign of autumn

            with many birds making

            the most of available

            berries

Thursday (8th) morning we visited Fleet Pond for the latest CES visit. Still relatively quiet with only just over 20 birds processed though it was good see the majority birds handled were juvenile. Highlight of two sedge warblers (which do not currently breed on the site).

Saturday (10th) was a bit of a change of scenery for us with a visit to some friends who ring on Salisbury Plain. A fantastic morning with 172 new birds ringed (plus retraps). A nice selection of warblers, nightingale, redstart, tree pipit and 7 whinchat. 

Ideal finish too with a young male sparrowhawk being the final bird of the day.

  

           One of several tree 

               pipits caught

  

               A blue tit's worst

                    nightmare

01/08 - Fleet Pond

We had to make a midweek visit to complete the latest CES session at Fleet. Set up was nice a quick apart from missing pegs and bamboos at one of our rides which was frustrating. Luckily whoever had been in didn't visit any other rides nor did they find our spare bamboos. 

It was a fairly slow morning again ending with 22 birds including 5 retraps but this wasn't too bad given the bright conditions. It was also nice to get 9 new reed warblers including 6 juveniles.

Unexpected species of the morning arrived in the form of a juvenile tree creeper. Needless to say we don't catch many in the reedbeds (though there is mature woodland all along the reed edge).

16/07 - Fleet Pond CES

We had a few extra hands this morning so we were able to set up a couple of additional nets on top of the CES nets. It was a fairly steady morning but never busy finishing with 31 new birds and 11 retraps.

It was good to see most of the birds today were juveniles including 9 more 3J reed warblers.

               This adult female green

               woodpecker provided

               a bit of interest too

11/07 Fleet Pond

A brief visit to the pond on Thursday after work to ring the term and gull chicks out on the recently created islands.

To minimise disturbance we will only have one ringing visit to the colony and we tried to time this to get the majority of the common tern chicks. We had seen a maximum of 8 adults sitting and we managed to ring 10 chicks (likely around half the possible number of young).

                      Common tern

In addition we also managed to find and ring 6 black headed gull chicks. All birds were also colour ringed (apart from the odd one which was too small) so we hope people will keep an eye out for them. 

                    Black headed gull

This is the first time these birds on the islands have been ringed so we are keen to see how this new colony develops. 

Finally, many thanks to Tim Ball for joining us and adding these birds to his colour ringing project.

06/07 - Fleet Pond

I arrived at 4am on site to set up after a bit of an eventful drive in. A car being chased by the police decided to hit mine while trying to get by. Luckily nobody was hurt at all and the damage was minimal considering.

It seemed that was where the excitement stopped today though as the final tally for the CES visit was 5 new birds and 10 retraps. With only 4 juveniles for the session.

              Misty start over the pond

I did have to watch my step though as there were hundreds of young frogs hopping about all the net rides.

29th June - Puffin Island

No ringing at any of our regular sites this weekend as we travelled up to North Wales to join the ringing group heading over to Puffin Island for a day of seabird ringing as part of their ongoing studies on the island. 

We had superb weather and a good team so by the end of the afternoon we had processed a little under 700 birds (dominated by cormorants, shags and razorbills).

Many thanks again to Steve and Rachel for hosting us.

       Louise with one of the few puffins 

       of the day

On the Sunday we took the chance to have a day in Snowdonia and had a short walk up Y Garn before heading back just in time to hit all the Grand Prix traffic.

     View from halfway up Y Garn. The 

     view from the top was distinctly

     cloudy.