Now that the Christmas and New Year holidays are over the weather has definitely taken a turn for the better and Chobham was viable due to low wind speed. There were nine people from the ringing group going so we split off to target Dartford Warbler. We had walked the common on New Year's Day and saw four Dartfords and some Stonechats at that time. Having picked our spot we erected a double double and put a tape on. We also put up one full height net. Sadly, we didn't get any Redpoll and it was some time before we managed to catch a Dartford Warbler. We rejoined the group to find that they had failed to catch at all. At one point we saw a wave of birds that were feeding together and visited some pools to take on water. If there had been a net in the right place we would have got some of the 30+ Reed Bunting, Redpoll, Coal Tit, Goldcrest and Meadow Pipit - but our net was 100m too far to the right so, on this occasion we had to be content with our one Dartford. Congrats to Liz who got to ring Dartford for the first time.
Dartford Warbler - adult male
