A farm in North Norfolk, another field another Quail - 5th July 2026

 Back again for another few hours in the evening. With temperatures set to raise again, this seems the most sensible and efficient way to ring birds at the moment. The last few morning sessions ended with around 20 or so birds for an early start, 6 hours in the field and taking down between 11am and midday was still uncomfortably warm. This way it's around three hours if we have the energy at the end of the day, start at 7pm and have the nets down as it's getting dark.

We set an 18m in the wood and brought that in for 9pm. Tried the field across the track this time and a double by the barn where we base ourselves. We saw a Quail in flight as we set the single, and eventually, just as we were about to pack up got a male in the double net. This evening we also heard a female calling, so there are no less than three birds in this relatively small area. We've also heard birds calling from other fields around our house, confirming this as an exceptional year for Quail in Norfolk.

Male Quail

A lot of the cereal crops in this part of Norfolk look ready for harvesting early, although extremely short stemmed. One of our farmers tells us that they usually expect to harvest in mid to late July, and the crop condition is a result of the weather, with much of the crop dead. I've noticed that the grains look very small and the harvest will not be a good one. Hopefully the birds using the fields will have time to move out before harvesting. The birds at this site can sometimes be heard in adjacent uncultivated fields with rank vegetation so they are quite mobile.

Juvenile Whitethroat

Total: 10

Blackcap - 3
Blue Tit - 1
Chiffchaff - 1
Quail - 1
Whitethroat - 4

Snettisham for ring reading and Pectoral Sandpiper - 4th July 2026

 There was a highish tide and we went along to try for some color ring combinations on waders and darvic codes on gulls. As it turned out we didn't do well at all, only finding birds with codes that were either too far away to be read, or partially obscured or in the case of a couple of Mediterranean gulls broken and incomplete.

However, it did mean we were in the right place when a scare passage migrant was found along the shore line as we walked back.

Pectoral sandpipers bred in the arctic regions of North America and Siberia and are the most common North American wader to occur in the UK.

A farm in North Norfolk - 3rd July 2026

 An evening outing to a site of ours where we've heard Quail, We didn't expect much since we had only heard one bird calling, but the endorsement was now on our licences and we thought we'd give it a go, along with a singe 18m net in the wood where passerines go to roost.

Amazingly, we did catch a Quail, even seeing its gradual approach before flying straight into the second panel of our net. A second bird approached close to the net but remained on the ground and evaded capture.

We haven't done much mist-netting of late and the smattering of summer warblers from the wood net were much appreciated.

Total: 12 (1)

Blackbird - 2
Blackcap - 4
Chiffchaff - 2
Dunnock - 0 (1)
Lesser Whitethroat - 1
Quail - 1
Whitethroat - 2

Sculthorpe Moor - 30th June 2026

 We are not getting out for much mist netting between the weather and other commitments, so went and monitored the area of the reserve that we have rather unimaginatively designated as general area A.

The terrain was lumpy and the species limited, but we got some nice retraps and a even managed a new Grasshopper Warbler.

Adult Sedge Warbler

Adult male Grasshopper Warbler

Adult female Reed Warbler

Total: 18 (5)

Chiffchaff - 13
Grasshopper Warbler - 1
Reed Warbler - 1
Sedge Warbler - 3 (4)
Willow Warbler - 0 (1)

There was also a Lesser Emperor Dragonfly removed from a mist net and released.

Scolt Head, mostly gulls - 25th June 2026

 The best tide for returning to the island coincided with the second heatwave of the year. Thankfully there was a strong onshore breeze to bring the temperature down to a very comfortable 20 degrees.

We had 6 staff from Natural England and 4 ringers, with two NE staff that are training with Chris for restricted Cs for Oystercatchers, although the majority of recent hatchings have been predated early on in their development.

The first priority was to get the gazebo up for shade and prepare the keeping boxes. We have filled our Sandwich Tern quota so have no need to use a corral on this second visit. Our main priority was to attain just over the 100 for Black-headed Gulls and Mediterranean Gull. Two areas of the colony were targeted separately to limit the amount of time that birds were kept.

CL, DW & GD

Sandwich Tern

Med gull receiving a darvic ring

The tide was already receding at the end of the day. The onshore breeze and 

fog bank in the distance kept the temperature low.

Total today- 148 (2)

Black-headed Gull - 27 ( plus 1 with metal only)
Mediterranean Gull - 88 (plus 11 with metal only) 2 with metal only last time given darvic rings)
Oystercatcher - 4 (plus 2 with metal only)
Sandwich Tern - 11

Total for Scolt Head colony 2026 - 494

Black-headed Gull - 106 (plus one with metal ring only)
Mediterranean Gull - 136 (plus 25 with metal only)

Sandwich Tern - 212 (plus 4 with metal only)

Also

Oystercatcher - 4 (plus 2 with metal ring only)

Hopefully there will be more survivors amongst the later nesters.

A big thank you to everyone involved in bringing this project to fruition. We already have a great deal of information from observations of birds ringed last year.

A prickle of Hedgehogs - 24th June 2026

 At 7pm today, we were delighted to see a family of hedgehogs leave one of our borders, trail through the garden and head off for an evening foray. This is where we noticed the hedgehog busily taking leaves and bark during May. She has been there ever since as hoglets remain in the nest for four or so weeks before the sow takes  them out for first feeding foray.

Chris had a camera to hand as they made their way through the back garden.

I caught them heading into the neighbour's front garden.

Scolt Head, Gulls and Terns - 18th June 2026

A return to the breeding colony for the second year of this project working with Natural England. The colony has been closely monitored to ensure that there is no indication of any reason not to ring the birds. As always, numbers were limited by the number of people plus kit that could be accommodated in the two boats used to take everything across to the island.

We had organised a team of six ringers, CL, DKL, PWL, EMS & BIB from year one plus a local C ringer CVG. This year the Natural England contingent also included two staff with C permits so RMC and OLB also ringed birds.

We started by setting up a gazebo as a holding and ringing area and preparing the keeping boxes, and setting out ringing stations for three teams. Meanwhile a corral was set up along the beachside edge of the colony.

Once ready, half the group took up positions to direct the young Sandwich Terns towards the corral with the other half of the team walking along the outside edge of the colony and towards the corral. Many birds peeled off back into the colony but the group that was finally confined within the corral totalled 201 with only 4 too small to take a darvic ring.

Some birds remained in the corral and were brought to the ringing station later 

to limit time spent in the boxes.

Three ringing teams of three, one to ring, one prepping the darvic and a third to scribe.

The second catch for gulls involved hand catching and taking back to the base. There were plenty of people to monitor birds while in the boxes and to take them back to the colony once ringed.

We are already getting a great deal of information from the birds ringed last year.

All ringing activities conducted under appropriate licences. Images by Neil Lawton, Scolt Head warden. Many thanks to all concerned with this project.

Total: 346

Black-headed Gull - 79
Mediterranean Gull - 46 (plus 16 with metal only)

Sandwich Tern - 201 (plus 4 with metal only)