Chobham Common - 4 December 2013

A visit by a team of four, including EP, ESA and RMA to a new area of the common on the south side of the M3 by Butts Hill. The area consisted mainly of scattered young silver birch, the odd conifer tree, a small area of bog and an clear fell area. Nearby are a number of equestrian centres bordering the common on the south side. The are we set up in was not that far from the entrance - thankfully for once as visits to this site can often be a bit of a trudge over varying terrain.

We set up three pairs of nets and one double panel pair. One set was not put in a particularly worth while location, whilst the other two were sited in fairly okay locations, hence why only these caught. We also play the newly acquired Redwing tape supplied by a ringer via the BTO ringers forum, as being better than anything else available to bring Redwing in, and it did work, but as we only had small mesh nets up we appeared to have lost one or two that just extracted themselves from the net.

First bird of the day was another Dartford Warbler, which was added to when we caught a female later, plus a couple fo Stonechat, a few Lesser Redpoll, one which was a control, ten Redwings, though up to 60 were at times in the Silver Birch, with the addition of a mixed Tit flock took the days total to 48 birds.

 

Dartford Warbler - 3 male

 

Redwing - 3

Stonechat - 3 male

 Stonechat - 3 feamle

Totals: 47 (1)

Wren - 2
Stonechat - 2
Redwing - 10
Dartford Warbler - 2
Goldcrest - 2
Long-tailed Tit - 7
Blue Tit -10
Great ti t- 3
Coal Tit - 1
Lesser Redpoll - 8 (1)