We are just doing a few easy ringing sessions to get back into the swing of things, but most sites in our part of the UK in mid winter are never overly busy, potentially due to being too urban, and without any truly wild habitat. There is another group fairly local to us that maintain a feeding station, which is potentially the best way in a poor countryside area to maintain fairly high data in collection, and for them whilst the catches of around 100 are mainly Blue and Great Tits, the data they obtain has real added value as they ring around 500 or so Tit pulli, and this provides them with a good set of survival data from re-traps year on year.
However, we do not, and have to make the best of our sites by seasonal targetting. Stanwell is particularly good for controls so there is extra value in feeding in to the tracking of individual birds. We also regularly get wintering Chiffs.
We decided to focus on winter thrushes, wintering Chiffchaff in the reedbed and on the mound, and Meadow Pipits.
There was an interesting observation of Woodcock in the reedbed, flushed as we went in to set up. The nets went up without much bother and being a bit blowy we opted to use just the walk-in trap for pipits.
We began attracting Redwing, many more than the five actually caught and realised that a net on the far side of their favoured bushes may result in more captures, but continued earth removal on that side has meant that there is a very narrow ridge that really isn't suitable for a net as clearing it would be problematic.
We did quite well for Chiffchaff with five caught, also Goldcrest seem to be remaining on site as there were seven new and two retrapped, relatively recently ringed, birds.
The Meadow Pipits were slow to take an interest in the audio-lure, but in the late morning two groups came in, with six captured including a control. By the wonders of DemOn we know that the bird was only ringed a couple of months ago, and we look forward to further details.
Total - 29 (7)
Meadow Pipit - 5 ( 1 control ADB8290)
Blackbird - 2
Redwing - 5
Dunnock - 2
Robin - 1 (1)
Chiffchaff - 5
Goldcrest - 7 (2)
Blue Tit - 1 (1)
Great Tit - 1 (2)
However, we do not, and have to make the best of our sites by seasonal targetting. Stanwell is particularly good for controls so there is extra value in feeding in to the tracking of individual birds. We also regularly get wintering Chiffs.
We decided to focus on winter thrushes, wintering Chiffchaff in the reedbed and on the mound, and Meadow Pipits.
There was an interesting observation of Woodcock in the reedbed, flushed as we went in to set up. The nets went up without much bother and being a bit blowy we opted to use just the walk-in trap for pipits.
We began attracting Redwing, many more than the five actually caught and realised that a net on the far side of their favoured bushes may result in more captures, but continued earth removal on that side has meant that there is a very narrow ridge that really isn't suitable for a net as clearing it would be problematic.
We did quite well for Chiffchaff with five caught, also Goldcrest seem to be remaining on site as there were seven new and two retrapped, relatively recently ringed, birds.
The Meadow Pipits were slow to take an interest in the audio-lure, but in the late morning two groups came in, with six captured including a control. By the wonders of DemOn we know that the bird was only ringed a couple of months ago, and we look forward to further details.
Juvenile Meadow Pipit ADB8290
Juvenile Goldcrest
Total - 29 (7)
Meadow Pipit - 5 ( 1 control ADB8290)
Blackbird - 2
Redwing - 5
Dunnock - 2
Robin - 1 (1)
Chiffchaff - 5
Goldcrest - 7 (2)
Blue Tit - 1 (1)
Great Tit - 1 (2)