We were on site before 7am but suffered a slight delay when we became bogged down while parking up. We continued to put up the six 18m nets at that immediate location, then Chris turned his attention to freeing the 4x4 while I checked the nets. We made 23 captures in all.
The morning was fairly quiet, once the car was out of the mire and the sound of the revving engine ceased.
We met two of the free ranging residents and can now add pigs to the list of animals that are about and need to be looked out for and kept out of the nets.
Our session was heavily dominated by tits with our highlight being a Marsh Tit, a species that was not present on any of our ringing sites under Colne Valley RG and in notable decline in several areas across the UK.
Marsh Tit, age 3
Totals: 17 (6)
Blackbird - 1
Goldcrest - 1
Coal Tit - 3
Marsh Tit - 1
Blue Tit - 7 (2)
Goldcrest - 1
Coal Tit - 3
Marsh Tit - 1
Blue Tit - 7 (2)
Great Tit - 4 (4)
One of two Tamworth (I think) sows that range freely on the Wild Ken Hill estate. These omnivorous animals are an excellent indicator of soil health. They forage quite discernibly on the margins of fields and currently avoid the areas that have been cultivated over many years, as there is much less food there for them to find. With time, those areas too, should hold increasing invertebrate numbers, fungi, roots and grass for them to eat in addition to fruits and seeds.
These two ladies are very well behaved, but I fully suspect that they are responsible for the state of the ground and our becoming stuck while manoeuvring the vehicle.