North Wilts Group

The usual team was a bit short on bodies so we managed to persuade Mike from the West Wilts group to join us on what we hoped was going to be a productive morning.

The morning started off pretty slowly but then picked up and stayed busy until well after 0900.

Warbler's started appearing in big numbers and it was soon obvious that good numbers of Sedge Warbler's were on the move and numbers of Willow  Warbler and Garden Warbler usually found in smaller number on the site were also around in much higher numbers than usual. With warbler migration now well under way it was also not a suprise that we caught a control Willow Warbler, our 5th warbler control for this site this year.

The bonus net in chat valley again produced the goods with 2 Stonechat's and 4 Whinchat's as well as a few Sedge Warbler's moving through the lusher vegetation on the valley floor. We also caught our first Tree Pipit's of the year and another couple of Grasshopper Warbler.

A noticable absentee was Lesser Whitethroat which has either not started moving or has had a pretty poor breeding season since numbers of this site are down a good 85% from their peak of a few years ago.

One of the additional nets also got us a rather nice juvenile Spotted Flycatcher, our first of the year. GD, PD, AB, MH

159 new, 30 retrap

Tree Pipit 3, Wren 7, Dunnock 1, Robin 1(1), Whinchat 4, Stonechat 2, Blackbird 4(1), Song Thrush 1, Grasshopper Warbler 2, Sedge Warbler 21, Reed Warbler 6, Whitethroat 27(5), Garden Warbler 11(4), Blackcap 23(8), Chiffchaff 4(3), Willow Warbler 22(2), Goldcrest 1, Long Tailed Tit 3, Blue Tit 2(2), Great Tit 2(1), Chaffinch 1, Goldfinch 2(2), Linnet 1, Bullfinch 4(1), Yellowhammer 2, Reed Bunting 1

This was the first session here in a long time that we have been able to get on site at the weekend due to the poor weather this summer. This meant that we could get the productive extra nets up on the live fire atrillery range that we're not allowed to use during the week.

All seemed fairly quite the first 2 net rounds with not too many bird around but high quality with an adult and juvenile Grasshopper Warbler together in one net and a very young Redstart that had yet to start it's post juvenile moult and so had probably come from an elisive nearby nest and a very young Stonechat.

After that it all got rather busy. We started catching a few Reed and Sedge Warbler's which isn't bad for a patch of hawthorn scrub on chalk downland as well as a decent number of Garden Warbler's. In fact, we caught goo numbers of all the common warblers including 22 new Willow Warbler's.

We also managed to catch one of our local Nightingale's that was in pristine new plumage, the only female that turned up on site this year from this terminally declining population that had failed to fledge any young which must have been predated just before they were due to leave the nest.

We had our usual bonus net at the bottom of what we call 'chat valley' and this got us 4 juvenile Whinchat's which was followed by an indecisive 10 minutes trying to sex them.

In the end we caught a highly productive 150 new, 29 retraps. GD, PD, OF, AB

Swallow 11pulli, Song Thrush 2(2), Blackbird 1(2), Wren 9(1), Dunnock 1(1), Robin 5(2), Nightingale (1), Redstart 1, Stonechat 1, Whinchat 2, Grasshopper Warbler 2, Reed Warbler 4, Sedge Warbler 7, Garden Warbler 9(1), Blackcap 23(6), Whitethroat 22 (4), Lesser Whitethroat 1(1), Willow Warbler 22(2), Chiffchaff 9(2), Goldcrest 2, Long Tailed Tit 1, Blue Tit 1, Great Tit 1(1), Bullfinch 7(3), Linnet 3, Reed Bunting 1, Yellowhammer 2

After a successful CES session last weekend we were able to get an addiotnal visit in this week since the turnover of birds at our site this time of year is huge. We set all the standard CES nets plus one addional net at the bottom of valley that we refer to as Chat Valley.

Chat Valley lived up to its name as it produced our first Whinchat of the year early on along with a juvenile Stonechat later in the morning.

The morning was again dominated by juvenile warblers with Blackcap's and Whitethroat's particularly abundant. One of the Blackcap's was extremely pale, paler than a Garden Warbler would be with just a hint on a brown cap.

Later on we caught a juvenile Redstart that may or may not have been a locally fledged bird, and early on we caught a singing male Grasshopper Warbler that has certainly not been here on any previous visit so is likely to be a failed breeder from elsewhere. PD, GD. OF

77 new, 27 retrap

Stock Dove 1 pulli, Wren 10(3), Dunnock 2, Robin 3(2), Redstart 1, Whinchat 1, Stonechat 1, Blackbird 2(2), Song Thrush 4(1), Grasshopper Warbler 1, Whitethroat 15(3), Garden Warbler 4(2), Blackcap 18(9), Chiffchaff 4(1), Willow Warbler 1, Blue Tit 6(2), Great Tit 1(1), Linnet 1, Bullfinch 1(1)

SALISBURY PLAIN (centre)

On a day that there were only two of us available to do the CES it turned out to be the most productive ringing session of the year so far with 170 birds processed from the fourteen 60ft CES nets and the three additional 60’s on the other side of the fence in the artillery live firing range.

Juvenile warbler’s were the main feature of the morning with every one of the commoner warbler species represented including our first 3J Lesser Whitethroat’s of the year which as a species seem to have been lagging behind everything else. Garden Warbler’s were around in particularly good numbers with 9 new (2 adults, 7 juveniles) along with 4 retraps so this species seems to be doing very well at this site.

A surprise catch was in the form of another new Nightingale, a 5M which was half way through its moult. This bird is not one of our locals so has obviously dropped in from another location. The only other sign of our local birds was one giving the croaking call in its usual territory but nothing was heard from the pair that seemed to be breeding so it now looks like 4 years of failed breeding for this doomed population.

Other than that, lots of Tit’s and lots of tangled 3J Wren’s kept us busy giving us 124 new and 46 retraps. GD/PD

Swallow 9 pulli, Wren 8(1), Dunnock 4(2), Robin 4, Nightingale 1, Blackbird 3(5), Song Thrush 1(4), Lesser Whitethroat 3(1), Whitethroat 12(8), Garden Warbler 9(4), Blackcap 20(5), Chiffchaff 12(2), Willow Warbler 4(1), Goldcrest 1, Blue Tit 14, Great Tit 10, Chaffinch (1), Goldfinch (1), Linnet 5(2), Bullfinch 2(9), Yellowhammer 2 

SWINDON STW