North Wilts Group

Having seen the weather forecast for strong breezy conditions over the weekend we decided to get the CES session done.

We put up some additional nets along with the standard CES nets and managed to catch a Small Elephant Hawk Moth along with a male and female Ghost Moth in them, both of which we’ve not seen on the site before.

It was a very productive session with 133 birds processed which included a very high proportion of juveniles and we caught juveniles of all the more common species of warbler with the exception of Lesser Whitethroat. We could see it was going to be a good morning when the first bird out of the nets was a nice full adult male Redstart.

We retrapped two of the four Nightingale’s on site, the new male from the last session and the breeding female. We’ve been hoping that there would be some successful breeding this year which would be the first since 2011 but the female was caught on its own some way away from its territory and at no point did we hear any of the usual contact calls between the adults and young anywhere nearby. Since the weather has been quite good it maybe that the young were predated which is what happened last year.

Ringing during the last two sessions at my other site near Swindon has produced large numbers of juvenile Tit’s so we were rather expecting the same here but we ended with just a few including two Coal tit’s from the nearby conifer plantation. What we did catch a large number of were juvenile Dunnock’s ending up with a massive 14 new birds. GD, PD, OF

133 birds processed (89 new, 44 retraps)

Wren 4(2), Dunnock 14(1), Robin 9(3), Nightingale (2), Redstart 1, Blackbird 2(2), Song Thrush 6(3), Whitethroat 10(6), Garden Warbler 3(5), Blackcap 16(7), Chiffchaff 7(6), Willow Warbler 2(4), Coal Tit 2, Blue Tit 2, Great Tit 2, Chaffinch 3, Goldfinch 1, Linnet 4, Bullfinch 1(3) 

 SALISBURY PLAIN (centre)

With the weather still unsettled we got CES 4 out of the way on the 4th. Numbers were fairly unimpressive for the time of year but the catch did include a good number of 3J's with young Linnet, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Robin, Blackbird, Song Thrush and Long Tailed Tit ringed.

A new female Lesser Whitethroat with brood patch was caught in  scrub where a male had been singing for several weeks so hopefully they are making a breeding attempt and the breeding pair of Nightingale's were also retrapped while still it was still dark.

The Cuckoo from the previous visit was still knocking around and had a female following it around. This time we had the decoy but other than cuase some rather excited calling neither bird was interested in the net. GD, OF

Wren (1), Dunnock (5), Robin 4(1), Nightingale (2), Blackbird 2(1), Song Thrush 1(1), Lesser Whitethroat 2, Whitethroat 3(1), Garden Warbler (4), Blackcap 3(3), Chiffchaff 5(5), Willow Warbler 5(6), Long Tailed Tit 2(3), Blue Tit 8 pulli, Linnet 8(1), Bullfinch (1), Yellowhammer (1)

 Back to today.....With CES out of the way we were finally able to get a visit to our secondary site on Salisbury Plain that is about 3km from our main ringing area. Here the scrub was once quite extensive and much younger than the main site but recent scrub clearance work here has destroyed the only other Nightingale territories on Salisbury Plain and cleared out the areas where Grasshopper Warbler numbers were particularly high. Even so, this area offers a good range of species in different population densities.

On arrival 2 Barn Owl's were flying around, 2 Grasshopper Warbler's were singing and up to 3 Cuckoo's were calling.

Despite only having 9 nets up we managed to catch far more than we have on our last few CES sessions with the number of Whitethroat's pleasingly high. We managed to catch one of the local Grasshopper Warbler's that hadn't been singing which was only our second of the year.

Last bird of the morning was a very nice male Stonechat which is not something we catch too many of.

On the way off the Plain we ringed 3 broods of Swallow's from the artillery bunkers and a brood of Tree Sparrow's on the way home which in the end gave us a very productive morning. GD,PD

Swallow 14 pulli, Wren 4, Dunnock 4(1), Robin 2, Stonechat 1, Blackbird 3(1), Song Thrush 3, Grasshopper Warbler 1, Lesser Whitethroat 1, Whitethroat 17(1), Garden Warbler 1, Blackcap 9, Chiffchaff 1(2), Willow Warbler 1, Great Tit 1, Chaffinch 4, Goldfinch 1, Bullfinch 1, Tree Sparrow 6 pulli

On arrival we were greeted to just the one Nightingale singing which at the time was disappointing since this localised population is now down to only 2 singing males. We thought that perhaps he'd moved on in search of a mate elsewhere. Thankfully after a couple of net rounds we heard what we assumed was our bird giving the usual contact and alarm calls. While this was going on our male gave a brief burst of song from further back in the scrub. Hopefully this second bird is a female and the general silence of the male is because they are now a pair. Best of all our male was caught mid-morning and proved to be the same bird we always catch in this territory, a bird that we've caught every year since ringing it in 2010.

The session was pretty productive with over 140 birds caught although rather a large proportion of those were in the additional nets so don't count to the CES totals. Numbers included an impressive 16 Garden Warbler's and I can't remember the last time we caught 4 Lesser Whitethroat's in one spring session.

We also caught our first proper 3J passerine of the year in the form of a Blackbird.

On the way off of the Plain we made our usual attepmt at this time of year to catch some of the local Grasshopper Warbler's that can be found in the young scrub and bramble by the trackway since the 2 pairs in the CES area are absent this year. Usually we hear about 8-10 singing and catch around 5-6 of them so we were rather suprised not to hear a single bird. This last winter was particularly dry on their wintering grounds so this may have caused a drop in numbers. It will be interesting as the season moves on if this local decline is reflected nationally. 

One side affect of wandering through the long grass in this area are the Tick's and this year its infested with them. After just 20 minutes I had to pick 26 off of my clothing. GD/PD/OF

62 new, 82 retraps

Blackbird 3(3), Song Thrush 4(2), Nightingale (1), Robin 2(5), Dunnock 5(8), Wren (4), Whitethroat 14(7), Lesser Whitethroat 3(1), Blackcap 5(15), Garden Warbler 4(12), Willow Warbler 1(6), Chiffchaff 2(8), Goldcrest 1(1), Long Tailed Tit (2), Blue Tit 1, Great Tit 1(3), Linnet 8, Bullfinch 2(1), Chaffinch 1(2), Goldfinch 1, Yellowhammer 4(1)