North Wilts Group

MOULDEN HILL

NIGHTINGALE WOOD 27th & 28th

Two sessions at Nightingale Wood, one at the Roves Farm side that has two small lakes, a small reedbed and willow plantations, and the other site in the wood including the adjacent meadow.

Lots of 3J warblers made up almost all of the catches with a great deal of the migrants on their way through which was shown up by the virtual lack of retraps on each day. Roves Farm on Sunday was dominated by Garden Warbler's which must have had an amazing breeding season with 11 ringed followed by another four on Monday in the wood. This takes me on to 78 new for the year with a staggering 53 ringed in just the last 3 weeks.

The reedbed produced 4 new Sedge Warbler's and 3 new Reed Warbler's which is not bad for something you could spit accross. Willow Warbler's are also becoming more obvious with many calling or giving sub-song although we only caught 8 of them.

The best two birds from the two sessions we both from the woodland side with a Grasshopper Warbler in the first net round and a Green Woodpecker in the last.

Another two productive mornings with 136 new and 8 retraps. GD/PD

Green Woodpecker 1, Wren 14, Dunnock 4(2), Robin 3, Blackbird 2, Song Thrush (1), Grasshopper Warbler 1, Sedge Warbler 4, Reed Warbler 3, Whitethroat 7, Garden Warbler 15, Blackcap 33(3), Chiffchaff 17(1), Willow Warbler 8, Long Tailed Tit 2, Blue Tit 9(1), Great Tit 7, Chaffinch 2, Linnet 1, Greenfinch 1, Goldfinch 1, Bullfinch 1

SALISBURY PLAIN (CENTRE)

A third visit in 7 days for this site was on for the morning and with the current turnover of migrating warblers high we were holping for another good catch and were not disappointed.

The very first two birds out of the nets were chats from the chat valley net in the form of another Whinchat and a Wheatear. The Wheatear was a particularly good bird for us as we only average one every other year so not suprisingly it was a ringing tick for trainee Andrew.

Warbler numbers began to pick up and we soon caught a good mix of all the common species including 6 Sedge Warbler's and 5 Reed Warbler's on their way out of the country and a good catch for this upland chalk scrub habitat. Two new juvenile Grasshopper Warbler's were also added along with out first new Lesser Whitethroat at this site for over a month. The chat net came up trumps with a third chat species in the form of a Redstart.

While taking down the nets after a successful morning we encounted the Starling flock again which had increased to over 1000 birds. Thankfully the double 60 only had 12 in in but we could hear the noise from the main flock in the bushes by ou next net. Thankfully again we missed the main flock but caught 4 more but if the net had been another 30 feet longer things would have been interesting.

The final bird out of the nets was a rather nice 3J Tree Pipit.

Another excellent mornings ringing with 26 species caught, 132 new and 24 retrap. GD,PD.OF,AB

Swallow 1, Tree Pipit, Wren 7(2), Dunnock 2(1), Robin 4(2), Redstart 1, Whinchat 1, Wheatear 1, Blackbird 4(2), Song Thrush 6, Grasshopper Warbler 2, Sedge Warbler 6, Reed Warbler 5, Lesser Whitethroat 1, Whitethroat 24(2), Garden Warbler 5(3), Blackcap 18(8), Chiffchaff 4, Willow Warbler 12(1), Goldcrest 2, Great Tit 2, Starling 16, Goldfinch 3(1), Linnet 1, Bullfinch (1), Yellowhammer 3(1)

SWINDON STW CES SESSION 9

Despite ringing this site as recently as two days ago I decided to give it another go which proved to be a good move. Migration this year is already well under way, far earlier than last year and this is being shown up in the large turnover of birds on this site. Today we caught very few retraps from the last few sessions so even the very recently fledged 3J's we have ringed this month are quickly moving on and being replaced by new birds.

The first bird of the morning out of the nets was a new adult Grasshopper Warbler and we soon caught two more. Blackcap's were particularly numerous with over 40 ringed but we also caught good numbers of Whitethroat's and Willow Warbler's but we also managed an impressive 11 new Garden Warbler's. On the down side we blanked yet again on Lesser Whitethroat so it looks like its going to take longer for this species to bounce back from the poor 2012 and 2013 breeding seasons.

One of the Garden Warbler's was in full wing moult which is not something I've come across before. It had also lost its tertials, was replacing all its tail and was in full body moult.

The bonus net in the bottom of chat valley got us one more new Whinchat along with the usual Whitethroat's but one net round produced a net sagging with Starling's. By the time we extracted what we could we had 8 birds bagged up but at least double that had managed to roll out of the net. We considered ourselved lucky that the remaining 300 birds in the flock sat on some nearby bushes and stayed away from the net for the rest of the morning. We also caught out first Sedge Warbler of the year for this site, a sure sign that Autumn is coming.

An excellent morning with 127 new and 18 retraps. GD,OF

Wren 6(1), Dunnock 2, Robin 3(2), Whinchat 1, Blackbird 3, Grasshopper Warbler 3, Sedge Warbler 1, Whitethroat 18(2), Garden Warbler 11(3), Blackcap 41(8), Chiffchaff 2(1), Willow Warbler 12(1), Blue tit 5, Great Tit 2, Starling 8, Chaffinch 1, Linnet 2, Bullfinch 2, Yellowhammer 2, Reed Bunting 2

MARLBOROUGH DOWNS & SALISBURY PLAIN (EAST)

 Despite the forecast for rain, thunder and lightning we still ventured out Saturday as the forecast showed enough gaps in the weather to enable us to continue with our nest monitoring. We popped into Marlborough STW but the House Martins were very high in the sky and there were 5 unringed Grey Wagtails but not enough birds worth trying for. We checked the Swallow site and ringed one brood but this visit inspired us to have a think about our monitoring here and we have decided that we would like it to be a key part of our summer work and so we are going to go for total monitoring which means ringing all the young and detailing where they are and then ringing the adults but trying to allocate them to the nest. The horse riders are all very interested so an end of year report is well worth the effort.

SALISBURY PLAIN (centre)

After ringing 89 new birds as recently as Monday, including 25 new 3J Chiffchaff's we were hoping for lots more warblers.

We put up the usual nets including the billy bonus net for chats at the bottom of the valley. This was a good move as it caught us our first 4 Whinchat's of the year along with a 3JM Redstart. The main nets remained fairly busy all morning and the 3J warblers soon began to mount up. Chiffchaff's were off the menu to be replaced with good numbers of Blackcap and 34 new Whitethroat's which is our highest day total of the year so far.

We also caught the remaining adult female of the twp breeding pairs of Grasshopper Warbler and also a retrap Green Woodpecker we had originally ringed in May 2011.

Swallow and Stock Dove pulli made up the numbers once all the nets were down and we finished the morning with 116 new and 32 retraps. GD,PD,AB

Stock Dove 2 pulli, Green Woodpecker (1), Swallow 10 pulli, Wren 7, Dunnock 5, Robin 3(1), Redstart 1, Whinchat 4, Blackbird 2(1), Song Thrush (1), Grasshopper Warbler 1, Lesser Whitethroat 2, Whitethroat 34(5), Garden Warbler 4(5), Blackcap 26(8), Chiffchaff 5(4), Willow Warbler 3(3), Blue Tit 1, Great Tit 1, Goldfinch 1, Linnet 1, Bullfinch (2), Yellowhammer 3(1)

11th-13th July - MARLBOROUGH DOWNS & SWINDON STW CES session 8

 

 Group totals up to the end of June. 

The totals so far seem to show that it is going to be a good year for Tree Sparrow's. The benchmark for a good year is to ring over 1000 pulli so we are well on track. This is despite the fact that some large colonies we once had away from the Marlborough Downs appear to be crashing for reasons unknown while at some sites on The Downs we can't get nest boxes up fast enough.

We're so far managed to catch 2 Quail using a sound recording of a female calling with a Schedule 1 license and the team's efforts in nest recording have been well rewarded.