The forecast was for very windy but calming down at 0600 so it was clear that we couldn’t ring any of our downland sites. I opted to ring this lovely little site in the Kennet valley but with the lack of Redpolls anywhere in southern England it was clear that our mainstay species of this site would not be present. That said, we still played a call for them but it did indeed catch nothing. I was joined by Biff and Paul W and because we had time, we spent some time with Biff teaching him putting the nets up.
As expected the morning was dominated by tits which is low on conservation value but does give trainees some good experience. A Cettis Warbler sang briefly but eluded our nets and we saw a very unseasonal small Mayfly-type.
60 new and 27 retraps gave the chaps some decent practice. All of the retraps were from the past two years except for a three year old Long Tailed Tit. MP, PW, AM
Blue Tit 29 (16), Great Tit 13 (4), Coal Tit 2 (1), Goldcrest 1, Chaffinch 6, Goldfinch 1, Dunnock 4 (2), Robin 3 (1), Wren 1, Reed Bunting 0 (1)