With spring now with us and the migration season under way we have had a few visits to our Salisbury Plain site in the last couple of weeks to catch some of the early migrants and get the site set up ready for CES.
The first couple of visits were fairly quiet but we managed to catch reasonable numbers of Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff and Blackcap including a good number of retraps going back as far as 2013 and even a retrap Goldcrest from 2014. We’ve also had a control Blackcap that we believe may have been ringed further west at Portishead based on the ring number from a previous control from this area.
A late Redwing was a good catch on our first visit, the first one we have caught at this site in spring and it appears that Redstart has had a good winter as we have seen them on all our visits including 4 (1 caught) today. One has been holding territory at the only large trees on the site where we always seem to get them and where we believe they have bred in the past. Hopefully they will use one of the nestboxes we now have up on the trees before the local Tit’s take advantage.
Early Lesser Whitethroat’s have also been a feature each visit this spring including 3 today but all of them have done a grand tour of the nets rides without getting caught which is a shame as we never seem to catch as many as we used to or should do at this site.
Redstart, Reed Warbler, Sedge Warbler and Whitethroat all made their 2016 debut on the ringing totals today along with 2 of 4 Grasshopper Warbler that were all singing away. All that’s missing for the full warbler set are the above mentioned Lesser Whitethroat’s and Garden Warbler that we’ve neither seen or heard so far.
So far resident birds seem to be well down in number with very few finches caught and virtually nothing from Robin, Blackbird and Song Thrush.
One very sad note this year is the total absence of Nightingale’s meaning that this small isolated population right at the edge of their current range in now gone for good. After the very wet 2012 breeding season when all breeding attempts failed was the cold spring of 2013 when no females arrived onsite as they had all stayed to breed in France in the warmer conditions. This meant that the number of returning males on 2014 was down to 3 from 10. Only one of these males attracted a female and that breeding attempt failed just after the young fledged and so were probably predated by badgers. Last year it was down to 2 males and one female and again the only breeding attempt was predated and again probably by badgers. Nightingale therefore joins Turtle Dove in the extinct from this site list. GD, PD. OF, AB
Totals so far, 158 new, 59 retraps: Wren 7(3), Dunnock 5(11), Robin 1(5), Redstart, Blackbird 1(1), SongThrush 1(2), Redwing 1, Grasshopper Warbler 2, Sedge Warbler 2, Reed Warbler 1, Whitethroat 1, Blackcap 88(5), Chiffchaff 7(17), Willow Warbler 18(5), Goldcrest 3(1), Long Tailed Tit 2(4), Blue Tit 2, Great Tit 2(2), Linnet 3, Bullfinch 7(3), Yellowhammer 3