North Wilts Group

3rd June 2017 - Swindon STW CES

 
We are a bit depleted team-wise at the moment with Noah and Biff not able to come ringing at the moment due to exams. So it was left to Simon, Gary and me to complete this CES visit. This is my least favourite time of the year because we are tied to putting up the same CES nets, catches are small and we have to get up earlier than at any other time of the year. The bonus is that we do catch decent retraps from previous years and of course the CES data is of very high value.
 
The small team also means that we cannot put any extra nets up which restricts our monitoring of the other areas of the site which I personally find quite frustrating because there will be old retraps out there that we are not recording.
 
This session was fairly unremarkable except for three Cuckoos that we teasing us all morning as they chased each other around over the top of the nets. The best retrap was a Sedge Warbler originally ringed in 2014.
 
The morning total of 56 birds processed is again pretty disappointing and it looks like the weather in May has took its toll on local breeding success as this session is 25% down on the corresponding session last year. MP, SW, GH
 
Reed Warbler 2 (4), Sedge Warbler 2 (1), Blackcap 3, Garden Warbler 0 (1), Whitethroat 3, Lesser Whitethroat 1, Chiffchaff 1 (1), Blue Tit 8, Great Tit 7 (1), Long Tailed Tit 2 (1), Wren 0 (1), Dunnock 2 (3), Robin 2 (1), Blackbird 1 (1), Song Thrush 0 (1), Bullfinch 2 (1), Reed Bunting 1 (2)