It has been quite a week. After the Goldfinch fest in my garden on Tuesday, followed by the awesome Yellow-browed Warbler on Wednesday, I was hoping that we might have another good experience at Blakehill Farm today. The team comprised Jonny Cooper and, proudly clutching his new C-permit, Andrew Bray (congratulations, well deserved). Because the weather forecast had changed from when I first proposed the visit on Monday, with the wind forecast to be much stronger than originally, I had contemplated changing the venue. Fortunately, I decided that, with the wind coming from the west, the hedgerow would act as a windbreak, which it did quite admirably.
We set two nets on the edge of the plateau, gambling on the initial absence of cattle staying that way. Then we set four nets along the leeward side of the hedgerow, on the perimeter track. Whilst we were putting these nets up, we had excellent views of a hunting Barn Owl, as it flew along the tree line on the edge of the reserve about 100m away from us. It was the first of several good sightings of birds of prey we had during the day: Kestrel being mobbed by Corvids as it flew across the plateau; Sparrowhawk bouncing out of our net and then it, or another, seen later finding a thermal and spiralling up into the sky, whilst a Carrion Crow tried to get above it. It was a fine day for birding, let alone ringing.
In the meantime, we were regularly catching birds. A decent range of species and a good number of birds. Our first round delivered up two Stonechats from the plateau, and our third round delivered another from the same net. Previously my team had only caught a single Stonechat, also at Blakehill Farm. The third bird was a stunning adult male:
The run of Reed Buntings caught at the site continued, with three new birds and four retraps. However, three of the four retraps were not birds of this parish, sporting a ring series that indicated they came from the same location, just not Blakehill Farm. I suspect they will have come from CWP but it will be good to find out. Along with these farmland birds, we had a reasonable catch of Meadow Pipits, but probably only one percent of what was flying around the plateau. The only thing missing were the Linnets. We have seen good numbers on the site, but not today, and they are almost totally missing from our catches at Blakehill this year. There was a decent catch of Redwing, and quite a few flying around. We also saw, but did not manage to catch, a couple of small flocks of Fieldfare.
Amongst the other memorable birds caught were a pair of Magpies. Personally, I love these birds and hate the way they are maligned for behaving naturally (I know people, who should know a lot better, who think they have the right to destroy their nests) and it is always a pleasure to catch them, especially if you can get someone else to extract and process them! They do have sharp claws and beaks but are beautiful birds:
Whilst Andrew and Jonny were extracting the Magpies, I was extracting the first Greenfinches caught on the site: three of them. Jonny then came back with his first ever Starling. I had caught one before, in the garden of Purley farmhouse next door to the site, but it was the first for Blakehill proper. In the next round I extracted another two. So, that is three new species ringed on the site in the last two sessions. It really was a varied and interesting day and catch. Ellie, in her work role, arrived at about 11:00 to remind the others that she was with me when we caught the Yellow-browed Warbler. They took it in the right way - grown men shouldn't cry without a very good reason.
The list for the session was: Magpie 2; Blue Tit 1; Meadow Pipit 8; Wren 4; Stonechat 3; Robin 2; Redwing 13; Blackbird 2; Goldcrest 3; Chaffinch 1; Greenfinch 3; Starling 3; Reed Bunting 3(4). Totals: 48 ringed from 13 species; four retrapped from one species, making 52 birds processed from 13 species. As the number of birds died off significantly after 11:00, we took down and were off site by about 12:30. It was a fine end to an excellent week's bird ringing. ST/JC/AB
*Update*: John Wells kindly confirmed that the three controlled Reed Buntings were originally ringed at Waterhay in 2015. Jonny and I had a short session back at Blakehill today (Wednesday, 2nd November) and added the following to the list: Blue Tit 1; Great Tit 1; Long-tailed Tit (1); Meadow Pipit 5; Stonechat 1(2); Robin 1(1); Redwing 8; Song Thrush (1); Reed Bunting 5. Totals: 22 ringed from seven species; five retrapped from four species, making 27 processed from nine species. ST