An interesting couple of sessions over which virtually the entire team took part. Thursday was at Ravensroost Woods and Saturday at the Firs.
The list for Ravensroost was: Treecreeper 1(1); Blue Tit 2(5); Great Tit 2(2); Coal Tit (6); Marsh Tit (2); Dunnock (1); Robin 2(6); Blackbird 1(1); Chaffinch 5; Goldfinch 8. Totals: 21 birds ringed from 7 species; 24 retrapped from 8 species, making 45 birds processed from 10 species.
The list from the Firs was: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1; Nuthatch (1); Blue Tit 7(4); Great Tit 1(7); Coal Tit 1(3); Marsh Tit (2); Long-tailed Tit 1(2); Wren 2; Robin 4(2); Blackbird 1; Goldcrest 1; Chaffinch 1(1). Totals: 20 ringed from 10 species; 22 retrapped from 8 species, making 42 birds processed from 12 species.
I never thought that when I started ringing at the Wildlife Trust's sites in autumn 2012 that the Firs would ever match Ravensroost for numbers and actually have a greater variety of species. There has been such a strong focus on improving the habitat at the Firs, for all wildlife, that it is great to see it working. To be fair, if one of my crew hadn't let a Goldcrest escape at Ravensroost on Thursday, there would have been one more bird retrapped and one additional species processed but, as both sites have the same feeding station arrangement (peanuts, mixed seed and nyjer seed) and both feeding stations were additionally topped up the day before the ringing session, it is a valid comparison.
The highlights of the Ravensroost session were the Goldfinches and Chaffinches. It was our best catch of Goldfinches at Ravensroost ever: not all of them were caught at the feeding station, three came to a lure in the open, on ride R38, the feeding station is part way up R28, on the opposite side of the main track.
The Chaffinches are a nice find. In 2012 and 2013 we had excellent numbers of them in the wood. However, in 2014 and 2015 the numbers fell off a cliff. 2016 was better and this is a good start to 2017, so I am hoping we will see the recovery continue. Unfortunately, at each site we caught one Chaffinch affected with the Fringilla papilloma virus. These are the first cases I have seen for a long time in the Braydon Forest.
In the Firs, the two retrapped Long-tailed Tits were at least three years old. One of them was ringed in the Firs exactly three years ago, was subsequently recaptured twice on Somerford Common in 2015, and has now returned to the Firs. Recapturing two Marsh Tits, which were ringed as youngsters in the Firs last year, was encouraging. There is some exchange between the Firs and Webb's Wood, but it does look as if they are breeding successfully in the Firs, as they are in Ravensroost Woods.
There was one worrying discovery:
It looks, horribly, as if the Fringilla papilloma virus might have crossed more than the species boundary. The left leg shows fairly typical warty excrescences, the right leg has rotted away leaving a stump. There was no evidence of mite infestation, so it looks rather like a potentially bad situation.
A small anecdote to finish. One of my trainees was wildlife watching at Lower Moor Farm in the week. Whilst enjoying great views of an Otter and a Kingfisher three photographers came into the hide. They spotted the Kingfisher, which was immediately followed by a torrent of abuse about ringers and ringing, because this particular bird happened to be one of the ten we have ringed in the last couple of years at the site. I am afraid that I do think that what we do is worthwhile, so there is no plan to stop anytime soon. You will always be welcome to join us for an explanation of the importance of ringing to ornithology - and I am always willing to listen to an explanation of why you think your photographs are more important than the long term studies we are undertaking. I am running a ringing demonstration at Ravensroost in April, so please come along and I will happily explain the importance of what we do. ST/JC/CS/NS/AH/SB