Weather Calm and mild
Ringers: LL, CK
Blackcaps are now few and far between but Chiffchaff are still passing through. Numbers of Goldcrests have increased and the 11 we caught included four adults, and we were surprised to find one that had not quite finished its main moult, the outer two primaries still at stage 4 and 3, and the two middle secondaries, S5 and S6, were still growing (stage 3).
The number of Great Tits caught this year has been well below average so the capture of seven today was unusual, one of them was a retrap adult male and the other 6 were all young females. We colour-ringed four Reed Buntings. One of the Reed Buntings was new, the others were birds that have not been caught since Jan/Feb and are more evidence of Reed Buntings moving back to a regular wintering site. A Chaffinch and Goldfinch added a bit of variety and a Raven was heard flying over 2-3 times during the morning.
We set up a new net ride under the trees with the aim of trying for Tawny Owl next week. Last week we arrived early and tried Tawny Owl tapes which provoked a response from a male and female calling from the trees behind the reservoir but no action. Hopefully our new net will be in a better position.
Unfortunately after a pleasant calm morning we had a rather stressful end; we had at least 11 large hornets in two of the nets and more were flying lazily around. It was a race to get them out and the nets shut before more could go in. All but one was released successfully - they were not aggressive and most of them I released by cutting one or two strands that were caught around their waist and then going around the other side of the net and batting them off and they flew off quite sedately. At the time I was a bit worried about pheromones being released and swarms of aggressive hornets descending on me but I have since found a very interesting website with information about their lifecycle and I think they were probably a mating swarm of new queens and males - lovers not fighters!
http://www.vespa-crabro.com/hornets.htm
Lynne
Species
|
Total Summary
|
New Bird
|
Retrap
|
Blackcap
|
3
|
2
|
1
|
Blue
Tit
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
Chaffinch
|
1
|
1
|
|
Chiffchaff
|
6
|
6
|
|
Goldcrest
|
11
|
11
|
|
Goldfinch
|
1
|
1
|
|
Great
Tit
|
7
|
5
|
2
|
Reed
Bunting
|
5
|
1
|
4
|
Robin
|
1
|
1
|
|
Wren
|
4
|
3
|
1
|
Total
|
41
|
32
|
9
|
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