Cobbler's Pit - 29th November 2017

Ringers: Lynne, Pete, Adam, Claire

Nets: 280'

Tape lures: Goldcrest/chiffchaff mix, Redwing, Treecreeper, Redpoll, Chaffinch, Marsh Tit, Long-tailed Tit

Cobbler's Pit is a small wood that is managed by the Chiltern Society. It has a large number of old Box trees as well as Yew, Ash, Elder and some Corsican Pines. Tring Ringing Group were invited to do some ringing at the site and we hope to provide the Chiltern Society with information about the birds there. We did a ringing session at the wood in December 2016, one in the Spring and we made another visit today.

The weather was very cold and the wind was in the north-east, but the site was sheltered. We used the same net rides as in 2016 for nets A,B and D. Net C we split into 2 x 30' at the woodland edge where we had a 40' last autumn and since net E has caught zero so far we moved it to a new location. (There was a debate over whether this now should be called net F but I have made an executive decision and kept the new net location as E!)

By 9am when the warden arrived to watch the proceedings we had only caught 4 birds, 2 Goldcrest, a Blue Tit and a Great Tit. But we continued to catch 3-4 birds per round and our final tally was 25. This is exactly the same as last year but with a different species mix.

The tit numbers were higher which is probably as a result of a better breeding season for tits locally. We monitored the tit boxes in the wood this summer and 37 Blue Tits fledged, I was hoping that we might retrap some of these but surprisingly none of the juvenile tits we caught were from the local broods.

The net down the middle of the wood that runs through some of the Box produced most of the Goldcrests (as it did last year) and the new position for net E gave us 4 birds including the Chaffinch and our first retrap, a Robin.

We failed to catch any Redwings although the tape lure did attract a flock of 20-30 birds that sat in the trees above the nets.

Nuthatch, Marsh Tit and Jays were heard in the wood and Raven overhead. 

Visit date 29/11/2017
Species	Total	unaged	Juvenile	Adult
Blackbird	1			1
Blue Tit	5		4	1
Chaffinch	1		1
Goldcrest	9	3	5	1
Great Tit	3		1	2
Long-tailed Tit	3	3
Robin	2		1	1
Song Thrush	1			1
Total	25	6	12	7

Visit date 04/12/2016 for comparison
Species	Total	unaged	Juvenile	Adult
Blackbird	3			3
Blue Tit	2			2
Goldcrest	10	2	7	1
Great Tit	1		1
Redwing	6		6
Robin	2			2
Wren	1		1
Total	25	2	15	8

Lynne