Marsworth CES 2 - 13th May 2018

Nets: all CES nets 560'
Weather: Heavy rain overnight but calm and dry all morning
Ringers: LL GK CK CMS (AK)

Species	New Birds	Retraps	Total
Blackbird	1	2	3
Blackcap	1	1	2
Blue Tit		1	1
Chiffchaff		3	3
Dunnock		1	1
Garden Warbler	1		1
Great Tit	1	2	3
Reed Bunting	1	1	2
Reed Warbler	5		5
Robin	1	1	2
Wren		1	1
	11	13	24

Worries about rain during the morning proved unnecessary and it was a calm, slightly cloudy, cool morning. It should have been good ringing conditions but the birds were few and far between. Best results were five new Reed Warblers and a new female Reed Bunting with BP2. We caught a Robin ringed in 2013 and caught every year since and a female Blackcap from 2014. We were pleased to catch a male Garden Warbler in breeding condition.  As last week, the Willow Warbler and Cetti's Warbler sang all morning but did not go near the nets. The final total of 24 birds is well below the average of 39 for CES 2.

Garden Warbler

There had been heavy rain overnight and the smell of hawthorn blossom was thick in the air. We checked the nest boxes again and now have two Blue Tits and three Great Tits on eggs and Stock Doves on eggs in both of the owl boxes. Another of the large boxes that was put up for Starlings had 9 cold, small eggs completely covered with a mass of moss and leaves as if another nest was being built on top of them. A Hobby flew around the wood but there was no sign of the Cuckoo. Not many insects around, just a small cloud of gnats around our ringing table, a Cardinal Beetle and an enormous Hornet that looked nearly 3cm long and must have been a queen prospecting for a nest site, let's hope she finds one far away from us.

Cardinal Beetle Pyrochroa serraticornis

Lynne