Meisen Wood: The Young Ones

Nets: 124m

Sound: None

Weather: 9C to 23C some cloud with light wind

Ringers:  CS and EB

Spring, a most anticipated season, has raced by and is essentially over.  Evidence for this was apparent when we opened the nets to a much diminished dawn chorus; volume down, duration shortened and reduced participants in the choral ensemble.  The day’s excellent, well above average, catch presented the explanation: seventy-two of the birds caught were juveniles.  Many choristers of previous dawns have nearly completed their breeding efforts so have no need to advertise themselves and proclaim their territories. 

Species	Ringed	Re-trapped	Total
Blackbird	1	1	2
Blackcap	2		2
Blue Tit	12	3	15
Chiffchaff	1		1
Crested Tit	6	2	8
Dunnock	1		1
G S Woodpecker	7	7	14
Great Tit	6	20	26
Greenfinch	2		2
Hawfinch	2		2
Marsh Tit	5	1	6
Nuthatch	2		2
Pied Flycatcher	1	5	6
Robin		2	2
Song Thrush	1		1
Total	49	41	90

The numbers are above average for several reasons.  Most of the captures came from the nets close to a derelict fountain whose shallow basin we keep topped up with water, a definite attraction in dry woodland; currently the wood is scented by that delightful fragrance particular to pine in prolonged dry periods.  Also we have kept two small feeders going.  This is a partial response to a documentary featuring a well known German naturalist who suggested year round bird feeding as a means, in a minor way, to compensate for the lack of food in the wider environment, a negative consequence of Germany’s intense agro-forestry industries. This is a point that almost certainly applies to many other nations too.

Of particular note is the number of Great Spotted Woodpeckers: the day’s figures included six new juveniles sporting bright red crown feathers.  So far this month we have ringed eleven juvenile Great Spots; and two new adults.  The day’s re-traps included three of those new juveniles one of which had started post-juv moult; moult in these birds is something we are looking forward to monitoring and given the woodpeckers’ tendency for regular re-trapping will hopefully bring some clarity (for us) to moult, and subsequent aging, in this species.

It has certainly been a good year, locally at least, for breeding tits.  All the newly ringed Blue Tits were juveniles – with a wonderful yellow flush through their faces.  And the three re-trapped Blue Tit were birds we had ringed in boxes in the middle of May.  Similarly the new Great Tits were all juveniles and all but two of the re-traps were birds we’d ringed in the last month at various nest boxes.  One of the re-trapped adult Great Tits had been ringed as a nestling in 2016.  This was not quite the oldest bird of the day, that sobriquet went to a Robin originally ringed earlier in 2016. 

Frequently tits are caught as part of a Tit flock and we were delighted to find in the day’s fourth net round a mixed flock of tits that included six Crested Tit and five Marsh Tits.  All the Marsh Tit were juveniles and included one that had been ringed a few weeks back.  Five of the Crested Tits were new juveniles with an adult male which had been ringed in early 2017.  Catching this chirpy crew of Crested Tits was special as our efforts in providing nest boxes for this species have totally failed (so far), but it is pleasing to know they are succeeding somewhere out there in the woods.

Contrary to the morning’s pattern, the two Hawfinches were adults: a male and a female.  The male Hawfinch’s chin feathers were distinctly marked, like a Spanish marquis’ beard.  He had a cloacal protuberance, just; and she a poorly demarcated brood patch: breeding or not breeding that is the question?

Not shown in the table are six more nestling Pied Flycatchers, bringing this year’s total for nestling to forty-two.  With three more boxes with nestlings to ring later in the week this year’s total will be the largest number of Pied Flycatcher nestlings we have ringed in Meisen Wood – so far.  Surprisingly we have never caught a recently fledged nestling and in this respect we differ from much of the published literature.  Numerous Pied Flycatcher studies indicate that fledglings remain in their natal area for up to forty-five days.  The ones we ring seem to fledge and depart.  Though some of those studies reported catching fledglings at distances between 2 and 10km form the natal site; um, 10km to us would be a control.  And the Pied Flys do seem to be departing: when opening the nets we are often accompanied by the warning chip-chip call of adult Pied Flycatchers as we walk through the wood, there were fewer today.

Mist netting is a sampling technique and an inherent variable in any such scientific technique is that some species’ numbers will be skewed, or absent.  Today there were three absentees.  Firecrests were excitedly twittering for most of the morning in the boughs above our ringing table, a ringed male with his fluorescent orange crest most evident, feeding some youngsters (no crests yet). They numbered ten or eleven birds though these miniscule birds are difficult to count in the canopy’s thick foliage.  During the extraction of the aforementioned tit flock a group of Long-tailed Tits deftly avoided the net; this group of some ten individuals included some juveniles too.  Also a small flock of seven crossbills flew over.  These are sporadic visitors to the wood and occasionally come down to net level to drink at the fountain on hot days – to dream the dream; and even better would there be some re-traps from previous visits?