Wendover WTW - 26th August 2017 - CES#12

The final session was conducted on 26th August on another beautiful, calm morning.  A slightly below average catch of 30, with Blackbird and Blackcap again the dominant species.

2017 comes in at 8th place of 10 CES years for Total Captures and Total Individual birds trapped but probably the most significant measure is the low number (153) of adult birds this year – 9th lowest of 10.   The 2017 productivity (1st Years/ Adults) of 1.78 was the 5th highest in 10 years and pushed 2017 up into 6th place for the total number of 1st Year birds trapped.

Blackbirds and Blackcaps had reasonable years but most other species were low in comparison.  We have only  trapped 1 Garden Warbler since 2011 and Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroat numbers were disappointing.

A small squadron of armour plated Dor Beetles (probably Geotrupes stercorarius, see below) were trapped in the 1st round and all except one were released unharmed.  The obligatory Willow Warbler in passage turned up mid-morning avoiding our first ever blank for this species in a CES season (range 1-4).

Ringers Adam, Ginny & Pete.

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Great Moor Sailing Club - 20th August 2017 - Two very productive nets

Warren and I had another good session at the sailing club yesterday. 72 new and 4 retraps, all bar 5 in two nets, a 60' and 40'.

We used a walk-in trap to catch a moorhen and managed to nab one of the swan family by hand.

Interestingly only one reed warbler and no sedge warblers but good numbers of whitethroat, blackcap, chiffchaff and willow warbler.

Also noticed a couple of late swifts hawking and a small passage of tree pipit.

Ian

Wilstone Reservoir 20th August 2017

Weather: calm, then light breeze
JT, MC, JS-J and new starter Jen
Report by Johne

A slow start that gradually became quite frenetic. Willow warblers and Whitethroats present but as yet not the influx of Blackcaps that by this time last year was well underway. The outer net at net ride one did well with two Kingfishers and a second year male Sparrowhawk caught. All the retraps were Wilstone birds, the oldest being a 4 year old Reed Bunting. Two Pipistrelle bats were successfully extracted, the first ones of the year, along with some hornets too.

	New	Retrap	Total
Blackcap	11	5	16
Blue Tit	3	3	6
Bullfinch	1	1	2
Chiffchaff	9	1	10
Dunnock	1	1	2
Goldcrest	1		1
Great Tit	1	1	2
Kingfisher	2		2
Long Tailed Tit	3		3
Reed Bunting		1	1
Reed Warbler	20	5	25
Robin	1	1	2
Sedge Warbler	5		5
Sparrowhawk	1		1
Whitethroat	3		3
Willow Warbler	6		6
Wren	6	3	9
Total	74	22	96

Wilstone Reservoir 15th August 2017 - CES and moth trap

Weather: Warm with a light breeze
Ringers: JT, JSJ, SM, CL, LL, EM plus potential trainee Jen and Sandra’s friend Alan.

Full house this morning. Sandra brought an interested friend, Alan, and Jenny, a student from Hemel Hempstead, came for a taster session.
We had a good number of birds, 110, to make up for last time, largely Reed Warblers, also evidence of the autumn passage with 9 Willow Warblers handled.
Lynne and Colin had set the moth trap the night before so more fun was had there.

	New	Retrap	Total
Blackbird		1	1
Blackcap	12	5	17
Blue Tit	1		1
Chiffchaff	11	2	13
Dunnock	1		1
Garden Warbler	1		1
Goldcrest	1		1
Great Tit	1		1
Long Tailed Tit	2	1	3
Reed Bunting	1	1	2
Reed Warbler	38	1	39
Robin	1	2	3
Sedge Warbler	9		9
Willow Warbler	9		9
Wren	6	3	9
Total	94	16	110

Johne

Moths recorded at Wilstone Reservoir for the night of 14/8/2017

Report by Colin

Moth Traps used to be a regular event at Wilstone Reservoir but haven’t been done in recent years, so we were glad to take the opportunity this weekend. Although moth numbers were not great there were some interesting species, particularly Brown-veined Wainscot and Twin-spotted Wainscot.

The Pale Prominents and abundant Poplar Hawkmoths were popular with the visitors who hadn’t seen these impressive moths before, and the Canary-shouldered Thorn was nice.

Apologies for the lack of order of the records. I’ll correct this when I can.

Species	Count
Brown-veined Wainscot	1
Twin-spotted Wainscot	1
Common Wainscot	1
Southern Wainscot	3
Poplar Hawkmoth	10
Canary-shouldered Thorn	1
White Satin Moth	1
Engrailed	1
Blood-vein	1
Riband Wave	2
July Highflyer	3
Common Carpet	1
Common Wave	3
Willow Beauty	2
Swallow Prominent	3
Pale Prominent	3
Large Yellow Underwing	14
Lesser Broad-bordered Yellow Underwing	2
Least Yellow Underwing	1
Copper Underwing	1
Small Square-spot	1
Dingy Footman	2
Straw Dot	1
Chilo phragmitella	1
Pyrausta aurata	1
Brown China-mark	1

Brown-veined Wainscot. Photo by Lynne

Twin-spotted Wainscot. Photo by Lynne

Poplar Hawkmoth. Photo by Jenny

Pale Prominent. Photo by Jenny

July Highflyer. Photo by Jenny

Marsworth CES 11 - Willow Warblers passing through.

Marsworth

Nets: 540' 05:45 - 11:45am

Ringers: LL, CMS, GK

A beautiful calm and sunny late summer morning. Claire and I had been down during the week and tried some nets in a different part of the site and caught 40 birds including 7 willow warblers so we knew they were passing though. Even so we were pleased to catch another 13 on Sunday including 2 adults (11 in the CES nets). Other highlights were three juvenile Garden Warblers and 2 new 3J Cetti's Warblers. In contrast to Pete's abundant Blackbirds at Wendover, we still did not catch any. We heard Green Woodpecker, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Jay, Mistle Thrush and Hobby calling in the trees and a large juvenile Sparrowhawk landed briefly on the branch above our heads. Shame none of them went in the nets!
A total of 64 CES birds is above average (ave 48) and brings our total for 11 sessions to 720 against an average of 625. Considering that after the first 6 sessions we were still 7% below average it shows how much the number of young chiffchaff, wrens and now willow warblers have boosted our numbers this year.
Lynne

Species	Row Summary	New Bird	Retrap
Blackcap	6	5	1
Bullfinch	1	1
Cetti's Warbler	2	2
Chiffchaff	15	12	3
Dunnock	1		1
Garden Warbler	3	3
Goldcrest	2	2
Great Tit	5	3	2
Reed Bunting	2	1	1
Reed Warbler	8	6	2
Robin	1	1
Treecreeper	1		1
Willow Warbler	11	9	2
Wren	6	4	2
Totals	64	49	15

Southern Hawker basking