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

Marsworth: November 2017 Ringing Summary

Ringers: Lynne, Claire, Chris, Emily, Gabor, Jenny, Katy and Ed in a variety of combinations

Species	New	Retraps	Colour Ring sightings	Totals
Blackbird	7	1		8
Blackcap	1			1
Blue Tit	6	7		13
Bullfinch	1			1
Cetti's Warbler		1		1
Chaffinch	1			1
Chiffchaff	1	2		3
Goldcrest	11	14		25
Great Spotted Woodpecker		1		1
Great Tit	4	4		8
Lesser Redpoll	4			4
Long-tailed Tit		1		1
Marsh Tit	1			1
Redwing	5			5
Reed Bunting	31	11	32	74
Robin	1	5		6
Song Thrush	4			4
Treecreeper	1			1
Wren		3		3
Totals	79	50	32	161

We have had four ringing sessions during November.

On the 5^th we had a good catch of 57 birds including 21 Reed Buntings and 4 Lesser Redpolls and our first Marsh Tit since Jan 2016. The bird was heard calling as we put the net up by the stream and it came to a tape lure.  We also caught 3 Song Thrush, all juveniles.

A few days later on the 9th, as it was a nice calm day, I tried a short session in the afternoon and caught another 17 Reed Buntings plus 5 Goldcrests that all appeared to be heading in the same direction, they were processed quickly and released as I thought they were probably heading for a roost site.

Many of the Goldcrest retraps are birds that were caught for the first time in October and have remained on site.

We retrapped 2 Reed Buntings that were originally ringed in 2012 and another from 2013. A male Reed Bunting, originally ringed in March 2014 and colour-ringed in April 2017, has been observed in every month since but never retrapped – this bird obviously knows how to avoid the nets. There were 32 colour-ring observations of 19 individuals during November.  

The weather during the month was characterised by strong north westerly wind which is not a good direction for our site but we have been able to put up nets in the most sheltered rides. Our session on the 12th started late due to early morning rain, nonetheless we caught 24 birds including an adult Chiffchaff and took the opportunity to set up a new net ride near the peanut feeder on the edge of the woodland.

Ringing mid-month was interrupted by a weekend at the Wash ringing waders

Today (26th) was probably our last visit in November. We caught 5 Blackbirds (a fifth of our annual total to date) and 3 more Redwings. Our Redwing catch so far this autumn has been poor. Despite using the same Latvian song that drew the birds in last year we have only caught 5 Redwing during November. A couple of times we have seen a small flock sitting in the treetops apparently interested, but not interested enough to come any closer.

The Great SpottedWoodpecker with the prominent fault bar has found the peanuts, caught in the new net. We also caught a female Cetti’s Warbler that had been at Marsworth during the breeding season in 2016 but had not been retrapped since Dec 2016. 

Only 25 birds, 4 ringers and freezing cold temperatures today – it was the perfect day to start some annual winter vegetation maintenance! We tackled some of the willow growing between two of the CES net rides (2 and 3) and made good progress if the size of the stack pile is anything to go by. A Constant Effort Site needs to be managed to keep the vegetation as unchanged as possible and when we took on the site in 2008 I took a series of photographs with Colin standing in each net ride so we had a reference picture. This is what we are aiming for!

Net ride 3 in January 2008

Lynne