Wilstone CES 1 2021

Crew JT, EM,lC, CM and PD. The first CES for Wilstone reservoir 2021. Cold start at 5.am with not a breath of wind. Nets up efficiently, expectations high. First bird out of the bag not surprisingly,a Reed warbler. Ring number starts with a number . Ok read it again! 8266230. Ok. What is the address. Answer Paris. Nice one Ian. Six birds later it's Calums turn ...4Y02572, address San Sebastian. Which is in the Basque district of Spain on the Atlantic coast .We have had one of our Sedge warblers recovered there recently . Not finished though in the same net 6 ,another Reed warbler from the Paris scheme!!!. So now the wait to find out the where and when. The west coast of France flyway l suppose and some where on the north east coast of Spain. The total for the morning was 48 birds, 26 new and 19 retraps plus 3 controls. A species total of 10. We had 2 returning Blackcaps and 2 Reed warblers. A Cettis warbler male was trapped for the fifth session this year,so l am hoping that we will be seeing some offspring from him as 3 females have already been caught on site.The total for Session one of 48 is the third best of the last 10 years , 49 in 2015 and 55 in 2012. This year we have a new trainee Peter Dobson who lives in Tring and also Alana Stilbeck who hails from Aylesbury who is hoping to return to ringing having just moved into the area.

2019 Report for Wilstone Reservoir

2019 was another good year for the number of Blackcaps caught at the site. In all 548 birds were handled, 530 newly ringed and 17 local re-traps plus 1 other ringed near Whitwell in Derbyshire on the 4th of August 2019. One of the newly ringed birds was then subsequently re-trapped at Coimbra, central Portugal on the 22nd of October 2019. 54% of the Blackcap total were caught on 3 visits during the beginning of September. Nationally Blackcaps enjoyed a good breeding season. Our own CES results are in line with this, 38 Adults and 169 juveniles being encountered. The CES results for the year show a big improvement over 2018. The average catch per visit was 85.75 birds compared with 67.0 birds last year. This was due to much better catches in the first half of the season; visits 1 to 6.  This year there were 72.6 per visit, last year 39.8 birds. Residents had much better breeding season than in 2018, as did the early breeding migrants such as the Blackcap. The Annual totals for the two years are roughly the same but the mix and number of species was less in 2019, 44 to 37. A Coal Tit was ringed, a very unusual occurrence. For the second year in a row a Jack Snipe was caught in a net across the Barwell stream and a Firecrest was also caught.

To date, 8 recoveries have been reported - these are 4 Reed warblers, 2 Blackcaps, a Chiffchaff and a Goldcrest. Of the Reed Warblers, 1 wore a Belgium scheme ring. It had been ringed in July 2018 and trapped in May at Wilstone. During August we trapped birds ringed this year in Burnham Deepdale, North Norfolk and Warrington, in the Wirral. On the 19th June we re-trapped S216848 from Lower Basildon, Berkshire previously caught on 2 occasions during July 2018 at Wilstone. The Blackcap from Derbyshire was trapped on the 15th September the same day that we ringed the Blackcap recovered in Portugal. The Chiffchaff was also caught on that day being originally being ringed in Northumberland in June 2019.The Goldcrest came from Landguard Suffolk, being ringed on the 31st October 2018 and was at Wilstone on the 3rd November 2019.

Johne Taylor

	New	Retrap	Total
Blackbird	20	7	27
Blackcap	530	20	550
Blue Tit	160	17	177
Bullfinch	5	3	8
Cettis warbler	6	4	10
Chaffinch	9	1	10
Chiffchaff	193	9	202
Coal Tit	1		1
Common Sandpiper	1		1
Dunnock	26	6	32
Fieldfare	4		4
Firecrest	1		1
Garden Warbler	10		10
Goldcrest	33	5	38
Goldfinch	7		7
Great Tit	60	10	70
Great Spotted Wdpkr	2		2
Green Woodpecker	1		1
Jack Snipe	1		1
Jay	2		2
Kingfisher	6	1	7
Lesser Whitethroat	7		7
Long Tailed Tit	51	18	69
Marsh Tit	5	1	6
Redwing	58		5
Reed Bunting	43	13	56
Reed Warbler	221	39	260
Robin	50	6	56
Sand Martin	1		1
Sedge Warbler	85	5	90
Song Thrush	16	6	22
Sparrowhawk	1		1
Treecreeper	8	3	11
Whitethroat	10		10
Willow Warbler	16		16
Wood Pigeon	1		1
Wren	70	19	89
Total	1721	186	1907

Wilstone Reservoir March/April 2019

	New	Retrap	Total
Blackbird	2	5	7
Blackcap	22	7	29
Blue Tit	2	5	7
Bullfinch	1	1	2
Chaffinch	1	1	2
Chiffchaff	26	21	47
Dunnock		8	8
Goldcrest		2	2
Goldfinch	1		1
Grey Heron	2		2
Great Tit	4	7	11
Kingfisher	1	1	2
Long Tailed Tit		5	5
Redwing	1		1
Reed Bunting	3	5	8
Reed Warbler	3	1	4
Robin	2	3	5
Sand Martin	1		1
Sedge Warbler	10	4	14
Song Thrush	2	4	6
Treecreeper	3	1	4
Willow Warbler	2		2
Wood Pigeon	1		1
Wren	4	9	13
Total	94	90	184

Following on from my wishful thinking for Cetti's Warblers to survive the winter and to stay on to breed; there has been no sight or sound of them since the 23rd of February.

The first Chiffchaff of the spring was caught on the 3rd March and the first Blackcap on the 24th. The 31st March was a cool, breezy day which brought a small flock of Sand Martins to the large willow tree at the end of net ride ride 1. Fortunately, we did manage to ring one; our first ever spring record. 

A Blackcap ringed on the 24th March provided us with an interesting record. The bird when caught weighed in at 17 grammes, an average size. On the 7th April when retrapped he weighed a whopping 25.1 grammes. This, as far as I can see looking back, is the first instance we have found of a Blackcap refuelling at the site at this time of the year.

April began with an influx of Chiffchaffs and on the 14th the first Reed Warbler. A Redwing caught on the same date is our latest record. On the 18th, Sandra and I ventured out to the heronry and ringed two chicks from the only accessible nest. This year the Little Egrets have started to nest earlier than ever before, not waiting for the herons to finish.

Sandra and Johne heading off to the heronry

A Willow warbler ringed on the 20th, from net 2, was recovered by the West Wiltshire Ringing Group at one of their sites close to Warminster, on the Salisbury Plain, the next day. That's 121km in 22 hours to the south west.

So far we have had four Chiffchaff, five Blackcaps and five Sedge Warblers returning from previous years. Reed Warblers appear to be a bit thin on the ground, let's hope that this doesn't prove significant.

Johne

Reed Warbler (photo by Calum)