24/06 Thatcham Marsh LNR CES 2018.06

Location: Thatcham Marsh LNR
Session: 24-Jun-2018 05:30 to 10:30hrs
Headlines: Half way through the CES season and after saying last week that Sedge Warbler numbers were on the brink we captured more than one in this session including 4 juveniles. There are still a few new Reed Warblers arriving/moving though and just one juvenile captured, otherwise no surprises. A 33 total in the standard nets is below the average of 42 for visit 06; range 1995-67 2014-23. Below is a chart showing how Reed and Sedge Warbler captures are doing halfway through the season. As can be seen Reed Warbler so far are doing quite well in comparison to previous recent years whereas Sedge Warbler numbers have declined after a couple of years of increasing numbers captured. We think (hope) the breeding season is a little later this year, held up by the two periods of heavy rain early spring. Maybe Sedge Warbler numbers will pick up over the next couple of visits, before numbers are muddied by returning migrants. Unfortunately we don’t think there are many breeding pairs in the immediate vicinity of our nets. Good session though and we had time to sort out the worlds(not) as well!

Weather: Bright, sunny chilly early, warm later, calm
Present: JL, IW, JHW, DL, RGS, RDW
Nets: 228M in 3 rides: 198M ride of standard reed bed net, 30M additional nets in scrub up from 0605 to 10:10hrs
Lure (none):
Capture (New/Recapture)                                    Matching visit 2017.06 (25-Jun-2017)

38(22/16) Visit 06	41(30/11)
Species New Rtp Juv Adult BLABI 1 1 BLACA 1 1 BLUTI 2 2 CETWA 1 1 CHIFF 2 2 DUNNO 2 2 GRETI 2 2 REEWA 4 9 1 12 SEDWA 4 3 4 3 SONTH 1 1 WILWA 1 1 WREN 4 1 4 1	Species New Rtp Juv Adult BLABI 1 1 BLACA 3 2 1 BLUTI 3 3 BULLF 1 1 CETWA 1 2 1 2 CHIFF 4 4 DUNNO 2 2 2 2 REEWA 10 8 5 9 SEDWA 3 3 WREN 3 3

Totals for the last ten visit 06

2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
40	38	45	32	33	23	39	35	32	33

Recaptures: (16) all recent except:

BLABI ringed            04/05/2013
CETWA ringed         11/09/2016
REEWA ringed         16/07/2017
SONTH ringed          26/04/2015
WREN ringed           16/07/2017

Sightings 43 Species: Ian’s list, probably the notable species are a male Sparrowhawk and a Herring Gull. The list shows 42 species as it misses Bullfinch calling mid-morning while Ian was doing a net round and I forgot to mention it.

22/06 Greenham Common

Location: Greenham Common Western Enclosure
Session: 22-Jun-2018 06:30 to 10:30hrs
Headlines: Did a half-hearted ringing session today 22nd. The object was to clean the rides for later next month using my brand new GTech strimmer. I managed to do about 66metres of ride before the battery lost its charge including some heavy-ish gorse strimming that I would normally deal with manually. I cleared a ride and put up the net. I did three rides in this manner and was cleaning the fourth when I noticed a large black bird in one of the nets. Not expecting to capture until I finished and retreated the enclosure I was surprise to find a normally very wary Jackdaw adult in the net. Surprisingly I manage to extract it without  bloodshed. On checking later the group has ringed 119 Jackdaw, mostly pulli. I was surprised to find that I had not ringed one on group rings before. In fact the only ones I can remember is when Reg Smith trained me for my pulli license back in the 1970s; I think I ringed a couple of boxes of them. It is great when you have no trainees with you to steal the birds.  I did manage to clean all five rides but did not put up any more nets. Most of the capture consisted of juveniles. The Great Tit recapture was quite an old bird and was in a poor state being completely bald. I thought it was in moult but on checking it seems it was an old male in very poor condition; I know how it feels..
Weather: bright, sunny, light breeze
Present: JL, IW
Nets: 48M in three rides of 18M, 10M, 12M up from 07:45 to 10:10hrs
Lure (none):
Capture (New/Recapture)            

13(12/01)	A visit on the 21-Jun-2017 produced two birds both recapture adult: a Whitethroat and Great Tit
Species New Rtp Juv Adult BLUTI 2 2 COATI 1 1 DUNNO 1 1 GRETI 2 1 2 1 JACKD 1 1 WHITE 3 3 WILWA 2 2

Recaptures: (01) GRETI ringed 24/09/2014

Sightings 30 Species: the only notable species was a family of Kestrel that included at least two juveniles.

17/06 Thatcham Marsh LNR CES visit 05

Location: Thatcham Marsh LNR CES visit 2018.05
Session: 17-Jun-2018 05:45 to 10:40hrs

Headlines: It was spotting with rain when we arrived and the rain radar showed a rain front over us, the blue turning to green and some yellow (drizzle to heavy showers); we decided that as we were here we would put up the standard nets expecting to take them down sooner or later when it rained. Apart from some spotting occasionally, the rain never materialised allowing us to complete visit 05 uninterrupted. Captures were mostly from the first six nets in the ride and included several new Reed Warblers and a quite early juvenile; not the earliest as we had four on visit 2014.04. A juvenile Magpie was a bit of a surprise and we thought it was a new species for the CES but we had captured one on visit 2000.12. It is not looking good for the Sedge Warbler population as we captured just one today. Long gone are the double figure captures, 1993 to 2000, when number matched and sometimes surpassed the Reed Warbler catch. A “control” Blackcap and Reed Warbler both extracted on the same net round was good. We don’t know where the Blackcap came from yet but it was ringed as a juvenile in 2017. The Reed Warbler we captured several times in 2017 and this year, it was ringed at Charlton STW Bedfordshire as a juvenile on the 19-Jul-2015. This year’s visit 05 is below the visit average of 41, ranged 1993-78 and 2013-15. The 2017 visit 05 was a week earlier and the schedule below included some birds from additional nets; the capture from the standard nets was 36 and  so similar to the current visit but a little more species variety.
Given the unpromising start it turned out to be a good enjoyable session.

Weather: Overcast, spotting with rain for about the first half hour or so and a little towards the end, calm early, breezy later, cool.
Present: JL, IW, JHW, RDW, RGS
Nets: 198metres in one standard reed bed ride up from 06:15 to 10:15hrs
Lure (none):
Capture (New/Recapture)

36(20/16) visit 2018.05	44(22/22) visit 2017.05 11-Jun-2017
Species New Rtp Juv Adult BLACA 1 1 2 BLUTI 1 1 1 1 CETWA 3 3 CHIFF 1 1 2 GRETI 2 2 MAGPI 1 1 REEBU 1 1 REEWA 8 12 1 19 SEDWA 1 1 WREN 1 1 2	Species New Retrap Juv Adult BLACA 3 1 2 BLUTI 3 2 4 1 CETWA 2 2 CHIFF 1 1 DUNNO 1 1 GRETI 2 2 GRSWO 1 1 1 1 REEWA 7 13 20 ROBIN 3 3 SEDWA 1 2 3 WREN 2 2

Totals of the last ten years for visit 05

2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
56	35	52	31	15	27	33	36	36	36

Recaptures: (16) all recent except:

Reed Warbler ringed 12-May-2013, 30-Jul-2015, 06-Sep-2015, 03-Jul-2016, 13-May-2017, 16-Jul-2017, 23-Jul-2017
Wren ringed 25-Jun-2017

Today's "control" Blackcap

Sightings 41 Species: Just a species list today, about 10 Swifts circled over for most of the morning, in fact there was quite a lot of hirundine activity. Other than this and a short squeal confirming that Water Rail is still on site list no notable species.