22/08 Greenham Common

Location: Greenham Common Western Enclosure
Session: 22-Aug-2017 06:45 to 10:40hrs

Headlines: Had to leave early as looking after a little person, also decided to just enjoy a bit of ringing myself. As could have been predicted it was a good morning with some good species captured. The first bird in the net was a Reed Warbler; one or two are  captured annually here at this time of year. A steady trickle of the usual migrants followed. Meanwhile an ever increasing number of Stonechats assemble around the enclosure. Unfortunately they could see the nets, dodging round and over them. Finally we captured one then another, both juveniles. The first was easy to sex as a male, the second more difficult and we left it unsexed. A good mixture of species continued through the morning. A chat with Rodney A meant that my intended nets down time drifted towards 10:00hrs. On arriving at the nets we had a capture of eight that included the second Stonechat and a Spotted Flycatcher. We decided to process these before taking down the nets. When we returned to the enclosure, we found just a Blackcap and Willow Warbler in the nets. Once these were extracted we began taking the nets down. Looking over towards the scrub to the south many birds were fly catching. Appropriately they included at least two Spotted Flycatchers (neither was ringed) and several other warblers and some of the Stonechats. Had I been able to stay to 11:00hrs we would probably have had really good total, who knows! This was bound to happen, given that I had a fixed time to leave that I had already exceeded by some margin. This time of year seems to be good for scarce migrants as we captured two Restarts on the same date in 2016.

Weather: Overcast with a low damping mist early that lifted for a while then dropped down again before clearing as the temperature rose, it stayed overcast and calm
Present: JL, IW
Nets: 48metres in three rides of 18M, 18M, 12M up from 07:00 to 10:15hrs.
Lure (audio): Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Goldcrest, Firecrest, Willow Warbler, Whitethroat and Redstart intermittently.
Capture (New/Recapture)

31(29/02)	20(20/00) 22/08/2016 matching visit
Species New Rtp Juvs Adults BLABI 1 1 BLACA 7 7 BLUTI 1 1 2 CHIFF 4 4 GARWA 1 1 GOLDC 1 1 REEWA 1 1 ROBIN 1 1 SPOFL 1 1 STOCH 2 2 WHITE 1 1 2 WILWA 8 8	Species New Rtp Juvs Adults CHAFF 1 1 CHIFF 2 2 GARWA 2 2 GREWO 2 2 REDST 2 2 ROBIN 1 1 SEDWA 1 1 WHITE 1 1 WILWA 8 8

Recaptures: 2, a Blue Tit ringed 35 days ago and unusually a Whitethroat stayed around from two days ago

 Juvenile Spotted Flycatcher, would not stay still kept snapping its beak at me,

this is the best shot I could get

A male Stonechat moulting out of juvenile plumage

Sightings 33 Species: The misty weather had held up some good species, as well as those listed above we saw: Whinchat, Wheatear and Snipe. We also managed to find a Dartford Warbler; not found one of these on the common since mid-July. Unlike Sunday hirundines were on the move. A Garden Warbler was captured at the end of the session, otherwise much the same as Sunday.