29/08 Greenham Common Western Enclosure

Location: Greenham Common Western Enclosure
Session: 29-Aug-2017 06:45 to 11:00hrs

Headlines: I thought yesterday was a good day, so today I wavered if to go or not, but knowing I would regret it breakfasted and was on site about 06:45, a little later than intended. With one net up, a lady wanted to know what I was doing and we had an interesting chat that delayed me putting up the other nets. Until 09:15 the capture was similar to yesterday, consisting mostly of Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Blackcap. At 09:15 we arrived at the nets to discover a good capture of what appeared to be mostly Long-tailed Tits and phylos warblers. Three of the four nets each had lots of birds so we took a net each and began to extract. I took out a juvenile Dartford Warbler that I expected to be the capture of the day. We cleared the nets and returned to the Xtrail. Ellie is still ID-ing species in the hand (not as easy as some might think) so I handed the bag with the Dartford in it to see what she made of it. She got as far as warbler and I think she knew what it was but as it had juvenile plumage and very little of the expected pink-red on the breast she was unsure. We carried on processing the capture of 20 birds. Ellie pulled out another bird that looked different and on closer inspection I said "Redstart" much to Elle’s disappointment as she knew what it was when she took it out of the net and wanted to impress. It got better though because it was already ringed by someone-else. It will be interesting to see where it is from. It was a juvenile so my guess is it will have been ringed as a nestling somewhere to the north-west. Feeling very satisfied with the day so far we went to take the nets down. We had captured four birds and one again looked different. It was a pipit but it did not look quite right for the Meadow Pipits that we usually capture here. After checking Svensonn it was  Id'd as a Tree Pipit, so we ended the session with three scarce species and also a very happy ringer who added five new species to her list. It looks like “this is the week” so I intend to be out again as often as possible. Tomorrow looks as if it will rain through the night and into the morning, hopefully it might stop before dawn!

Weather: overcast, clearing to sunny periods, warm, mostly calm with an occasional breezy period
Present: JL, IW, EMH
Nets: 66metres in four rides of 18M, 18M, 12M, 18M up from 07:00 to 10:30hrs
Lure (audio): Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Goldcrest, Firecrest, Willow Warbler, Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroat intermittently (the last species because we saw one nearby in gorse scrub)
Capture (New/Recapture)

45(43/02)	No matching 2016 capture.
Species New Rtp Juvs Adults BLACA 9 9 BLUTI 1 1 CHIFF 9 9 COATI 1 1 2 DARWA 1 1 DUNNO 1 1 GOLDC 1 1 GRETI 2 2 LOTTI 12 indeterminate REDST 1 1 TREPI 1 1 WILWA 5 5

Recaptures: 2, a Redstart ringed elsewhere and a Coal Tit ringed here 56 days ago

The Redstart an immature female

The "red start"

A not very good photo of the Tree Pipit

Sightings 34 Species: Some good birds today, apart from the Redstart, Tree Pipit and Dartford Warbler captures. The sighting of a Lesser Whitethroat was unexpected as we thought they had left in July. The Yellow and Pied Wagtails were with the cows, seen as I drove back to the gate. Think there may have been more than one but difficult to see in the long grass unless they fly.