22/08 Thatcham Marsh LNR

Location: Thatcham Marsh LNR Constant Effort Site 2021.12 of 12
Session: 22/08/2021, 06:00 to 11:00hrs
Notes; The final CES session of the year. Eventful but not as many birds as expected. The first bird ringed was a big juvenile female Sparrowhawk that clawed me in the soft parts of my hand drawing blood . Later, when doing a net round, we somehow captured a Field Vole that as you might expect was quite badly entangled. I tried several times to extract it, including getting bitten on the thumb, quite painful and bled a lot at first. I eventual gave up and resorted to a quick unpick to cut the vole out. The reed bed was very quiet most of the capture came from a small tit flock at around 07:00hrs after which just six birds for the rest of the morning. The 2019 matching session includes bird from the scrub area B that we have not operated this year since the start of the ongoing regular intrusion by drug users using their den.
Present: JL,IW,JHW,DL,NC
Weather: clear blue sky early becoming overcast later, calm to light breeze, warm
Nets: 198metres in 1 ride of 198M up from 06:30 to 10:30hrs
Lures: None

Recaptures:(04)
Blue Tit                       ringed 20/06/2021
Cetti’s Warbler           ringed 08/07/2021
Reed Warbler            ringed 14/08/2021
Wren                          ringed 17/07/2021

Sightings: still a couple of swifts over, most have gone for this year. Surprisingly no Blackcaps detected