07/11 Bagnor Feeder

Location: Bagnor-Feeder. CES 2023/24.01
Session: 07/11/2023  07:45to 11:30hrs
Notes: We walked in from the Winterbourne Road as the site owner advised the field to be very wet following recent heavy rain and that a mechanic visiting to service the tractor had got bogged down and needed pulling out. We carried over the “picnic table” and a director’s chair for the ringing station plus all the usual ringing paraphernalia. We were kept quite busy for most of the morning, mostly ringing Blue Tits. The 58 total is mid-range for CES visit 1 at this feeder. We thought that todays capture showed Blue Tit had done well this year and Great Tit numbers were poor. However, a check of visit 1 data over the last 10 years shows Blue Tit at 35 to be around mid-range (30) and Great Tit low (mid-range 14) but this is not that unusual for this visit see below.

After the first two net rounds which consisted mostly of Blue Tits the following net rounds were dominated by Long-tailed Tit – 18 is a flock size that we don’t encounter very often in recent times. It is interesting that the two pulli re-traps (a Blue Tit and Great Tit) were both from boxes along the Winterbourne Holt margin of Snelsmore Common, usually pulli re-traps are from the nearby Mount Hill nest boxes at this feeder.
Present: JL,IW.
Weather: bright, sunny, clear, cool, light breeze
Nets: 12M of nets, 6M each side of the feeders up from 08:00 to 11:00hrs.
Lures: Feeders with Peanuts, Black Sunflower Seed /Sunflower Hearts mix, Niger, Fat Balls.

                                               *FG full grown age uncertain.

Recaptures:(07)

Blue Tit                ringed: 09/11/2022, pulli ringed: 27/05/2023 nest box WH27

Great Tt               pulli ringed: 24/05/2023 nest box WH14

Sighting: What sounded to be a single Pheasant was calling somewhere west of the Winterbourne Road, different to 6+ usually around the foot of the feeder at this time of year. 4 Little Egret flew low south down the valley towards Bagnor Village. The 14 Fieldfare is the first flock we have seen so far this winter except for the odd individual with the Redwing flocks seen a week or so ago; thousand of Fieldfare arrived last weekend on the north sea coast according to the internet. Relatively few Robins detected, and a Common Darter on the wing is an unusually late sighting for any dragonfly species.