24/07 Greenham Common

Location: Greenham Common Western Enclosure wk30

Session: 24/07/2024 07:30 to 11:00hrs

Notes: we were quite hopeful as when we arrived there were three Willow Warblers probably more out on the heath, one singing. Unfortunately, they must have moved on soon after as none where ringed this session. We haven’t detected a Whitethroat here for the last few of sessions so the singleton that was in the net at nets down was a welcome find. Although there are usually quite a few around the common we don’t ring that many. I think the audio lure might be less attractive to our Whitethroat it being a French recording. Perhaps French whitethroat have a slightly different song.

Present: JL,IW.

Weather: bright sunny clear, calm warm.

Nets: 48metres 3 Rides, up from 08:00 to 10:30 hrs.

Lures audio: (Warbler), (Misc Migrants), (RT), (GH) intermittently.

Recaptures: (00) None

Sightings: several groups of Swift drifted south quite high up usually noticed when looking at other species as were the Swallows and House Martins. On the way down to site from the control tower car park an even rarer hirundine flew over. I can’t remember the last time I saw a Sand Martin over the common. It is now a scare summer visitor here mostly on passage, since gravel working locally stopped, depriving them of the vertical faces of soft sand they need to excavate nest holes. They abandoned an artificial site west of Newbury around 2019 where they once occupied around 100 of the 150 drain pipe holes in an artificial bank. The notable occurrence today was a soaring Buzzard carrying about a 500mm long snake. It was too high up to see any detail on the snake to get the species..