28/07 Thatcham Marsh LNR

Location: Thatcham March LNR.

Session: 28/07/2024 07:00 to 11:40

Notes: As it was a non-CES week we thought we would try audio luring with a limited number of nets spread along the reed bed ride. We were expecting to ring a few sylvia warblers and perhaps a less frequently encountered species or two. Unfortunately, many of the species ringed were the subject of our audio lures, though some may have been attracted by the other species calls etc. Probably the unexpected species was the Marsh Tit and maybe Treecreeper, not species associate with the reed and willow scrub. Until the early 1990s Willow Tit were regular here and we of course checked the Marsh Tit carefully. The general consensus is that there a fewer passerine species frequenting the marsh this year probably due to poor breeding outcomes following the wet spring and early summer.

Present: JL,IW,JHW,DL,IQ.

Weather: sunny bright clear, calm, warm.

Nets: 90metres in three groups along reed bed ride up from 07:30 to 11:00hrs

Lures: (Warbler), (Misc Migrants), (RT), (AQ) intermittently

Recaptures:(00)

Sighting: No Swifts detected this session most have probably left and are on their way back to Africa. Apart from one or two stragglers all will have gone by the second week of August. The most notable and worrying encounter was of American Mink, one seen on the net ride going into the reeds and probably a separate individual crossed the track by the ringing station. Back in the last century maybe the earl 1970s but not sure, many were released from a Mink Farm up the road at Limberlost, Crookham by animal rights people. In the past the angling club has trapped and dispatched good numbers around the pits. I think they still trap occasionally. This is the first sighting we are aware of for some years. They are notified as an alien species and are not good for the wellbeing of our native wildlife.