05/11 Greenham Common

Location: Greenham Common - Western Enclosure wk 2025-45

Session: 05/11/2025 07:40 to 11:00hrs

Present: IW,JL

Weather: cloudy, few spots rain early, breezy, cool.

Nets: 48metres 3 Rides, up from 08:15 to 10:45 hrs

Lures audio: (BC-CC-FC-GC),(FF-RE),(YB),(SK-LR), intermittently.

Notes: Tuesday was very windy and unsettled, so we postponed the session until today Wednesday. It was still on the breezy side and the low cloud early looked as if it might rain at any time. The rain clouds mostly pass around the Greenham & Crookham Common Plateau as they did today. We ringed a few more Goldcrests and a Chiffchaff, including a re-trap perhaps an indication that some stay around for a few days on the heath. There was little reaction to the audio from the groups of Redwing and finches flying over and about. The weather from now on usually becomes inconsistent and opportunities to ring here become less predictable weather-wise also there are fewer birds moving around the heath. The core period for ringing is weeks no 24 to 45 after which primary ringing effort concentrate on the bird feeders for the rest of the winter and visit here become sporadic.

Recaptures: (01)

Goldcrest       ringed: 21/10/2025

Sightings: As I came through the gate from the Control Tower car park on to the common a Little Egret followed by a Great White Egret flew up from the pools of flood water. IW located the Firecrest with a couple of Goldcrest on the corner of the heath near where he walked in from the woodland. A few small groups of Redwing flew over  also a couple of double figure Woodpigeon flocks. Lesser Redpoll were few plus some of the usual unidentified silhouettes that flew around were probably this species but didn’t call for us to be certain.

The filming around the bunkers continued today and mostly consisted of very loud revving cars while we were nearby. Yesterday on a walk out on the common there were lots of explosions coming from there for most of the day including one from a fireball that shot up very high from the ground I was told by a scared neighbour who was walking their dogs near the bunker fencing at the time.