12/06 Nest Box Checking

12/06 Fourth  Nest Box Check 2016

I had intended to wait until all of my boxes had reach pulli ringing stage for my next report but as the weather has put us off doing CES visit 6 have decided to do an update even though I still have one box to ring. Ably assisted by my proxy trainee Gina, over the last 10 days between us, we have ringed 334 more pulli. All occupied boxes have been visited, some several times, leaving just one late Great Tit brood that hatched on the 08-Jun. All the eggs have been laid since at least the 15-May and should have hatched about 14 days later (around the 27-May); like some other broods development seems to have been suspended. The female began continuous brooding by the 25-May, about right for the eventual hatch date. Blue Tit really struggled this year and I think coupled with the heavy rain washing eggs and caterpillars off the trees, they also miss-timed breeding and missed the peak caterpillar “crop” this year. A few boxes had dead broods and many contained dead as well as live chicks, a sure sign of lack of food. At one box with a brood of 9 we found: four dead chicks, two more dying and three well developed survivors. Where broods had reduced to sometimes just two, the survivors were well fed and developed. This also applied to a lesser extend to Great Tit while Nuthatch seemed to have got their timing about right with normal size broods at ringing stage and most now fledge (empty boxes on last inspection). The box occupied by both bees and Blue Tit survived to ringing; I think the bumble bees lost that battle.

A new species for Gina was a brood of Pied Wagtail that bred in the engine of the tractor at Greenham, we had to get the bonnet open for access; thanks Gary including for letting us know of the nest.

The Song Thrush nest found at Snelsmore was unfortunately predated

The Ringed Plover pair on the Fire Plane Gravel never made it past Easter again! In my opinion due to the Park Run that take place weekly; the start/finish is near-by and is very noisy. There are so many attending they use a loud-haler to control it. The race started in 2013 and Ringed Plover pairs have turned up every year but have deserted around Easter when the biggest meet of the year takes place I understand. I tried to get it move elsewhere in 2013 but only managed to persuade the organisers to move it about 100m further away apparently anything more is unacceptable. Not a lot you can do when 400 people regularly attend the meeting and anyway some say "what do a few birds matter"!

There are just to many people in the world.

Summary

Ringed

Species	Greenham Common	Snelsmore Common	Bagnor Estate
Great Tit	21	69	65
Blue Tit	57	101	109
Nuthatch	13	24	12
Total	91	194	186

Total Ringed as at 12/06 is 477 including 5 Pied Wagtail
Failed Nests: Blue Tit 11, Great Tit 3, Nuthatch 1, Song Thrush 1
(Never had so many Blue Tit failures in 32 years of nest box checking)
34 of 135 boxes not occupied including some unfinished, species uncertain. 
It will be interesting to see how many fledge, checking could be messy!
I think we might have a more interesting species or two to ring soon if all goes to plan.