As we arrived on site we began to reminisce about the 11 birds that we caught in the 6 hours we were there in 2016. However, the optimistic bunch that we are we started to quickly decide prior to erecting our nets how many birds we would manage to catch to-day, it was like we had just joined in with an auction rather than a ringing session. 10 soon became 15, 15 soon became 20, 20 then became 30, I'm sure this was to be the highest bid before setting the nets up, we decided we would be more than happy if we managed to catch 30.
Mark O'Brien used to be one of the regular ringers on this site, it was Mark who took the initiative and decided to turn this site into a Constant Effort. In 2007 we helped Mark set up the nets in the position where 6 of them are still sited to this day, he initially set up this CES prior to his work with Birdlife International relocating him to Fiji in 2010, no we weren't at all envious of his relocation as we were now left this site to look after!!! In 2011 we added a seventh net and to date we still use 7 nets.
To-day we welcomed Mark back, he was back for an annual holiday and just couldn't resist the temptation of an early morning rise to head out and help with the huge amount of birds that would gracing our nets? Mark must have brought some good luck along with him, this was to turn out to be our best catch of the season so far with 42 birds caught, 31 birds more than last year and our first juvenile birds were also caught, 2 weeks earlier than last year. Mark has now returned to Fiji so we'll wait and see what visit 5 brings in.
 |
| Mark letting us know how terrible our catch rate was until his arrival today |
 |
| Our first Juvenile Chiffchaff of the year |
| Species | Total New | Retraps |
| Blackbird |
2
|
|
| Blue Tit |
2
|
|
| Bullfinch |
1
|
|
| Chaffinch |
2
|
|
| Chiffchaff |
10
|
5
|
| Dunnock |
1
|
4
|
| Goldfinch |
2
|
|
| Robin |
5
|
1
|
| Whitethroat |
1
|
|
| Willow Warbler |
4
|
|
| Wren |
1
|
1
|
| 11 Species |
21
|
21
|
Our best catch of the season so far, lets hope it continues.
