Sunday 6 August 2017

CES Visit 10 06/08/2017





The early morning alarm is very much a struggle on a Sunday morning.... even more so when you know the rest of the family are still tucked up in bed. So what makes it special for us involved with CES ringing? Yes, it is of course the sight that the rest of the family won't see too often....a beautiful sunrise.

I suppose maybe arriving on site for 05:00hrs is a longer lay in than some ringers participating in this project have, there are more than 140 sites over the UK which also have teams that set their alarms early, making sure they also waken up at an unearthly hour to complete these visits.

It's not just the sunrise that entices us to get out early, it is also the uncertainty of what will be caught on this visit that lures us out....is a rarity going to grace our nets to-day....we certainly weren't disappointed....it was something that has become much more of a rarity on our site....Greenfinch! This was the first one we have caught on site since a winter ringing session in Feb 2015....the last time we caught one during a CES visit was June 2012.... forgive us for getting excited when we seen this one in our nets today.

The first Greenfinch caught on one of our
Constant effort visit's since June 2012

It's hard to imagine that Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Blackcap & Common Whitethroat are much more abundant on our site, the habitat is more than adequate to cater for breeding Greenfinch. This is one of the main reason's why we all look forward to the alarm going off in the small hours of a Sunday morning, we can then try to understand what's happening when monitoring our bird populations through the Constant Effort Scheme, this way we can hopefully take appropriate action where it's required.

One of 6 Common Whitethroat caught to-day
38 birds were caught to-day compared to 26 on the same visit last year.
Species Total New Retraps
Blackcap
4

Blue Tit
1

Bullfinch
3

Chiffchaff
8
2
Great Tit

2
Greenfinch
1

Robin
2
1
Willow Warbler
2

Whitethroat
5
1
Wren
4
2
10 Species
30
8

LRG's other CES visit 10 was much more productive to-day....with the re-trap Blackbird coming back to the site after initially being ringed in 2014. It's also very pleasing to see that Willow Warblers and Blackcap numbers were up to-day compared to previous visits! 

Species Total New Retraps
Blackbird

1
Blackcap
10
2
Bullfinch
1
1
Chiffchaff
1

Goldcrest
3
1
Great Tit
1
3
Long Tailed Tit
6
2
Robin
3

Treecreeper
2

Whitethroat
1

Willow Warbler
8

Wren
3
1
12 Species
39
11

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