Attenborough CES, Session 5, Sunday 20 June

After missing the fourth CES session because of the poor weather, we attempted the fifth CES session today. This was also going to be a ringing demo in support of the Attenborough bio-blitz. The forecast was not good (again) and Tim held back on advertising the ringing demo because of it. Certainly the forecast last thing on Friday suggested we would not be able to go - but on waking early Saturday it was dry and calm. We erected all the nets in perfect conditions but it did start to drizzle half way through the session, enough at one point to make us close the nets for a while. When it stopped the nets were opened again.

The team this week was Gary, Duncan, Alex, Sue, Pete S and myself. Another decent catch but still not many warblers, but we did get the second Cetti’s of the year. A woodpecker and a couple of Goldcrests were nice additions to the usual catch and 11 Wrens gave some useful extraction practice.

Total catch was 47 (37 new/10 retrap) made up of: Great Spotted Woodpecker 1/0, Blackbird 1/0, Song Thrush 0/2, Dunnock 5/0, Wren 9/2, Robin 4/0, Blackcap 3/3, Garden Warbler 1/0, Reed Warbler 3/2, Cetti’s Warbler 1/0, Chiffchaff 2/1, Blue Tit 2/0, Great Tit 1/0, Bullfinch 2/0, Goldcrest 2/0.

The retraps were all relatively recent, the oldest being a Song Thrush from 2012.

Kev

 Goldcrest (Alex Phillips)