Holme Pierrepont, Saturday 8 August

The forecast was for overcast skies slowly burning off and little or no wind, so Gary, Sue and I made another visit to the Blott’s end of Holme Pierrepont hoping for another good catch like we had last weekend. It did start overcast but by the time we had got the last net up the sun was out in force but at least there was no wind. Catching was steady until late morning when the breeze picked up and the thistle heads started to turn the nets white!

We still had a decent catch of 65 including 7 retraps. The species totals were (new/retrap) Dunnock 0/1, Robin 3/1, Blackbird 1/0, Blackcap 7/0, Garden Warbler 4/0, Whitethroat 4/1, Reed Warbler 8/0, Sedge Warbler 1/0, Chiffchaff 6/0, Willow Warbler 8/4, Blue Tit 9/0, Chaffinch 1/0, Goldfinch 5/0, Bullfinch 1/0. The oldest retrap was a Dunnock from 2011. The Blackbird we caught was a 3J and is the first juvenile Blackbird caught this summer at any of the main netting sites!

Sue stayed on after we finished ringing and in a 15 minute butterfly stroll around Skylarks she recorded 7 species including brimstone, plus good views of Grey Heron, a Jay and a fly-by, by the Red Arrows! I guess England won at cricket!

Kev

 Photos by Sue Lakeman