Holme Pierrepont - Blotts, Tuesday 14 August

Mick T, Kev and I set 10 nets on a mild and relatively calm morning and we began catching birds before we'd finished setting up. We continued to catch and ring without a break until 10:00h when suddenly the sun kicked in and the temperature soared, after which we had no more than a trickle.

We finished on 109 captures, including 8 retraps, breaking down as follows (new/retrap): Song Thrush 1/0, Robin 2/1, Blackcap 28/1, Garden Warbler 11/2, Whitethroat 7/0, Goldcrest 3/0, Chiffchaff 5/2, Willow Warbler 9/0, Reed Warbler 14/0, Sedge Warbler 2/0, Blue Tit 6/0, Great Tit 0/1, Long-tailed Tit 3/1, Greenfinch 2/0.

The oldest retrap was a Long-tailed Tit from 2013. The Long-tailed Tits caught today are the first we have had since June - they have been very scarce this summer and we wondered if the long, cold winter had affected them. We caught very few adult warblers and a good proportion of the juveniles were building up their fat reserves nicely, gorging on the abundant (and particularly delicious) blackberries.

A single Yellow Wagtail, a few hirundines and the occasional Swift were overhead and a young Great Spotted Woodpecker tried its luck on one of our bamboo poles. Speckled Woods and a few whites were the only butterflies and Southern Hawker was the most numerous dragonfly by some margin.

Pete

Willow Warbler - one of the few adult birds we trapped, typically with much less yellow on the underparts than most young birds (PML)