Ramsdale Park Golf Centre, Sunday 19 May

With a gap in the CES schedule this weekend and a triathlon closing roads around Holme Pierrepont, we held the first ringing session of the year at Ramsdale this morning. The weather was good with no wind and variable cloud cover. The team consisted of Alice, Gary, Duncan and myself. A little bit of ride clearance was required to put up the seven 18m nets in the positions higher up the hill that we started using towards the end of last season.

The catch rate was steady throughout the morning and we ended with a total of 42 including 8 retraps made up of (new/retrap): Blackbird 1/2, Dunnock 3/0, Wren 1/0, Robin 1/1, Blackcap 6/2, Garden Warbler 2/0, Whitethroat 1/0, Lesser Whitethroat 1/0, Chiffchaff 2/2, Willow Warbler 3/0, Blue Tit 4/0, Great Tit 4/1, Linnet 4/0, Chaffinch 1/0.

The oldest retrap was a Blackbird and Blackcap both from 2015. Numbers of resident species were higher than on the first visit made last year no doubt because of the milder winter. Nice to get a few Linnets at the only site we regularly catch them. We also had a control Chiffchaff.

Kev

Male & female Linnets (K. Hemsley)