This new site is at Morley in Derbyshire and was identified by Alex earlier this year. He applied for permission to ring there and received a very positive response. So Alex and I went over in September to meet our main contact there, Paul Foskett, we toured the site looking for a suitable feeding spot and settled on a small triangular stand of trees, very similar in size to the feeding station at Brackenhurst.
Just over two weeks ago a few of us went over to bait up for the first time. On Sunday we held our first netting session and had a very promising start. The conditions for mist netting were not ideal, with a stiff breeze blowing and bright sun, but we finished on a respectable 86 birds captured of 10 species. Not surprisingly for a new site, all the birds were new. The breeze also meant that every leaf that was falling went into the nets, and there were many!
We expected the catch to be made up of a high proportion of tit species so it was no surprise to see they totalled over 70% of the catch. What was a little surprising was the number of old greater coverts the first winter Blue and Great Tits had retained: 36% of Blue and 26% of Great Tits had some remaining. This is high compared to our last autumn captures of 10% and 0% respectively.
It was nice to catch 9 Chaffinch before getting 1 with ‘scabby’ legs. Also good to get a Green Woodpecker, the first the group has caught since 2018. With so many birds we did not get much of a break but at one point Holly served us all with a great Blackberry and Apple crumble in our new weekend ringing base - used as a bike shed the rest of the week!
Other observations on site were lots of Fieldfare and Redwing passing over, a couple of Buzzards and a Tawny Owl.
Kev
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| Our ringing shelter (KH) |
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| The netting site (KH) |
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| Adult male Chaffinch (AP) |
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| Young female Green Woodpecker (AP) |
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