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Tuesday, 2 June 2026

Mist-netting in May

We started the CES at Attenborough on 4 May. A reasonable visit with 46 birds caught, the usual range of species but 2 Cetti's and 2 Reed Buntings were nice, particularly as one of the Reed Buntings was a retrap from 2022. We also had a few returning warblers from the last couple of years. Visit 2 was carried out on 10 May. What a difference! Only 16 birds caught. One interesting bird was a retrap Garden Warbler from 2023 in the adjoining net to where it was originally caught but we did not catch it in 2024 or 2025. Visit 3 was carried out on 24 May and was thankfully a small improvement on visit 2 with 26 birds, including 8 Reed Warblers, one of which was a returning bird from 2024 and 2025. The low numbers continued for Visit 4 last Sunday: just 22 birds. We had a Dunnock and Great Tit from 2022 but the bird of the day was a Whitethroat, the first on the CES since 2011.

Between CES visits 2 and 3 we had a session at Holme Pierrepont. The site was very quiet and a couple of the usual nets failed to catch anything. We finished with just 22 birds, but 5 of them were Garden Warblers.

Kev

Reed Warbler, Holme Pierrepont, May 2026 (KJH)


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