Bumper Beginning to Barn Owl Season

The Barn Owl season has kicked off to an incredible start, with early breeding birds found in many boxes and brood sizes large. There has even been evidence of a little cached food, suggesting that prey is sufficient, if not abundant. 

Of the boxes I check, average brood size is currently standing at 4.5 and it'll be interesting to see if that changes. Several 5s and 6s and even two broods of 7 have now been ringed by the group and that was all by the end of May!

Pete

A brood of 7 Barn Owls in the Vale of Belvoir.

 

 

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)

Unusual Tawny Owl

In 2021, at the request of the Parish Council, Jim and I installed some large nest boxes at William Lee Memorial Park in Calverton. Even though the habitat didn't look ideal, except perhaps for Kestrel, we were told Tawny and Little Owl were seen and heard in the park so we went ahead and put up boxes designed for Tawny Owl, Little Owl and Kestrel.

After several years of monitoring, and finding Stock Doves, squirrels or bees in the boxes, we have finally had success with the Kestrel box.

However, unusually it has been used by Tawny Owls, and with Jim's many years experience this is only the second time he can recall it happening.

Apart from our understanding of the best design for a Tawny Owl box, the photos show how un-Tawny-Owl-like the habitat seems to be and unfortunately the park has become an island surrounded by continuing housing development since.

Mick P

 

April at Allestree

This marks the start of the second full year monitoring birds at Allestree Park in Derby. After setting
up the site with an improved area for netting, we undertook two ringing visits this month. A total of
35 birds were caught during these visits, including a wide variety of species and some valuable data
gained.

New species for the site included a Jay, a Magpie, and a Whitethroat (pictured). Other species of
interest included a Nuthatch and a Garden Warbler (also pictured), indicative of the scrub and
woodland habitats in which we operate. 

With it being the breeding season, we also found multiple pairs of birds actively breeding, including Coal Tits, Blackbirds, Great Tits, and Chiffchaffs.

Of the 35 birds encountered, 13 were retraps. Some of these included Blue Tits which were last
recorded on site in November 2024. Even more interesting were Blackcaps, Chiffchaffs, and Willow
Warblers who we also encountered breeding on site last year. Some of these will have undertaken impressive migrations to southern Europe or even Africa since last year, and have returned to the same area of Allestree Park to breed once again.

Our monitoring work at Allestree will continue throughout the spring and summer to continue investigating the trends of birds on the site and look at how important these habitats are for breeding and migrant birds. 

Josh

 

Checking Tawny Owl boxes

I managed to fit in a few box checks around other jobs today. I think it's the first time I've been so sweaty carrying ladders across fields in April - it was remarkably hot today. No Tawnys, but some Great Tits, a clutch of 7 Jackdaw eggs and a Stock Dove nest fashioned out of a dead squirrel, with a spare set of cold eggs on the side...

 Pete

 

 

Summary of recent mist-netting

Since we finished at the winter feeding site, we've not been resting on our laurels. We carried out the usual pre-CES sessions at Attenborough. 

On the first (22 March) we had 144m of net up and caught 35 birds. These included 4 Blackcaps, 3 Chiffchaffs and 5 Treecreepers. 

The next visit was on 29 March and we had 228m of net up and caught 43 birds, this time with 2 Blackcaps, 6 Chiffchaffs and 4 Treecreepers. 

The third visit on 6 April - we had 144m of net again but with just 25 birds, including 2 Blackcaps and 3 Treecreepers. 

The final pre-CES visit, with 132m of net, produced 24 birds including 3 Blackcaps, 1 Chiffchaff but no Treecreepers. 

The 3 visits that produced Treecreepers involved 9 individuals: a healthy population. Parakeets were very vocal on each visit, so it's perhaps only a matter of time before one ends up in a net! 

Yesterday we paid the first spring visit to Holme Pierrepont and with the usual nets set we had just 19 birds. These included 3 Blackcaps, 2 Chiffchaffs, a Cetti's Warbler and two rarities to our nets.....a Reed Bunting and a female Emperor Moth.

Kev

Female Emperor Moth, HPP (KJH)

Visitors to the Garden

With poor weekend weather, I have been unable to get out to ring by myself for a while. However, I
have been watching the birds in my garden. On 2 April, one of the resident families of Blackbirds
brought the first of this year’s fledglings into the garden, making best use of the food we put out for
them. This week, while feeding one of the chicks, I was able to take enough photos of the ring on the
adult male’s leg to determine that I had ringed him in the garden 18 months ago.

Other records of people reading metal rings provides valuable extra data on top of our normal
ringing activities. Data like this submitted to the BTO helps us to track patterns in the bird activity of
individual birds. Members from our group have also read the metal rings on Woodpigeons and Black-
headed Gulls. It’s always worth checking to see if a bird has been ringed, because their movements
can be surprising!

Josh

 

2025 Report

The 2025 SNRG Report is now published and available. If you would like a copy, please email the address at the top of the 'Reports' page - see tab at the top.

 

Bird Feeding Advice

Yesterday saw the release of the latest advice on feeding birds by the RSPB which you can explore here. The accompanying slogan is 'Feed seasonally. Feed safely.' The RSPB advocate feeding only in the months November - April, leaving a gap in summer when natural food is more abundant to help break the cycle of disease reinfection. They also advise against the use of any flat-surface feeders (such as bird tables), as these are the worst for spreading disease. The RSPB highlights the effect that trichomonosis has had, particularly on Chaffinch and Greenfinch populations.

I am in no way disagreeing with their findings or their advice, but it's interesting that in the last couple of years my gut feeling was that I was catching, and seeing more of these two species, so I crunched our numbers.

As ever, I'm not a scientist, data reviewer or bird disease expert, and this small amount of data from a small area in South Nottinghamshire shouldn’t be viewed as anything other than interesting. It cannot be compared to the extensive research carried out by the RSPB and their partners. But looking at our data from 2010 to 2025 it can be seen from the graphs that my gut feeling was correct, and both species have shown a alight increase recently. 

However, the actual reasons for this is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it's due to a reduction in the effects of trichomonosis, but I can't rule out many other factors such as changes in our ringing efforts or ringing sites.

One thing the data has highlighted though is the alarming lack of subsequent encounters of these 2 species, particularly Greenfinch! It will be interesting to keep re-examining the data in the coming years and let's hope that the RSPB's strategy does help reverse the fortunes of the effected species. 

Mick P

 

blue = new birds, orange = subsequent encounters

 

 

 

Leucistic Goldfinch

I caught this interesting individual today. I aged it as a 5 (born last year) and I suspect it was a female based on wing and weight. It reminded me at first of Russian goldfinch skins I’ve seen in collections because they are paler, though the size of a Greenfinch, and still have lots of black. I also checked that this variant occurs in nature and wasn’t an escaped captive.

Holly

 

Attenborough Herons & Cormorants - Thursday 26 March

Kev, Emmeline, AJ and I had a great morning at a sunny ANR, completing the first check of the Grey Heron and Cormorant nests. 

We found 5 apparently occupied heron nests, though none held chicks large enough to ring. Interestingly, one new nest was found more to the west. Could this be the start of an expansion?

There were 45 apparently occupied Cormorant nests. Of the 7 nests we could check ,six had eggs and one had 3 chicks large enough to ring and colour ring. 

Many other people were enjoying the Attenborough sunshine and coffee and cake!

Mick P

 

Cormorant CVF

This bird was ringed and colour-ringed at Attenborough NR on 23 April 2015. Within a couple of months it had moved to Norfolk where it appears to have resided ever since. There have now been over 40 sightings from places such as Salthouse, Cley, Holt and Overy Marshes. The latest sighting comes from Blakeney Point where it was within a roost of 65 other birds. Thanks to Freya Platts and Edward Stubbings for informing us. 

Broomfield Winter CES Visit 8 - Sunday 8 February

Managed to find a small gap in the seemingly endless rain and completed the final winter CES session at Broomfield today, eleventh visit overall. We set all the usual nets, including the Redwing nets, despite not catching any last week. The catch was again quite low given the relatively calm and overcast conditions. We caught 28 birds throughout the morning. Of these, 12 were retraps, including the regular male Nuthatch and another new male. There were a few Redwing around and we managed to catch 5. A Tawny owl was heard calling again when we arrived on site and 3 Buzzards were soaring overhead at one point. 

Kev

Broomfield Winter CES Visit 7 - Sunday 1 February

This winter seems to have been more difficult than usual to pick the right day to go based on the weather forecasts, and this weekend proved to be no exception. Each of the five forecasts I checked varied on their rain prediction for Saturday morning, but all agreed it would be too breezy. Most suggested Sunday morning would be dry and calm - so we opted for Sunday to carry out our 7th Winter CES visit, and tenth visit overall. 

So it was frustrating to see on Saturday that all the forecasts had got it spectacularly wrong as conditions for mist-netting were good, and then to arrive on site on Sunday in the drizzle! We went ahead and set the feeder and Redwing nets as the drizzle was very light and intermittent but after an hour the rain got heavier, and we had to close the nets for a while. 

When it did stop, we opened the nets again and the rain held off for the rest of the session. The catch was quite low and somewhat surprising as the seed in the feeders had gone down more than usual. We caught 24 birds throughout the morning. Of these, 13 were retraps, including the male Nuthatch that we had originally ringed in the autumn. 

We did not catch any Redwing this week, the first time for some weeks that none were caught, and very few winter thrushes were seen. A Tawny owl was heard calling again when we arrived on site. 

Kev

 

Another Stonechat

I dodged the rain again this morning (30 Jan) and had another attempt at catching Stonechats.
I managed to spring trap one, this time a male. After I packed up I did see another two but couldn't tell if these were the two which are ringed. Several snipe were on site too.

Mick P