Unfortunately,
other activities in 2015 took up my time so despite good intentions I didn’t
get around to posting on my blog. 2015 was a fairly quiet year from a ringing
perspective, mainly because the weather was poor, so I have decided to
summarise the whole year’s activities in one post as I wanted to bring the blog
up to date. So here goes.
The
start of January saw a trip out with Colin and Stan to a site we usually use
for Storm Petrels but on this occasion we were going to target Rock Pipits
using spring traps. It was fairly quiet and we only managed to catch two.
At
the end of the month I had a whoosh netting session with Colin in his garden.
On this occasion we caught and ringed eight Greenfinch, three House Sparrow and
two Starlings. We also re-trapped a Greenfinch.
My
next ringing didn’t come until May when I met up with Andy to ring at a couple
of Blackbird nests, with three chicks in each nest.
Staying
with chicks on the nest June saw a trip out with Jim to ring at two Hen harrier
nests with two chicks on one nest and three on the other. Attention then
switched to seabirds and a trip to the Pentland Skerries. Here I ringed five
Puffin and five Razorbill adults and one herring Gull and four Razorbill
chicks.
July
was back to raptor chick ringing and a trip out with Brian saw me ring nine Hen
Harrier chicks and two Kestrel chicks.
August
and September saw me back at the Swallow roost with six sessions in total. The
usual species were caught and ringed: Reed Bunting, Reed Warbler, Sand Martin,
Sedge Warbler, Starling, Swallow and Wren. A surprise catch was a Redpoll,
which I think was a first for this site.
Towards
the back end of the summer I visited my parents down in Sussex and was able to
arrange a trip out with a local ringer called Val. We went to a site near to
Cissbury Ring, somewhere as a young lad I had spent a lot of time. We met at
day break when the weather was good but there was rain forecast for later in
the morning so we weren’t sure how long we would have. We set the nets up and
it wasn’t long before we started catching birds.
We
caught a number of species that I have ringed in the past including 38
Blackcap, 3 Blue Tit, 7 Chiffchaff, 2 Goldcrest and 1 Robin. I also got to ring
a couple of new species in the way of 1 Bullfinch and 2 Whitethroat. In
addition, we re-trapped: a Blue Tit, a Bullfinch, a Dunnock, Robin and a Whitethroat.
It
was a great site and I hope to go back and ring with Val again sometime.
The poor weather
meant that we didn’t get out to any of the gull colonies or do any Storm Petrel
ringing and due to other commitments I missed the annual Fulmar chick ringing
session on Swona.
