The year 2021 began with yet another lockdown and, as is so often the case, the sequel was miserable. The first lockdown in 2020 was novel, interesting and characterised by a warm, dry and sunny spring. January in 2021 was cold, dark and oppressive and we approached the national lockdown with a sense of weariness and resignation. Fortunately, I was able to find some cause for cheer – I could find the time to survey birds in my garden and complete a full year of study. Having gained my C permit in April 2020 I was unable to start ringing in my garden until part way through that year. Thi ..read more

By Ian Cooksey   The year 2020 is unlikely to be remembered with fondness by many. The global pandemic brought misery and unimaginable restrictions to our daily lives. We were all left searching for ways to navigate this terrible period so that we could retain some sense of balance and perspective. I was fortunate. At the outset of the first lockdown, I was able to secure my C Permit and so ringing independently in my garden had become a realistic proposition. Additionally, I now had little else, aside from online meetings and Netflix, to fill my time. Recognising that a national volun ..read more

Weather: calm, cool and patchy cloud. The start of a new CES season always brings an exhilarating feeling and it was the same for 2021.  CES#1 was not possible in 2020 because of Covid but 2021 has now started as normal, albeit with the same socially distanced arrangements between ringers as we adopted for all sessions completed in 2020. We keep the nets furled between sessions so that our 1 hour before dawn start can be done quickly and smoothly, when the birds are just waking, singing and getting ready to go. CES#1 delivers one of the lowest number of encounters of the year and it ..read more

Crew JT, EM,lC, CM and PD. The first CES for Wilstone reservoir 2021. Cold start at 5.am with not a breath of wind. Nets up efficiently, expectations high. First bird out of the bag not surprisingly,a Reed warbler. Ring number starts with a number . Ok read it again! 8266230. Ok. What is the address. Answer Paris. Nice one Ian. Six birds later it's Calums turn ...4Y02572, address San Sebastian. Which is in the Basque district of Spain on the Atlantic coast .We have had one of our Sedge warblers recovered there recently . Not finished though in the same net 6 ,another Reed warbler from the Pari ..read more

 02/05/2021 Calm, cool and patchy cloud, some brief showers later. LL, CN, CK, LAM, GK, NM One of the CES nets (net 3) With plenty of hands the CES nets went up quite smoothly and LAM,CK and GK went on to put some extra nets up further along the back of the reservoir where there is more dry scrub. It was cold but not as cold as it has been lately, and conditions were good. A Whitethroat was singing near net 4 which is unusual. Our first CES bird was a Sedge Warbler and it looks like over-winter survival may have been good for this species that spends the winter in Africa south ..read more

The 2020 CES season should have been from the 30th April until the 2nd of September. However, due to imposed Covid restrictions the first visit was actually on the 14th June.  The birds per session figure was 82.25 calculated by dividing the total of each session's catch by the number of visits,8. This figure compares to 85.75 from 2019 and 67.0 in 2018.  During 2020 there was a distinct lack of juveniles of resident species. Migrant species juveniles were near or slightly better than in normal years. Blackcap were down after the exceptional influx of numbers during August of last ..read more

After a week of wind and rain we grabbed the chance to go out on Wednesday even though it still looked fairly breezy. We put up a few nets in the more sheltered eastern corner of the site and a new net between some hazel trees. I had planned to fill the time with some scrub clearing but it was a busier morning that expected with that interesting mix of the last summer migrants and autumn visitors. We started with Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps and then a flurry of Goldcrests came to the tape lure along with four Bullfinch. The new net was a success and caught four Lesser Redpoll, a new species for ..read more

  Due to Covid restrictions we were not able to start with any CES ringing until mid-June which meant we missed the first 4 sessions. CES 5 : 15/6/20 (91 birds) Warm and Sunny. Claire and I divided the site between us and used separate equipment. Off to a good start with 91 birds: Blackcaps, Reed Warblers, Sedge Warblers and Cetti’s all with brood patches and plenty of juvenile birds. An unusual Starling roost of about 500+ birds left the reedbed at 4:20am. A male Great Tit was already in main moult. It was a strange start to the season. CES 6 : 22/6/20 (100 birds) CES 6 was run the ..read more

2019 Ringing Report Ringer: CK              Species Ringed Re-trapped Total 2019 Total 2018 Blackbird      10             5           15           23 Blackcap        3             0             3             4 Blue Tit      52           16           68           62 Bullfinch        0             0             0             1 Chaffinch        2             0             2 ..read more

2019 was another good year for the number of Blackcaps caught at the site. In all 548 birds were handled, 530 newly ringed and 17 local re-traps plus 1 other ringed near Whitwell in Derbyshire on the 4th of August 2019. One of the newly ringed birds was then subsequently re-trapped at Coimbra, central Portugal on the 22nd of October 2019. 54% of the Blackcap total were caught on 3 visits during the beginning of September. Nationally Blackcaps enjoyed a good breeding season. Our own CES results are in line with this, 38 Adults and 169 juveniles being encountered. The CES results for the year sh ..read more