Sunday July 21

A morning of sunny intervals with a light south-westerly breeze. A surprise greeted me on arrival as I discovered a group of ringers engrossed in mist-netting small birds in the dragonfly pool reed-bed and along the hedgerows towards the other pool.

Dave joined me and we soon discovered they were members of the Redditch Ringing Group and they couldn't have been more welcoming and informative as they showed us numerous small birds as each was carefully ringed. The leader of the group was Tony Kelly, and I concluded that the remainder of the group comprised another experienced ringer and two trainees.

They had caught 67 birds by the time we left them, and were still to do further rounds of the nets. From our point of view their most interesting capture had been a juvenile Grasshopper Warbler (released before we got there) from the field where the adult had been singing last weekend. Tony said he had also caught an adult male in the reed-bed in June, all of which strongly suggests that the bird I photographed in April found a mate, stopped singing, and bred successfully.

Processing the birds

Their highlight had been catching a juvenile Green Woodpecker, not a bird which normally turns up in a mist net.  I am hoping Tony will send me full counts of the birds caught, so that I can add them to this post in due course.

Long-tailed Tit

Green Woodpecker

We left them to it and headed for the flash field. It contained a rather similar selection to last time; three Shelducks, 20 Lapwings, four Green Sandpipers, and a Snipe.

The walk back gave us the opportunity to hear a Kingfisher, a chance Dave managed to take and I kind of did as it disappeared up the Morton Brook.

We saw no new butterflies or dragonflies, but noted that there were many more Meadow Browns on the wing, and single Peacock which was the first since a poor Spring showing, plus a Red Admiral.

I didn't look too closely at the numerous grass moths, but did see my first Agriphila straminella of the year.

Agriphila straminella

Also on the look out for moths and any other insects it could find was a Skylark feeding young in the ridge field.

Skylark

Earlier we had proved that a pair of Goldcrests had bred in the hedge bordering the Morton Brook, where they had been present all summer and were now feeding several hungry youngsters. A rather atypical nesting site for this coniferous woodland specialist.

PS: Tony came through with the ringing figures as follows: Green Woodpecker 1, Great Spotted Woodpecker 1, Blue Tit 9 (inc 1 re-trap), Great Tit 11(inc 1 re-trap), Long-tailed Tit 4, Chiffchaff 8, Grasshopper Warbler 1, Sedge Warbler 3, Blackcap 3, Whitethroat 6, Lesser whitethroat 1, Wren 3, Blackbird 6, Song Thrush 1, Robin 6, Dunnock 5, and Goldfinch 9.

So that's 79 birds of 17 species. In addition he said that 75% of them were juveniles, which indicates an excellent breeding season. They even caught a male Emperor Dragonfly.

Absolutely fascinating.

PPS I almost forgot to mention that Mike Lane saw a Red Kite here on Saturday.