The first session of 2026 took place last Saturday, with a very civilised 730 start. There were five of us, and we set seven nets in the feeder & reed bed areas near to the Discovery Hut. It was a very cold start, so we made continual rounds to check the nets & didn't play lures of the smaller species until it warmed up a bit.
It was pretty quiet, but we did catch 22 birds. As we've mostly been ringing in the area around the Discovery Hut recently, we did catch lots of retraps, although we did catch 8 new birds. We caught 3 Great Tits, including this female which was hatched last year (age code 5)
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| Great Tit |
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| Great Tit: hatched last year (age code 5) |
The bird had a narrow, dull, patchy black stripe down its chest & belly. This indicates that it's a female, as a male would have a much darker, glossy, unbroken black stripe that would reach out as far as the legs at the base of the belly.
Young Blue Tits often replace their centre two tail feathers, which can also be helpful in ageing the bird. However the majority of young Great Tits replace all tail feathers during their post-juvenile moult, so their tail is usually of no use for ageing purposes.
We only caught one Reed Bunting, which we recorded as an adult male. The head was quite black, and it had a white collar. This normally indicates that the bird is male, however there have been records of birds with completely black heads & white collars which are female. Another feature which can help to confirm the sex of the bird is the greyness of the rump. This bird had a very grey bump, confirming that it was a male. The tail was quite rounded & in good condition, and although young birds can also sometimes replace their tails, as the rest of the feathers were also in good condition, it indicated that the feathers were probably better quality adult feathers.
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| Great Tit: female |
Young Blue Tits often replace their centre two tail feathers, which can also be helpful in ageing the bird. However the majority of young Great Tits replace all tail feathers during their post-juvenile moult, so their tail is usually of no use for ageing purposes.
We only caught one Reed Bunting, which we recorded as an adult male. The head was quite black, and it had a white collar. This normally indicates that the bird is male, however there have been records of birds with completely black heads & white collars which are female. Another feature which can help to confirm the sex of the bird is the greyness of the rump. This bird had a very grey bump, confirming that it was a male. The tail was quite rounded & in good condition, and although young birds can also sometimes replace their tails, as the rest of the feathers were also in good condition, it indicated that the feathers were probably better quality adult feathers.
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| Reed Bunting |
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| Reed Bunting: Grey rump confirming that it's male |
We also retrapped a Kingfisher that had been ringed in October. You can never have too many Kingfishers! There were quite a few visitors to the Discovery Hut at the time who appreciated a close up view.
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| Ian with the Kingfisher |
Ringed | Retrapped | |
Blue Tit | 1 | 3 |
Chaffinch | 2 | |
Chiffchaff | 1 | |
Coal Tit | 1 | |
Dunnock | 3 | |
Great Tit | 1 | 2 |
Kingfisher | 1 | |
Reed Bunting | 1 | |
Robin | 3 | |
Wren | 1 | 2 |
8 | 14 |
Meanwhile, Doug was busy with some maintenance in the Sand Martin cliff, removing a shelf that had rotted. Not a nice job, but the shelf needs to be replaced before the Sand Martins start arriving in March.
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| Doug in his PPE |
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| The shelf with tunnels that run from the cliff front to the nest chamber |
