Caister beach
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Thursday 16 February 2012

and still they come ...

Two more visits to the Ludham cover crop have produced yet more Yellowhammer and Reed Bunting.
 For a change we decided to have an afternoon session, so on 4th we arrived at 2pm to set the net.
There were a good number of Buntings in the hedge, small groups of 5/6 birds kept landing on the seed and then were duly chased off by the territorial Blackbirds !
10 new and 2 retrap (one originally ringed 14/02/2009 ) Reed Bunting, 3 new Yellowhammer and a retrap Blackbird were processed.


Brrrrrrrr !

The second visit on the 11th was as usual in the morning, when we arrived at 6.45 am it was a cool -8 degrees C ! When we packed up at 11.45 am the temperature had risen to a balmy 0 degrees C !
About 50 Bunting were in the hedge with the Blackbirds again holding court on the seeded area.

Female Yellowhammer

The catch was similar to the week before with 10 new and 1 retrap Reed Bunting, 8 new Yellowhammer and 4 new Blackbird being caught.                           

4 comments:

  1. I have started ringing on a couple of cover crop fields too. The trouble is that they are quite open aren't they?

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  2. Yes, very open at our site.
    Mist netting was very limited, so this year we have been using a whoosh net on the edge and baiting it. this has proved to be quite successful especially in catching the Buntings.

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  3. We have great success with long lines of single-shelf and two-shelf nets along the edge of the crop. These then don't catch the wind but do catch the birds.

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  4. We have used single-shelf in the past, with 4 shelf nets along the hedgerow and done well. Especially with Chaffinch. We have had more success using a whoosh net to catch the Buntings.

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