A Great Start

The third CES visit saw a total of 39 ringed, which is very close to to the May average of 35 birds per session. Although numbers of the main species such as willow warbler, chiffchaff and blackcap are as predicted, this year virtually all are new individuals with only three retraps from previous seasons. Usually approx 40% of the catch in May is made up of returning site-faithful individuals. Why the changeover of birds has taken place this year is a puzzle.

The best bird was this male redstart.

After getting fed up with only ever finding blue tits or great tits in nearly all nest boxes we put up, we tried to design one that redstarts might find attractive, and members of the genus paridae don't. This might be the answer -

Out of five put up in early May, two have redstart nests in them. They are set within continuous cover mature sitka, a habitat which is widespread, so we will definitely try some more next year.