Ashwoods Nursery free Demonstration

We are again teaming up with our friends at Ashwood Nurseries and garden centre, where conservation officer Tom will be hosting another free bird ringing demonstration by members of the Belvide Ringers group. We hope it is as successful as all the previous events--but weather will play its part as always. The event will go ahead unless there is persistent rain and or strong winds so keep an eye on this blog and the Ashwoods web site in case you are concerned about the weather.
The event will be on:-

SUNDAY 3rd MARCH

FROM 9AM-11am

Area behind the shop

Hope to see plenty of you there!!

Trainee comes up trumps!!

We had a late invite to join Stu Brown's first attempt at cannon netting some wigeon on one of his sites. One of our trainees, Pat, was staying not a million miles from the site and so he went to represent our group and experience his first cannon net session.
The team were made to wait--several hours--until conditions and birds were right--but the end result was superb with 205 wigeon and 7 mallard caught. Well done everyone!!

 As soon as the net is fired it's all hands to the pumps to extract the birds

Birds are then transferred to dark holding cages where they are safe, warm and calm when waiting to be ringed.

 

Meagre returns over the weekend

Cold weather suggests that garden feeding stations SHOULD be really busy. Strangely this doesn't always happen, and this weekend was a case in point. Three separate sessions at three very different feeding stations provided very meagre returns; especially of birds other than Blue and Great Tits. However, these species do provide trainees with excellent opportunities of experiencing the delights of extracting feisty tit species with cold-numbed hands--great stuff!!Thermal work has also been pretty poor even though the moon is at a good phase. We think species like Snipe and Woodcock must change their behaviour ( or fly south/west looking for softer ground), when sub zero temperatures make probing into winter cereal fields impossible.
There's a mild spell coming so with any luck we can catch again soon.