More Nest Box Visits

Over the last few days Andy, Peter and Jerry have visited the lake to do a further round of nest box checks, with Andy doing Catherdine on the 20th and Peter going around the three sites at the lake when visiting with Jerry on the 23rd.

Our Goldeneye (although more likely to host Tawny Owl at the lake) box isn't holding up to well!

Over the two visits 7 broods of Great Tits, 2 broods of Blue Tit and 1 brood of Redstart were ringed, with a handful of adults lifted. Another couple of visits will be required over the next couple of weeks to ring the many remaining broods who were all at Egg or small chick stage. The total numbers from the two visits were as follows:

Species	Total
Great Tit	47p (1)
Blue Tit	15p (1)
Redstart	8p -
Pied Flycatcher	- (1)
Totals	70p (3)

Coupled with the two broods of Great Tits ringed by Carlton at his CES (14 in total) it shows some really good numbers so far. As its also looking promising, at an earlier stage, for Redstart and Pied Flycatcher lets hope the weather holds for the birds currently sitting and with small chicks. The Great Tit numbers this year seem much higher than usual, as has been reported nationally, although the total for the 23rd of 31p was one short of our Day Record which was 32p by Peter and Jerry on a similar visit on 22/05/2015.

Other interesting things noted were a Blue Tit and a Great Tit both sitting on empty nests in adjoining boxes. We cannot recall this behaviour at the lake before. The Blue Tit box contained a part built nest last time it was checked, so it is possible that she was about to lay or had moved from a nearby site where her nest had been destroyed. However this cannot be used to explain the Great Tit who was also sitting on her nest when Carlton visited a week before. As she sat tight when Carlton visited it couldn't be noted whether she also had an empty nest then. There is no way of knowint whether she has lost her clutch since Carlton's visit and is still sitting or whether she has never had a clutch and has been sitting all this time but either way this is really interesting behaviour from both birds.

Other interesting sightings included a swarm of Honey Bees on the outskirts of one of our Reedbed/Aldercarr ringing sites and that Tawny Owls have fledged young from one of our boxes, although we left checking the box too late this year to have followed the progress and ringed the brood

Large Swarm of Bees, they make quite a noise when you get close enough to them, which is far closer than you would want to be!!

Coupled with the Large Bull being back in this field "danger money" might be needed to ring at this site this year. Although it didn't put this Peacock butterfly off.

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