Ty'n y Caeau - 8/1/2017

Heather and Chris were joined by Leighton this morning making use of the second time in a week that there was a favourable forecast.
The feeding obviously seems to be starting to work as there were far more birds in evidence, including the target birds for the site, namely Yellowhammer and Reed Bunting. There were also very large flocks of Skylark (good) and Wood Pigeon (not so good, as far as John the farmer is concerned, as they  take far too much of his rapeseed crop)
Interestingly the catch was very small for the first rounds with most of the birds being caught after 10:00am. It did make us wonder whether we should leave getting up in the dark and just turn up later if the birds can't be bothered to make it there earlier!

Totals for the day:

Ty'n y Caeau - 3/1/17 - First of the Year

Heather and Chris made the best of the weather  to get to TyC for 07:40 just as it was getting light.
With the nets up before 08:15 we were hoping for a good catch though it was eerily quiet on the bird front.
We did however have a very successful morning before leaving at about eleven.
The total weight of birds caught was just under a quarter of a kilo though we have to own up it was only 3 birds, but it's not all about numbers as we always say on such occasions.
The reason for such a positive morning was that bird number 2 was a Kestrel which we had to separate from it's breakfast before we could take it out of the net. The dunnock was not so content with it's final day, and we did think the blue tit which was about six inches away from the kestrel may suffer some avian form of PTSD. However it flew away happily enough after it was processed.
A few pictures.

Totals for the day:

Ty'n y Caeau 30/11/2016

After a wait we managed to get back to doing some ring at the farm. Heather, Phil and Chris arrived at first light and it was pretty damn chilly.
After a few struggles we had the nets up (2x40' and 5x60') and as we waited for the first net round there was large flock of Redwing with the odd Fieldfare just hanging around in the Hawthorn between us and the nets. Only 1 found its' way into the catching area but lets be thankful we at least caught that one. Next time we must remember to have some Redwing sound available.

With the sun up it was a little warmer and we caught a fair spread of species before calling it a day at around 10:30.

Total for the day:

Ty'n y Caeau - 3/11/16 the DJ Rules

To benefit from the work done on the field at Church Farm we decided to get the nets up by first light and it paid off.
Heather, Cedwyn, Chris, and our new recruit Leighton were at the site by 06:15 and had the usual nets up before  a glorious dawn.

With those in place we decided to put up the short 2 shelf nets up at the field edge of the crop to add to our catching options.

Next step was for our resident DJ, Cedwyn to choose the music for the morning and his choice proved decisive.
Not exactly sure what he used but I think it may have been the Vaughan Williams classic "A Lark Ascending" and possibly the less well known Robert Schumann "The Happy Farmer, Returning From Work" within a very short time this choice resulted in a Skylark obviously, and 3 Redwing (a somewhat tenuous link here, you'll have to work it out yourself).

The crop is doing very well this year even though there is no sign of any sunflower. John who farms this land told me it was because the leather jackets like the seed and it would need to be controlled with chemical spray which is not the best idea. However there were plenty of birds around including large flocks of Wood pigeon and Jackdaw overhead. Once the feeding stations are located we should be in for some good catches.
Whilst we didn't succeed in catching them there were also Greenfinch around which is good to see. Also a number of Sparrowhawk were spotted during the morning.
With the wind getting up and it becoming very cold we packed up about 10:30 after a relatively small but very varied catch.

Totals for the day:

KNNR Reserve Centre - 30/10/2016 was it BST or GMT

After much confusion over what time to start the session, given the alteration of the clocks, it was decided that the best ploy was to ignore the clocks and arrive at Kenfig at first light (06:30 if you must know).
Heather, Dave and Chris set up 2 x 60' nets adjacent to the reserve centre.
It transpired that the birds were obviously having a lie in today or had forgotten to set their alarms as we didn't catch a thing until 09:10, and as we had to finish at 10:00 it was a pretty small total.

We were however able to releave the boredom by repairing one of the older 60' nets.

Totals for the day:

CES 12 - 1/9/2016 - At Last

Apologies for the late update to the CES ringing results.
Having completed 11 of the 12 sessions it was good to see a better result , though not quite as good as 2014.

Results for the day:

Tyn Y Caeau - 27/10/2016

After doing some initial preparation work at the site earlier in the week we decided to have a ringing session whilst doing some further ride cutting.
Heather, Phil and Chris put up the usual five nets - 2 x 40' and 3 x 60' before starting some extra strimmimg at the bottom  end of the field.

Still more to be done but the site looks like this now -

At the bottom of the field there is a 90 degree dogleg adjacent to the two fence lines.
The plan is to join up the two ride to provide plenty of options on the day.

The catch was small for the day total being: