CES 1 - Kenfig 10/5/2015

The weather at last allowed us to get in the first session of the year, though it did at one point seem as though we might fail, with the weather for the coming week looking decidedly dodgey.
Cedwyn, Phil and Chris met at 05:30 and the day looked perfect, overcast and completely calm.
We had the CES nets up by just after 06:00 and had 4 birds in before we had actually cleared the site.
After processing the first birds we set up a further 2 x 60' nets in the West Pool Slack.
The first rounds up until 09:30 yielded a good selection though small numbers , but thereafter we only had 2 new birds, though we had to extract a number of same day retraps.
The extractions though small in number were made a little  more entertaining as we had to constantly convince a family of swans that we meant them no harm, but did need to

Swans in residence at the CES ride

 get past them each net round. A little hissing accompanied each retreat they made, but were very quick to return once we left the ride..
As always it's a pleasure to be at Kenfig as there were large numbers of orchids around the ringing table.

Is this an Early Purple Orchid without leaf spots?

Totals for the day:

Big Birding Day - Ringing Demo 26/4/2015

As part of the Big Birding Day, Dave and Heather held a ringing demonstration which as you can see from the results table was a pretty successful morning, with a good spread of species and total number of birds.

Total for the Day:

Final Session of the Spring for Ty'n y Caeau - 8/4/2015

Cedwyn and Chris made it to Ty'n y Caeau for the last session and that's just as well since another of the bamboo poles snapped. Fortunately there was enough left to set the nets at a reasonable height. The rest are all showing their age now so the autumn sessions will probably require a whole new set of poles.
With the feeder down to about 2/3rds full we were hoping for a reasonable catch, as obviously there had been birds around since it was last filled on Sunday. 
There was plenty of birds about - Greenfinch and Yellowhammer in the hedgerow and Skylark, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel and Swallows overhead.
This proved to be unfounded optimism as the morning yielded only 10 birds, even though there was plenty of activity in the crop adjacent to the nets. So much so that we put up another pair of double shelf nets in the hope of getting a better catch.

Totals for the day:

Signs of Spring - Kenfig 4/4/15

An early start, for Cedwyn and Chris, on an overcast and still rather cold morning rewarded us with Kenfig's first Chiffchaff of the year and sighting of the first Swallow over the reserve. The targeted Reed Bunting were fairly elusive though plenty were seen feeding on the millet being provided for them. Though the catching was slow the morning was still very productive as we manged to repair one of the Ty'n y Caeau nets which had a large number of holes in the top shelf (I know nets by definition have lots of holes, but I'm sure you get the picture).

Totals for the day:

Ty'n y Caeau - 27/3/2015

A long way to go and not even a bird each!
Heather,Phil,Charlie and Chris turned up at 06:30 and had to wait until after 08:30 for the first bird although we did see two get out of the net before we could make it to the nets to extract them. 
Then they came with a rush at 09:10 and 09:30. Three birds for the morning

Totals for the day:

Kenfig NNR - 10/3/15

Some fine weather at last proved it to be a good day for the Kenfig Ringing group.
Whilst some went to Ty'n y Caeau, Dave was busy around the reserve centre at Kenfig.
A good selection of birds.

Totals for the day:

Ty'n y Caeau 10/3/2015 - A good session at last.

After a number of visits this year to Ty'n y Caeau with a pretty meagre total each time, we had a very good session this morning.
Heather and Chris arranged to have the nets up at first light. The reward was a good early round with almost 20 birds in the nets.

The target species (Yellowhammer) was present in good numbers, justifying the work being done by the volunteers filling the seed feeders regularly.

With the sun coming up we were still catching birds, unlike previous sessions, making it a very pleasant morning.

Totals for the day: