Linacre Ringing - 2015 Overview

Ringing took place at Linacre Reservoirs throughout 2015, for the fourth year in a row. Throughout the year, the site was visited on 15 occasions, 9 times to catch birds around the feeding station and 6 times to ring pulli from the nest boxes. A total of 648 birds were ringed, which is slightly down on the 728 in 2014. This could be put down to the fact that we were unable to ring there at all in February, March, July and December, due to bad weather, other site commitments, and the fact that we lost several broods of pulli in the early part of the season due to wet and windy conditions.

The mist netting around the feeding station produced 23 species, including 3 new species, namely Redwing, Whitethroat and Siskin. The Redwing came courtesy of the “Latvian love song” that we used for the first time this year. The commonest species, as always, were Blue and Great Tit, whilst the summer migrants, Blackcap and Chiffchaff also had a good year. Birds ringed in previous years, but not ringed in 2015 included Woodpigeon, Little Owl, Meadow Pipit, Garden Warbler, Willow Tit, Jay, Magpie, Crossbill, Yellowhammer and Reed Bunting. The autumn produced our best ever number of Goldcrest, with 30 ringed, including a control bird that had been ringed 24 days previously at Spurn on the east coast, a distance of 116km away.

As in previous years, the nest boxes around the site were used primarily by Blue and Great Tits, with 136 and 72 pulli ringed respectively. This year, however, saw our first successful use of a next box by Wren, which managed to raise 3 pulli, all of which were ringed. Mandarin Ducks were found using 2 of the “owl boxes” in the woods, and 2 sitting females were ringed.