The 2016 Welsh Ringing Course was held at Oxwich Marsh between Friday 9 and Monday 12 September 2016. There were ten course participants. These included some relatively inexperienced trainees looking to increase the number of birds and range of species … Read More
A spell of settled, overcast weather allowed us to get a few sessions in towards the end of August. Although the conditions were perfect for mist netting, being cloudy with very low wind speed, the number of migrant warblers (other … Read More
An odd morning in some ways. Warm, still and close, with early fog rapidly lifting.Very few birds were present in the marsh (26 in four hours suggested a clear out the night before / a lack of influx), but what … Read More
A virtually windless and overcast morning provided ideal conditions for ringing. We put up a total of 960 feet of net in a series of lines through the reed bed and in reed bed edge habitat along with a pipit … Read More
Low numbers again this session however of the 16 birds, 12 were juveniles and we caught 11 species. There was a tit flock and several Goldfinches flying around but we caught only 3 tits and 1 Goldfinch, the second this … Read More
A couple of sessions in short periods of settled weather at the start of August have proved reasonably productive. The first, on Saturday 6 August saw us deploy a total of 840 feet of net, predominantly in the reed bed … Read More
The day started very disappointingly. A moderate north-westerly wind (the worst direction for the marsh) of around 13 mph, was about 6 mph higher than forecast, and caused the nets to billow. The wind gradually died off over the course … Read More
Conditions at the marsh were near perfect for ringing for the first few hours of the day. It was warm, overcast and virtually windless. A westerly breeze then gradually picked up, and the sun came out; the catch in the … Read More
Mike and myself have had a few short sessions this month, with Owain’s assistance on a couple of occasions, but only today has it felt that things are finally starting to move around a bit. There are no feeders at … Read More
A short session on Friday 15 July was curtailed by unforecasted persistent rain after an hour (53 birds were captured in this time), while a session on 17 July was more successful. There was fog over the higher ground, a … Read More
The number of first year birds made up for a relatively low number of birds on our CES site at WWT Llanelli. This was Session 8 and took place on 14th July. Chiff chaff numbers are picking up but there … Read More
A mixed picture for our Re-trapping Adults for Survival (RAS) project this year. It started well with 28 Pied flycatcher nests with eggs however 3 of these nests failed to hatch any eggs. Of the remaining 25 nests, only 21 … Read More
A couple of mornings of relatively warm settled weather in the last week resulted in good catches (107 and 120 birds respectively on 30 June and 3 July). The catches broke down as follows: Species 03-Jul 30-Jun Ringed Recaptured Total … Read More
We are now in a position that we can take on new trainee ringers. We are active at a range of sites in Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire, including: Kingfisher Whinchat Cwm Clydach RSPB Reserve where we have a … Read More
A disappointing CES 6 despite good weather with low wind. We caught 22 birds and of these 13 were juveniles which made up for the low numbers somewhat. We had our first Cetti’s warbler of the year, an adult, however … Read More
A still but overcast morning with rain forecast to come in late morning, and a small team left us putting up less net than usual, restricting ourselves to 400 feet in the reed bed and 60 foot in the scrub … Read More
A light to moderate northerly breeze and clear skies did not present the best conditions for ringing, and due to various pressing commitments, including getting the Constant Effort visit completed at WWT Llanelli, we had limited personnel available. As such, … Read More
The weather had been rather variable so it turned out that Saturday 18 June was the first day that we were able to do CES session 5. We caught 28 birds and of these 12 were juveniles. We had our … Read More