Almost perfect autumn ringing weather at Oxwich today: a very light easterly wind and overcast skies. Occasional light rain meant it was not a ten out of ten in terms of conditions, but it was pretty close. We put nets … Read More
A quiet couple of sessions with few birds in the marsh of late. Hopefully better is to come over the rest of October. Since our last blog post (on 17 September) we have had one evening session, to try and … Read More
An evening roost visit on Thursday and and a quiet Saturday morning session in an initially light but rapidly strengthening north-westerly wind resulted in a total of 167 birds being captured. This total broke down as follows: Species Ringed Recaptured … Read More
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