A quiet session in a low to moderate south-westerly breeze. The visibility was good on the marsh, but there was thick fog on the higher ground for the first few hours. The modest catch of 23 birds was as follows: … Read More
It has been a frustrating first half of the month. Forecasts have proven inaccurate, resulting in several last minute call-offs, and wind and rain has hampered opportunities at other times. It was therefore good to be able to get a … Read More
Background Colour-ringing of chough has been undertaken by Tony Cross and Adrienne Stratford in mid and north Wales for over 25 years. Recently this effort has been extended to Gower and to Ramsey Island, Pembrokeshire by Mike Shewring (Cardiff RG) … Read More
A cold morning with very little wind, occasional showers and variable cloud cover. The modest catch of 41 birds was as follows: Species Ringed Recaptured Total Jack Snipe 2 0 2 Snipe 1 0 1 Wren 1 0 1 Reed … Read More
A couple of short sessions in fairly settled weather on 2 & 5 November resulted in a modest combined total of 65 birds. On 2 November the wind was a light easterly, and on 5 November it was from the … Read More
Perfect ringing weather this Saturday morning: overcast with an almost imperceptible easterly breeze. We set nets on a bund across the marsh, through wet and dry scrub and on the edge one of the freshwater pools. The catch of eighty-five … Read More
An almost imperceptible easterly breeze that gradually increased over the morning, open skies and a light frost at the marsh. We set nets across the bund through the marsh, and a second net line in nearby scrub. The catch was … Read More
A slightly stronger than ideal north-westerly breeze greeted us this morning. This is the worst wind direction for the marsh – we have no way of setting nets to escape it. Thankfully, however, it was calmest at dawn, and we … Read More
A couple of sessions on successive days has resulted in quality as opposed to quantity. The wind direction for the last couple of weeks has been easterly / south-easterly, and the weather has been mainly dry, and this was the … Read More
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
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