The Welsh Ringing Course was held over the long weekend of 29 August to 1 September 2025. The course was first hosted by Gower Ringing Group in 2015, and this was the ninth running of it.

The 2025 course (again) focussed on permit assessments, with five of the twelve attendees being considered for permit upgrades and the remainder attending for more experience. In addition to welcoming ringers from Teifi and Kenfig Ringing Groups, participants came from the south-west of England, Berkshire and southern Scotland.

There were nine ringing trainers present for the duration of the weekend: Martin Hughes (independent / Northumberland), Heather Coats, Wayne Morris, Dionne Jenkins and Owain Gabb (Gower Ringing Group), Justin Walker (BTO), Tony Cross (mid-Wales Ringing Group), Chris Jones (Teifi Ringing Group), and Chris Redfern (Natural History Society of Northumbria Ringing Group). Additional support was provided by Ed O’Connor (with regard to wader catching at Whiteford), Miguel Lurgi (at Overton), and various other Gower Ringing Group members (particularly Colin Baker, Alice Connell and Jane Beck) during site set up.

The itinerary included daytime mist netting and (attempts at) whoosh netting at Oxwich Marsh, spring trapping in the intertidal at Overton and dazzling of waders at Whiteford Burrows and Weobley on the Burry Inlet. We also did some less structured ringing, targeting swans and gulls at various sites around urban Swansea.

As in 2024 the course was hugely weather affected. To work around this we put on an extra impromptu mist netting session on the Friday morning; thankfully most participants were able to get to us early and attend. The mist netting session on the Saturday morning and the wader session on Saturday evening were wind affected, and wind speed was too high for either activity on the Sunday. Monday morning mist netting was also effectively written off due to high wind speed and heavy showers.

A total of 437 birds of 36 species were processed (as compared with 411 birds of 37 species in 2024 and 853 birds of 34 species in 2023). The difference in the overall number of birds between years points to the varying effect of the weather over the three years. While 2025 was not as bad as 2024, when we had ‘biblical’ rain and associated flooding, it was very challenging as conditions were suboptimal throughout. However the tides were favourable, and the worst forecasts and much of the heaviest rain occurred in the small hours or between sessions, which was helpful.

The breakdown was as follows:

Daytime Mist Netting

Mist netting sessions were held at Oxwich on two of the four days. Mist nets were set in habitats including reed bed, fen and damp scrub.

The most commonly captured species at Oxwich was blackcap, with 33 birds processed. Chiffchaff (25) was also prominent in the catch. It has been a good year for reedbed warblers at Oxwich; the 19 new reed warbler and 28 new sedge warbler have increased the annual number ringed at the site to 419 and 290 ringed respectively, the best ever year for the former by some distance and currently the second best for the latter. The three grasshopper warblers were also of note, with two being first winters and the other an adult with typically worn plumage. A first winter kingfisher and two stonechat were nice, but we couldn’t capture a (late) autumn passage tree pipit, despite a bird being around on the Friday. Grey wagtails were more evident, however, and 11 were captured, including two in with pied wagtails and swallows during a roost catch. Swallow numbers during roost sessions have been very low to date, and this trend continued, with only 24, the aforementioned grey wagtails and six pied wagtails during the (wind affected) session run on the Friday night.

We also put out a net back at the Guides Centre in Parkmill, where we were staying, during dry periods in the afternoons. As a result we managed to catch a second kingfisher and several dippers.

Spring Trapping

Spring trapping was undertaken on the storm beach at Overton mid to late Sunday morning. The session was led by Miguel Lurgi, who is doing a population study of rock pipits in Glamorgan. Single panel / two-shelf nets were also used.

Three rock pipits were captured and colour ringed by course participants.

Wader Dazzling

For many of the participants the highlight of the course was dazzling waders. Two teams went out on the Friday night. Team 1 went to the grazing marsh at Weobley, with Tony Cross leading the dazzling effort, while Team 2 went to the shingle ridge at Berges Island / Whiteford Point with Ed O’Connor leading. On the Saturday both teams went to Weobley, as the tide height on the Friday appeared to have been too low in the cycle to push many birds into the Whiteford catching area.

The results were excellent, with a little tern, 49 ringed plover, 88 dunlin, a little stint and a skylark captured. Participants were given the opportunity to try dazzling, with many successfully capturing birds using the technique. In accordance with BTO protocols birds were ringed under (subdued) red light and held in pens to allow re-acclimatisation to light prior to their release.

Gull and Swan Ringing

Due to the poor weather on the Sunday some of the trainers and participants headed away from the coast to the Civic Centre and other sites around Swansea (while the remainder went to Overton to target rock pipits). Gulls and swans were targeted using hand nets or were manually captured. The results were excellent, with five mute swans and two black-headed gulls ringed.

Other Activities

In addition to the various capture techniques, we participated in an entertaining challenge posed by Chris Jones who had assembled numerous pictures of bird under-tail coverts for identification, and Colin Baker led a session on making Potter traps. Talks on Arctic tern migration, willow warblers and interactive sessions on DeMON had been prepared for, but were ultimately not required as the itinerary was a very busy one.

Acknowledgements

Feedback on the weekend from attendees was very positive. Many people got to see new techniques, and all visited a range of sites and handled new species. The weather being so unsettled didn’t help, but everyone remained upbeat over what was a very tiring weekend.

Particular thanks are due to the visiting trainers, Martin, Justin, Chris Jones, Chris Redfern and Tony for giving their time and expertise so freely, to Ed O’Connor for his wader-catching efforts and expertise, to Miguel for running the session at Overton, and to Colin Baker, Jo Conway, Becky Gibbs, Alice Connell and Jane Beck for finding lots of useful things to do (and particularly their scribing).

Huge thanks to Ed Tucker of Natural Resources Wales for cutting out some additional rides and mowing the car parking area and compound (where we set up our ringing stations) in the marsh in the lead in to the course, and to Nick Edwards (also of NRW) for his continued support for ringing at Oxwich and permission to use Whiteford. Thanks also to Dan Pritchard for access to use the Weobley Track and to Jenny Tyler (National Trust and Gower RG trainee) for facilitating access to Whiteford.

Finally we would like to thank the Welsh Ornithological Society for grant funding towards the course. We try and keep the charge for the course as reasonable as possible (to promote inclusivity), and this funding together with the course fee has allowed us to largely cover our costs. We are also hugely grateful to the Gower Society for their ongoing support to our efforts at Oxwich, and the contribution this makes to allow us to continue to train many of the next generation of ornithological data gatherers and researchers in South Wales.

Photographs are below.

Owain Gabb

01/09/2025

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A short video summary by the very talented Steve Lysyj.