July review

Well what a month July has been. We have had our best month ever for birds captured with some 1659 birds of which 1075 were new. This is only the third time we have achieved 1000+ birds ringed in a month, well done to all group members and visiting ringers. Its fair to say that this year we have had a very successful breeding season with lots of fledged young about, this is illustrated quite well by our Blackbird total this month. Usually we ring less than 10 during July but this year we have caught 33, a staggering increase with us doing nothing different than in previous years. The last time we achieved anything like that was way back in 1978 when 37 were ringed. The most ringed species this month have been Whitethroat with 174 ringed, Tree Sparrow with 156 and Blackcap with 118. Good numbers were also achieved for Reed Bunting 77, Garden Warbler 48 and Lesser Whitethroat with 26. The only species for concern at the moment is Sedge Warbler with much smaller numbers being caught than usual. This is possibly due to a smaller breeding stock due to reduced numbers returning in the spring. For a fuller look at what we have caught during the month please go onto our web page and click the statistics page and then the relevant month.