Sat 23rd June 2018

On Saturday 23rd we finally experienced one of our best June days for a long time. At 04:30 I met Dawn, Dave, Jo and Peter R at the railtrack gate on a calm and clear morning with promises of warm sunshine by the weather forecasters.
We decided that we would try the stretch from the feeding station to the Point near the hide which has been an area reportedly busy with newly fledged young over the past week.
Pete, our groups helper, soon joined us just as we returned from emptying the nets and the early indications of a busy day were clear as 80 birds were quickly processed in the first round which consisted of many juveniles of Warblers and Tits but very few juvenile Finches or Buntings which was reflected by the lack of adults too. Willow Warbler and Whitethroat were the most numerous warblers throughout the day but there are still no signs of Grasshopper and Cetti's Warbler breeding this year.
Both of Stanfords reedbeds took a hammering during the winter months with heavy snow flattening almost all of the Leicestershire one and part of the Northants side. A single net in the latter proved fruitful with a handful of Reed and Sedge Warblers trapped but we will have to wait until July before venturing over to the other side.
The day continued with reduced but good numbers with each net round averaging around 25 birds which included some newly fledged Willow and Sedge Warblers, these were returned to the area where they had been caught for release. Pulli included single broods of Blue Tits, Tree Sparrows  and Swallows that brought the days total to 193 birds processed of which 117 were juvenile, 64 adults and 12 pulli.
A nice day at the office.