40th Ringing Anniversary.

Five ringers plus my original trainer and the former beat forester turned up this morning.  It was foggy which certainly affected the potential catch and we ringed 27 birds and 3 re-traps - this compared with 37 new and 4 re-traps in 1982.  However of those 37, 13 were Bullfinches and we didn't catch one today!  The only species that were caught on both dates were Dunnock, Robin, Wren and Great Tit.  All the data over the years has been forwarded to the Forestry Commission and has been considered in their Management Plan.  For me one of the saddest facts is that no  Willow Tits have been seen or heard in the last 3 years when upwards of 15 were ringed annually in the 1980's.

Well done everybody , you all should be proud of this. Often wish I had started ringing but there was nowhere local to me.

Mega-impressive! Huge well done to Stuart and team.

This Sunday, 11th September, 5 members of the Mid-Lincs Ringing Group will be ringing at Occupation Lane, Walesby exactly 40 years to the day when I started ringing there.  In that time we have processed well in excess of 15000 birds of over 50 species, ran it as a Constant Effort Site for 10 years and over 15 ringers have spent part of their training there.  For me the most remarkable statistic is that the 5th highest species total is Bullfinch with over 700 birds ringed!!  I still have the original ringing totals for 11/9/1982 and it will be very interesting to see how the numbers and species have changed (weather permitting).