Ornithologist's Blog - Mike Rogers
Mike brings us up-to-date with bird activity on the Northmoor Trust Estate during the winter months.
Winter 2009 - Birds and Bats
We’ve had a high rate of success from the nest boxes over the last year with some very large broods. We’ve had 15 Juveniles blue tits in the one box (the normal bood size is around 10/12) and 11 juveniles great tits in a number of boxes (a normal normal brood size is around 7/8 great tits.)
Swallows breeding at the manor did well with a number raising three broods. However, in Little Wittenham Wood ringing totals were down compared to previous years – I’m waiting to see if other sites have experienced the same as me.
As the winter ringing site much has feeders a large number of blue tits and great tits have been caught but not much else so far. Hopefully things will pick up. It’s good to see that siskins and goldfinches have arrived in small numbers - watch this space!
Bat monitoring
More species of bat have been recorded around Little Wittenham this year. common pippestrelle and saprono Pip, brown long eared and a possible grey long eared, daubenton, nattrass, noctule and seratine have all been recorded.
A lot of the bird boxes are being used by bats as mating roosts, it’s great to see that all the purpose built bat boxes are now being used.
Hornets are now getting in on the act with 5 boxes being used at present that haven’t been a problem, they seem quite happy to take it in turns!
One very unusual occurrence happened in our nest box - great tits bred then blue tits and finally nuthatch. All of them successful.
You can now listen to some of the birds found on our estate in the Habitats & Species: Birds section of the website.
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