AROUND THE COUNTY

As the nesting season is coming to it's final stage, although some birds are double and treble brooded so we'll still be on the look out for these, a lot of Steve's time and effort is now made with ringing especially the schedule 1 birds that  he has found dotted around the county.  These birds include Barn Owl, Goshawk and Red Kite.
No news yet on the Goshawks, but the Red Kites successfully reared one chick which was recently ringed.

red kite chick

Also his Barn Owl sites has been a triumph this year with these four beauties being ringed as well as another five owlets at another site.

barnie owlets

He's also been concentrating more on our migrants with both Willow and Wood Warbler nests being located. Both himself and a fellow nest finder Sean Price have found quite a few territories of these birds and there seems to be a fairly healthy population of both species.

wood warbler nest with chicks

willow warbler nest with chicks

We've had a good Redstart year with six pairs taking up residence in our nest box colony these are the latest brood to be ringed.

redstart chicks

This next image is the photo taken by Steve of the Reed bunting nest before it got predated. With so many predatory species at the farm there are going to be a number of smaller birds which nestlings and/or eggs are going to be taken, but like I said at the start of this blog a lot of these birds are double or treble brooded so will more than likely start again.

reed bunting chicks

This Magpie is just one of the many predatory species that live on the farm but we have to remember it's more than likely got chicks to feed itself, it's all about survival.

magpie

Lets see what the final few weeks have in store for Steve and Sean on this so far very productive 2017 nesting season.