Bird Ringing Demonstrations 2019

Every year the South Notts Ringing Group kindly do some bird ringing demonstrations on the Brackenhurst estate, and this year they ran two sessions for us. Both sessions had good turnouts, with students watching the ringing and recording processes and getting the opportunity to release the ringed birds.

There was a great number and variety of birds caught and ringed across both sessions: Yellowhammers (Emberiza citronella) were one of the main species caught in the mist nets, a species that many students know all too well from their assignments. Blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) and great tits (Parus major) also made up a decent proportion of the catches, but many other species were caught including blackbird (Turdus merula), house sparrow (Passer domesticus), chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs), and reed bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus).

Yellowhammer

Great tit

A reed bunting pair (male on the left, female on the right)

Overall the demonstrations were very successful, and we look forward to organising more bird ringing events for students next year.

Idle Valley… Northern Sector

15th February, 2017

So it was decided to return to the Idle Valley for a spot more bird watching, as we’d previously only covered the southern half which found us heading north from the visitor centre, along the River Idles course, as far as the village of Tiln. All previous recorded bird sightings (Notts. Birders) all stated that the ‘interesting stuff’ was all spotted to the north of where we last visited.

Langford Lowfield Birding!

25th January, 2017

So ConSoc have recently come up with the great idea of loading a group of us keen birders into the minivan for some ‘spontaneous’  birdwatching. This week we decided to head to Langford Lowfields, Nottinghamshire, an RSPB nature reserve and a working quarry on the River Trent, which is currently being restored into the biggest reedbed in the East Midlands.

Big Moor

23rd November, 2016

Today began with a planned start to leave Brackenhurst campus at 11am, however, due to waiting for equipment we left at 11.30am. The drive to Big Moor, Peak District, was quiet, the only noise from Simon who was unable to decide on a radio station to listen to. Once arriving on site, the first fun activity was to walk through the muddy fields ready to approach the hill. The hill was tackled swiftly and enthusiastically by members due to their eagerness to see the red deer.

Bird box building

26th October, 2016

This event started swiftly at 1pm with us meeting at the workshops all fired up and ready to be productive and build some bird boxes. On arrival, the task seemed that it was going to be more difficult than first imagined due to there only being 3 saws, 1 hammer and 1 drill between the 8 of us. However, the show must go on, so we got to work building.

Journey up to the Scottish Highlands

28th June 2016

The next adventure began with an early start leaving brack at 5am and…hang on…where is James? Ring ring… ring ring…. “Hello?” “James are you coming?” “Yes why?” “We were meant to leave 5 minutes ago!” “…oh no”… An early start leaving brack and 5:30am and we were off! Off on the long long drive to Scotland. On the way we found a good 30 species of bird from the bus as well as a fox. After arriving in Scotland the first activity was a walk up a hill called Coire-n-eassan. Despite the rain it was a nice walk with plenty of wildlife, including osprey, roe deer and sparrow hawk as well as a possible small mountain ringlet butterfly. The highlight of the walk was reaching the top of the hill and looking down on a rainbow. Then off to Loch of the Lowes, home of the famous osprey and red squirrel. .

Two day trip to the East Coast

13th June 2016

Early Saturday morning, we started the drive down to Norfolk and although bird watching was on the agenda, most of the travellers were too tired to notice the curlew Simon spotted. Our first stop was The Wash Nature Reserve; the location at which last year’s ConSoc trip saw a seal! Sadly, no seals were seen here this year, but instead meadow pipits and plenty of oystercatchers. After a short wander, we went to Titchwell Marsh Nature Reserve hoping to see the elusive bearded tit. Having arrived, we had a quick look around the visitor centre and then set off with binoculars in hand and cameras on standby! Straight away we found a nice little pond with reed bunting, reed warblers and long tailed tit.