Evening ringers, Many thanks for your help today (Wednesday 4th December 2013). Please see summary for the session below: SPECIES NEW RETRAP TOTAL Blue Tit 14 8 22 Great Tit 10 5 15 Long-tailed Tit 8 4 12 Coal Tit 2 2 4 Robin 3 ...
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The RSPB Woodland contains some 'veteran' apple trees in the southeast corner, not particularly old, but survivors nevertheless for want of care; we are now planning some careful management of these trees together with the development of a tree nursery and orchard alongside. This work will compliment any future management as part of an NIA, which should begin 2014. For Winter 2013-14 NIA planning and work will take place at both the nearby Queen Mothers Plantation - 150 meters southwest of the RSPB Woodland and the RSPB Woodland NIA = Nature Improvement Area Plans for RSPB Woodland over the next 6 months - November - Submit NIA proposal to the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust Board; National Tree Week 2013, beginning 23rd November - develop tree nursery at south east corner of RSPB Woodland, plant trees supplied by Woodland Trust in nursery. December 2013 - B&BCWT begin consultation and publicity to engage local communities and Friends of CHP Janu...
Ringing at RSPB Woodland October 2013 - report from Dan
Thanks for your help this morning - great start to the urban ringing scheme. Summary for the session: SPECIES NEW RETRAP TOTAL Blue Tit 30 - 30 Chaffinch 1 - 1 Coal Tit 7 - 7 Great Tit 12 - 12 Jay 1 - 1 Long-tailed Tit 5 - 5 Magpie 1 - 1 Nuthatch 1 - 1 Robin 2 - 2 TOTAL 60 0 60 <
Update from Dan
Please see below a summary for nest boxes installed within the Selly Oak and Hall Green wards: SITE NAME: RSPB WOODLAND - CANNON HILL PARK BOXES INSTALLED:10 BOXES OCCUPIED: 1 SPECIES: Blue Tit BOX OUTCOME: Box failure - deserted at egg stage I was surprised about the number of unoccupied boxes within the above sites and especially for the RSPB Woodland at Cannon Hill. It is possible that increased competition for natural nest sites in the better quality habitats (mature broad leaved woodland) results in the birds prospecting earlier in the year and given the boxes were installed relatively late (February) the hole nesting birds may have already scoped out potential nest sites before the snow arrived. However, the plan is to monitor the boxes for the next two years so the story is far from complete and it is hoped the mist netting exercise will shed more light on general bird density, species diversity and bird turnover rates at each of the study sites.
Nature Improvement Area The Birmingham and Black Country Nature Improvement Area is one of the first twelve Nature Improvement Areas in England. The vision of the partnership is to achieve long- term environmental gains for the wildlife and people of Birmingham & the Black Country by delivering targeted, on the ground, biodiversity projects at a landscape scale. We are currently working on plans for a comparatively large NIA proposal for the Rea Valley, and this will include a management plan, funding for woodland and meadow management along with site interpretation. The RSPB Woodland at Cannon Hill is prime for consideration. For further information on NIA's checkout the following link for The Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust http://www.bbcwildlife.org.uk/NIA
RSPB Woodland update from DAN September 2013
Despite the cold temperatures earlier in the spring the birds did eventually make use of the nest boxes I installed with many resulting in successful outcomes (i.e. young fledging the nest). It will be interesting to see how things progress in subsequent years and whether any patterns are emerging within the nest box data. The aim of the next stage of the project is to investigate the movement patterns of birds across the City and in particular answer the following research questions: Are the birds that were ringed as pulli in the nest boxes remaining on site or are they dispersing to other sites? What is the general turnover of birds within each of the study sites? Are birds settling at a particular site or are they constantly moving onto other sites due to factors such as predation/competition/resource availability etc? Are there any links between landscape structure, habitat quality and habitat occupancy for the study sites? In order to carry out this stage of the project and theref...
The first fledglings of 2013 are well versed now in survival technique and increased activity is noticeable in the RSPB woodland. Great Tits seem to have done well with many noisy youngsters still demanding attention from ragged parents, perhaps looking to start another brood. Robins, likewise, in good numbers with youngster inheriting the cheeky but endearing qualities of their parents. Around 10 new boxes were added this year by Dan from Birmingham University and I'm hoping for an update sometime soon regarding successes of failures. The woodland is currently in its prime for the year with large swathes of Cow Parsley taking advantage of increased light levels brought about by management over the past three winters. The central (single) Oak has been submitted to 'treezilla' and all of my submissions can be found via this link - http://www.treezilla.org/profiles/Alf1/ I'm hoping to map or at least encourage others to map all of the aged and veteran Oaks a...