Winter to Spring

With coming into spring, Lesser Celandine is finally showing, for me the true sign of Spring emerging . We have been busy repairing nest boxes and gathering soil from the mole hills on the flower meadow. Hedging trees, and stand alone trees are planted are now secure in the ground....hopefully creating new habitat, and areas for invertebrates to increase the bio diversity of this oasis.

We all wander in the countryside, see the birds flitting through the trees , but it is not until hard facts confirm that our nature is under threat. It is surveys by the British Trust of Ornithology that approach the issue, unbiased and using science to dictate the results of where we are with nature. Birds are a great bench mark when it comes to our state of the countryside.

Glade Trust Barn Owl Project in Yorkshire Dales

The winter Bird CES is over. Sadly the feelings in the field have been confirmed, the Blue Tits and Great Tits suffered last year, and certain birds like Tree Sparrows and Great Spotted Woodpecker are not close behind.

The scores on the doors for the winter CES are.....

The Winter CES has pretty well resulted in stats which we felt while ringing.

This was the third W. CES.

2024/25 New /Recapture 494

2023/24 974

2022/23. 618

Great Tit

Blue Tit Numbers

2024/25. 163 processed Blue Tit, 'processed' means birds that are previously ringed/weighed/biometrics taken as well as newly ringed birds of resident winter population.

52 New Blue Tit (BT)

2023/24 401 BT Processed, 120 New BT

2022/23 296 BT Processed, 81 New BT

One species that has increased this year is Goldfinch, below.

Records of G. Spot Woodpecker very low with just one Recapture in 2024.

nb. There were no Tree Sparrows which is very unusual for Kirkby Fleetham.