This morning Kim and I carried out the first nest box check of my Pied Flycatcher boxes in the Hodder Valley and Tree Sparrow boxes on the moss. I was very interested to find out what the occupancy rate was, particularly for the Pied Flycatchers and wondered whether they would be behind because of the cold spring.
Out of the 39 boxes in the Hodder Valley 22 were occupied which is 56%. The number of boxes occupied by species is as follows:
Blue Tit - 7
Nuthatch - 1
Pied Flycatcher - 8
Great Tit - 6
The Nutchatches had just hatched, the Tits were still incubating/brooding recently hatched young and the Pied Flycatchers were all incubating. I managed to lift three female Pied Flycatchers from their nests and all three were ringed. All three of them were controls, two I will need to wait for the details, but one of them I already have the details as she was controlled last year. She was ringed as a chick in a box near Wray in the Lune Valley in June 2012 and in May 2014 I lifted her off the nest at this site.
I only have sixteen boxes for Tree Sparrows at my site on the moss and 12 were occupied which is 75%. Ten were occupied by Tree Sparrows and two by Great Tits. The Great Tits were incubating eggs still and the Tree Sparrows were either incubating eggs or had very small recently hatched young; so a few birds to ring here next week.
It's going to be a touch windy in the morning so it will be some seawatching at the Obs for me.
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