Field Marshall Sir John Chapple

Field Marshal Sir John Chapple who opened the Field Centre back in 2002 returned with the Army Ornithological Society today as part of their annual get together.

He was interested to see how the reserve had progressed in the past eight years. The AOS group enjoyed a tour of the training area to view the wildlife and then spent the morning at Foxglove on the second day of the 2010 CES bird ringing scheme.

The ringers caught 133 birds which is above average for the time of year but the number of new birds caught was poor by comparison with other CES years.

Perhaps the fact that there are more birds in this bird ringing team than there are men has something to do with it! (See photo above). In fact, the wind blowing the nets today had a lot to answer for.

This Green Woodpecker was caught and ringed during the afternoon; they are quite uncommon on the reserve.