If you go down to the woods today........

Unfortunately you will not find a teddy bears picnic. However what I am going to talk about in this post is, in my opinion, much more interesting. 

Imagine the scene; it was a Sunday morning in Ravensroost woods (a Wiltshire Wildlife Trust reserve) where a bird ringing session is taking place.  At the end of one of the net rides I can see two shapes; from a distance one is obviously a Great Tit and as I get closer I realize that the other bird is nothing less than a Firecrest. 

The Firecrest

So why is this interesting? Well this bird was a new species to ring and process for me additionally my trainer Simon had never seen or heard a Firecrest in the woods before; despite visiting regularly since 1998 and ringing there since 2009. But more significantly, after speaking to the Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre it became apparent this was actually the first record of a Firecrest in Ravensroost Woods. 

The Firecrest holds the join title of the U.K's smallest bird (with the closely related Goldcrest), weighing around the same as a 10 pence coin. The U.K holds around 550 territories mostly in the south but birds also occur on passage up the east coast. They can be found in conifer and mixed woodland, as well as scrub and more open habitats. The Firecrest is a bird that is expanding its range northwards, historically being  considered a rare vagrant, even as recently as 60 years ago they were only seen as an annual visitor to the Scilly Isles and some southern counties. Breeding was first recorded in the New Forest in Hampshire with a gradual expansion northwards thought the country. 

In Wiltshire the first record of a Firecrest is from 1881 in Savernake Forest, where the bird was shot by a catapult! Birds then appeared sporadically up until 1966 after which Firecrests have been recorded almost annually in Wiltshire. However it was not until 1983 that it was first proved to have bred in the county. Between 1983 and 2000 singing males were recoded every year, with conformed breeding in seven different years. 1998 had 17 territories, the highest recorded in this period. The vast majority of territories were in the southwest of the county with smaller number in the northeast.

A typical view in Ravensroost,
showing the mixed tree species.

So the big question, could this bird have actually been living and even breeding in Ravensroost? Well Ravensroost is ancient woodland, in contains a mixture of board-leaved and conifer trees and has areas of recent coppice and scrub. So it certainly ticks all boxes in terms of habitat, as well as this Goldcrests (which have similar habitat requirements) are abundant in the woods. It is unlikely that breeding has occurred there before as this site is popular with birders and is monitored by a volunteer warden; a singing male Firecrest is likely to have been picked up at some point. So breeding is probably not occurring, yet. The bird was trapped and ringed and was then seen around a week later by the site warden, this suggests it is potentially using this habitat to over-winter. There is a precedent for this, Wiltshire has often played host to wintering Firecrests, mainly in south of the county, but again pushing northwards.

So, to conclude, after all this discussion only time will really tell what happens. With the Firecrest expanding both its wintering and breeding areas north it seems likely this bird could have been using the woods as a wintering area and there is no reason why this species shouldn’t do again in subsequent years. In terms of breeding it seems like it’s only a matter of time until the song of the Firecrest rings out across Ravensroost woods. Of course, if there are any updates I will let you know. 

To find out more about Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and Ravensroost woods click here. For recent sightings in Ravensroost click here.