Romania roundup...

The intention was to write an update after every village, but free time was hard to come by and internet access was even harder!! As posted in the previous post some weeks ago, our intentions were to trap and ring birds year after year in a protected area in Romania to prove how important the traditional farming methods are to the wildlife. As well as point counts, mist netting is also being carried out to get more accurate information about population sizes and the health of the birds. With it being the first year, finding suitable site proved to be difficult in some of the villages, but we did get lucky with some of the sites and some good catches were made, with which we will hopefully be able to compare year after year. The bird life out here is pretty much how I imagine the UK’s used to be 100+ years ago (with a few other species thrown in). Intensive farming in the UK really has made a massive dent in the population of many species, let’s hope the work we’re doing out here will stop it from happening to another country.

So, what did we catch? One of the main species we were trying to target was Red-backed Shrike, as these are a good indicator of how rich the area is in insects. In the 5 weeks we managed to trap and ring 95, so a good start. Other highlights included 5 Long-eared Owls, 2 Wrynecks, 4 Barred Warblers and many more. Complete list below (species in no particular order sorry!).

 

Despite the set back with a few of the villages not producing as much as I'd have liked, it was a pretty successful first year, and one that we can definitely work from. Roll on 2015!!