A Poor Breeding Season?

Today dawned calm and clear, an excellent day for mist netting in the reed beds of Leighton Moss . So we went to one of our best sites with good expectations. After four hours we had caught only ten birds. Seven adult Reed Warblers and one each of Reed Bunting, Blackbird and Blue Tit. Returning home I checked our catches for the same period last year and we were catching 35 to 50 a day including the first batch of young Reed and Willow Warblers. It has been a rather late season this year. However one wonders if the atrocious weather over the weekend with heavy rain which had pushed the water levels up by ten centimeters and strong winds was the main reason for the low numbers.Catches over the next few weeks should give us the answer. To date we have caught 77 Adult Reed Warblers 12 Adult Bearded Tits our two main study species. These numbers are very similar to the same time last year. John