An evening meeting at the Fishing Lodge, Pitsford Reservoir.

The August meeting of the Northampton Bird club took place last night at the above venue, it is a new and very pleasant environment to host the Clubs meetings.

Contrary to the weather forecast the evening was warm and essentially cloudless which was ideal for this outdoor meeting that was well attended by members and featured two well planned and presented activities.

Earlier the bird ringing group had set up several sections of mist nets in different ride and woodland  glade habitats, the birds soon started arriving to be ringed and a further small ringing session took place this morning. 
  Species ringed in total and in no particular order comprised of ( 10 ) Black Caps ( some of which managed to get themselves caught twice ), ( 4 ) Dunnock, ( 7 ) Wrens, ( 2 ) Blackbirds, ( 6 ) Great Tits, ( 2 ) Blue Tits, ( 2 ) Robins,  ( 2 ) Treecreepers and lastly a single Goldcrest.

Birds processed included both adults and this years crop of rather scruffy looking '' fresh '' newly fledged.  

It is only when you see these birds '' in the hand '' that you get a true appreciating of how small they actually are highlighting in general terms the whole magic of the annual migration of some of these delicate little birds and their long distance travels.  

              Great care is taken when handling the birds and no time lost in releasing them to keep                                                      any potential for stress to an absolute minimum. 

The evening then moved on with a brief yet most interesting and informative lecture from a contact of the Club, Graham Warnes, on the Bats of the British Isles and in particular species likely to be found in the Pitsford area following a recent bat survey on the reserve.

Growth in the use of '' Bat detectors '' seems to have answered many questions concerning bat species and their activity yet at the same time raised a host of new questions, the bottom line is that the bat is a still a little understood mammal with much yet to reveal to science regarding its biology and life cycle.

Aided by a Bat detector a twilight walk took place taking in the fringes of woodland and reservoir with the moth trap attracting many sightings.

As Graham said, moth traps are a '' fast food Diner '' for Bats. 

                                                          Twilight at Pitsford