Up before dawn as usual. Opened the door and checked the weather. Blowing a gale from the south west. We decided to have a think about which nets we could open. The nets around the house would be too windy, as would most of the east garden. The always reliable nets in the north garden would be acceptable along with a couple of sheltered nets by the road to the point. We wouldn't use the high nets.

The standardised netting session requires 300 net metre hours. So 5 hours with 60 metres of net. The length of all the nets is 285 metres, so we can usually find 60 plus metres. We added up the viable nets and the total was 99 metres.

Opening the nets before first light and a few robins and song thrushes were out and about. The first net round and the nets were full. Of leaves, rather than birds. It's best to clear out the leaves on each round as it will only get worse.

We incresed the frequency of net rounds and made a respectable 27 birds, with only one retrap.

Nets were closed for 11:30. However, several checks were made during the day to make sure that they stayed tightly furled.

Hilsen

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