Bird Ringing

Since moving into to our new place bird ringing has taken a back seat. Well not even that, it's been somewhere in the back of the trailer! Currently our garden isn't suitable for any form of bird ringing - there are just too many cats about. When I lived at Mum and Dad's, few cats, nice big green garden and lots and lots of birds meant it was ideal for bird ringing.

I can still go up to Mum and Dad's to do bird ringing, but instead of being able to put the nets out for an hour or two between other jobs like I used too, I'd now have to set a morning aside to do nothing but bird ringing. And this year I've just not had the time.

I am pleased to say though (and my Twitter followers will know this already) my ringing pliers have come back out over the past few weeks.  Not the mist nets yet though.

For me, the best thing about ringing pulli (that's nestlings) is that I'm also taking part in the BTO Nest Record Scheme. This is a very important and on going scheme as it is the only accurate way of monitoring the breeding success of birds in the UK. As I'm sure you know, you do not have to be a bird ringer to take part in the Nest Record Scheme - for more details see here: http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/nrs. I am very fortunate to have a ringing permit that enables me to ring the young as well, which adds the chance of another avenue of useful data coming from my nest visits.

Swallows are a keen interest of mine, and currently I am monitoring ten active nests. This total could increase dramatically in a week or so though!  Out of the ten, my first visit to each revealed eight nests of eggs and two nests of young. The young were easily big enough to ring and each of the two nests contained five birds.  One of the nests had really big young in which I thought were just a few days from fledging. A week later though and at least four are still snuggled in there...

You can only see two here, all five may well have been in there but I only saw a max of four.

The other nest of five was exactly the same nest I ringed six in last June. If they are the same parents, they are clearly bloody good parents!

As well as Swallows, I've ringed four broods of Tits. One nest with just two young Great Tits in that have just fledged, a box with six young Blue Tits in which should have just fledged (they looked ready to go two days ago), a box with seven Blue Tits that I ringed just a couple of days ago...

They've probably got about ten days left in the nest before fledging

And best of all, because they are on the Red List, a nest box containing two young Marsh Tits (and a cold egg). They were really quite big, with just a few mm of growth required on their outer primaries before being ready to go...

So nearly a 3J!

A follow up visit to the Marsh Tit nest confirmed they have successfully fledged. Fantastic news!

Expect more bird ringing-related post from now on...

An Easy One

My only year tick today was a rather easy one, Marsh Tit. 

There's been one regularly in Mum and Dad's garden over the past few weeks, so when I was up there earlier I spent a short while looking out the window. I saw it within about a minute!  The amazing thing is this Marsh Tit is ringed, so it surely has to be this one...

Ringed in their garden on 09/06/11. See blog post here: http://www.stevesbirdingblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/week-of-ringing.html

This is the only Marsh Tit I've ringed here.  After ringing it, and before Dad started seeing it a few weeks ago, we haven't seen it or any Marsh Tit once in the garden!  Also whilst looking for the Marsh Tit this afternoon I noticed a ringed female Blackcap too.  I really must get the nets back up, and find out if these are indeed 'my' birds.

Earlier today, I just had to have a sea watch because of the rather breezy southerly wind.  It looked promising with a few Gannet out there, and a few more auks.  In reality though, in the hour I gave it, four Red-throated Divers west were as good as it got.

With more snow forecasted I hope this cold spell has a few more patch year ticks to offer. Come on wildfowl - get moving!!!

A Movement of Meds

Last night we just had to go out, it wasn't raining and the sun could actually be seen! Where better to go than Lyme Regis, and we enjoyed a lovely meal in the Bay Restaurant - I thoroughly recommend it!

Anyway, the reason I mention it on here is soon after Jess and I arrived, two small flocks of Black-headed Gulls flew close west along the beach. The first had three Med Gulls in it (two adults and a second summer), and the second had two adult Meds in! Soon after this Dad text me to say there were two Med Gulls on Black Hole Marsh, and about an hour and a half or so later, when Jess and I were back in Seaton, three more Med Gulls (an adult and two second summers) flew west past the sea front. We then made a quick visit to Black Hole Marsh where there were two Black-tailed Godwits and a Hobby, Dad's two Med Gulls had gone.

This morning I was back down the seafront at 7:30, to see if any more Meds were passing. They weren't - well not the Gulls. Just after 8am a Balearic Shearwater flew east - with a second Shearwater sp. also east about ten minutes later, but this one was too far out to be sure of. Also saw five Common Scoters which landed in the bay, and several Gannets (all flying west).

After this I had to carry out my woodland survey, a bit late due to the mostly pants weather we've had! Nice to see lots of young birds about, and Marsh Tits are always good to see as they can hardly be described as a common bird on patch...

A Willow Tit would have been something else though!

And this Rabbit did make me chuckle. One greedy bunny...

Or I suppose it could be lining for a burrow?

I had a moth trap out last night - which gave me exactly 100 moths this morning. Just one immigrant, a Silver Y, but there were several new species for the year for me, including; Buff Arches, Eyed Hawkmoth, Green Arches, Clouded Brindle, Clay, Common/Lesser Rustic, Sycamore and Fanfoot. The numbers came from Heart and Dart (37) and Dark Arches (11).

Buff Arches

Sycamore

A Week Of Ringing

First of all, I'm going to get the negative part of this post out of the way...

Actually, I can't bring myself to write about it on here, so you will have to read about it here - would have been a patch tick!

I also dipped the Grey Plover today, looks like it departed the previous night. There was a Lesser Whitethroat though singing south of the track to Black Hole Marsh.

Ok, negativity over...

I have been an active C ringer for exactly a week now - though have restricted myself to my front garden just to see how it goes.

My front garden isn't that big, so I have only had one 20 foot net set...

The sun showing the net up nicely here - notice the 'cat scarer' on the lawn behind!

Out of the seven days, I've had a couple of full mornings with the net up, one half morning, and a couple of afternoon efforts. During this time I have trapped and ringed 57 birds - and this has included and shown some real surprises...

We've not seen a Marsh Tit in the garden for about a year, at least. So I was very surprised to be extracting one from the net at 10:10 this morning! The bird was a scuffy adult female, it had started its primary moult and had a brood patch which was just beginning to feather over. Be nice to think it had bred locally - and successfully...

What a treat!

Coal Tits have been rather scarce in the garden of late too, but I caught two within ten minutes of each other on the 6th! Both of these had also started their main moult - but these three Tits were the only adult birds I caught that had begun their post breeding moult.

For the past few months, most times I've looked out the front window there have been between one and three Bullfinches feeding on or under the feeders. So I was expecting to catch some - but I wasn't expecting to catch FIVE and still see at least THREE unringed birds still visiting the garden today! So what we thought were three birds, have actually been at least eight!!!

An adult male Bullfinch - stunning!

Goldfinch is another bird that we think there are only one or two of visiting our garden. I have only caught four, but there are still unringed birds coming in to our niger seed. I caught a pair together this morning, which offered a nice comparison of the two sexes...

Male on the left, female to the right

We haven't seen a Song Thrush in the garden since the winter. Yesterday afternoon out of the blue - I heard one, and at 07:05 this morning I caught one! She had a nice brood patch, so hopefully has some chicks in a nest somewhere near by.

So that's 13 of the birds that I've ringed, with the rest being a selection of the more usual garden critters. I just had to take a photo of this young female Greenfinch that I caught this morning....

With new ones growing!

This is a good example of how rather simple ageing techniques can become complicated! Tail shape is a good way of ageing most passerines, as young birds tend to have much more pointed tipped tail feathers than older birds. But when a young bird like this loses all its tail feathers, the feathers it grows in their place are blunt/rounded-tipped adult type feathers!

I am always impressed with the true picture that ringing shows. There arethe Bullfinches I've already mentioned, but it applies to the even commoner garden birds too.

How many people look out into their garden, see a Blackbird and think 'oh - there's the Blackbird collecting food for his/hers youngsters again'... I've caught two adult female Blackbirds in the front garden so far, and this afternoon there was an unringed female Blackbird picking around for food on the front lawn! Daily we grossly underestimate bird numbers - and ringing proves that so well.

Right I must go to sleep now, I have a Starling to look for in the morning....

A Day (And A Post) With A Bit Of Everything

Today has been a day of a bit of everything! Gardening, visits to the local tip, shopping (well Argos anyway!), county recorder work, watching sport, birding and mothing!! I shall start with the latter...

This morning I was very pleased with my 35 moths of 6 species. This included no new species for the garden, but several (in blue) were new for the year...

22 Common Quaker
5 Twin-spotted Quaker
3 Hebrew Character
2 Oak Beauty
2 Early Grey
1 Small Quaker

Here are a couple of pics...

Oak Beauty - one of my early spring favourites :-)

Examples of the three species of Quaker, I'm sure you can work out which one is Twin-spotted and which one is Small!?

The birding today hasn't been too exciting, a first-year Med Gull on the Estuary and a drake Gadwall on Blackhole Marsh being the best it got...

Distant - but still exciting.....yeah?

I'm ashamed to say it, but yesterday was the first time I'd been to Blackhole Marsh since a whole load of work has taken place here. We have a new...

...car park

...field studies centre - very posh it is indeed!

....and track, though this won't be opened until the new hide is up and running

To make up for that shockingly bad photo of the drake Gadwall above, here's a pic of a male Wigeon taken on the Estuary yesterday. Just for interest, this is the original photo...

Good old Lumix, you just have to do what it 'says on the tin' - point and shoot!

But then, after a bit of 'playing', I can post this....

This is why I love my Lumix even more - you can crop ruthlessly and still get a decent enough image!

Since my Sand Martins the other day, there has been little more evidence of the imminent spring, although in the garden a male Blackcap has been singing well over the past couple of days - very pleasant. Whilst talking about the garden, I must mention that I've just been watching a Marsh Tit out the front room windows - a very scarce and highly irregular visitor to our garden.

This weekend it is the Grizzly race, an annual cross country run which starts and ends in Seaton. So I have been in a bit of sporty mood today, and whilst out and about this afternoon, couldn't help thinking how any one out 'being sporty' and 'fit' should be prepared as dull rain clouds were encroaching fast. So when I saw this chap cycle past...


I just couldn't help but analyse his 'gear'. I personally give this keen (and I have to say very quick!) cyclist 9/10....

If you can't read the writing, click on the image to enlarge it

And why not 10/10? Well, I think he could do with a red woolly hat ;-)

The Seasons Are Changing

I've got a fair bit of survey work to do before the end of this month, and this morning it was the woodland near Colyton that I survey on a monthly basis that had me stomping through it! Normally I don't enjoy woods much, but this morning I did - the colours were just gorgeous...

Autumnal colours on the ground, spring green colours up above

It is definitely still winter, as I had 14 sightings of at least nine Woodcock - some excellent flight views and a really good number. Five Lesser Redpolls were also good to see.

Spring is in the air though, with Great Spotted Woodpeckers drumming and many other species of bird in full song - including two male Marsh Tits. And it's not just the birds that are hinting the change in seasons...

What a warm feeling these images give me - it is nearly time!!!

Later on in the day, a quick look out over the sea showed the 12 Velvet Scoters still, all fairly close in - which was nice!

A little later again, a look through the Gulls on the Estuary showed a decent (for this year anyway!) count of five Meds. Four were adults - one in spanking full summer plumage, two part way there, and one in full winter wear. The fifth bird was a first-winter, which is certainly the first non-adult Med I've seen this year on the Axe, possibly even this winter!! Also c120 Common and 15 Lesser Black-backed Gulls.

With the first few immigrants about, and the mild weather, tonight is the first night of 2011 that my garden looks like an airfield from above! Oh yes - the moth trap is out! This year I am taking part in the Garden Moth Scheme (see HERE) so thought I'd best warm myself up for the start of it Friday week.