Wonderful Waders, Glorious Gulls and Sweet Swallows...

Black Hole Marsh just keeps getting better!  Still no rares, but waders on it this morning included several Black-tailed Godwits, Redshank, Common and Green Sands, 56 Dunlin, 24 Ringed Plover, one Little Ringed Plover, one Ruff and a Greenshank.

Part of the small wader flock

Amongst the small gulls Phil picked out a colour-ringed juv Kittiwake. Bit of an odd record, and I was a bit gutted I didn't see it from the house as it would have been a cracking house tick! Anyway, here it is...

My first juv Kittiwake of 2013. You can't see the rings but I've sent the details of (hopefully to the right place!)

Later on, another visit to Black Hole Marsh was mainly to have a look through the resting gulls on the Axe Estuary, and I soon picked out two juv Yellow-legged Gulls. One disappeared soon after I spied it, but the other showed well for ten or so minutes. It was interesting to see this bird had more white on the tips of the tertials than the 'classic' juv YLG...

An 'almost classic' juv Yellow-legged Gull

So the tertials may not be bang on - but everything else was. The most clinching feature visible on the above photo are the second generation mantle feathers.  Here's a closer look at them...

Two of them are very clear to see

First of all, notice the colour of them; The dark bits are almost black, compared with the lovely warm brown of the other mantle and wing feathers, notice the broad white areas near the tips too. Then there's the pattern of them; Lovely anchor shapes and nothing like the plain juvenile mantle feathers. Scroll up and have another look at the top photo again - can you spot them now?

So, next time you hear the term second generation mantle feathers, this is them! And this is what to look out for to absolutely clinch a juv Yellow-legged Gull at this time of year.

The other onithological action for me today was taking another look at one of my Swallow breeding sites. The second brood is well underway, although one nest just had eggs in. Another nest had four naked and blind young in, but a third nest had four larger juveniles in - which I ringed...

Cute!!

A Pre-Breakfast Wander

Actually went birding today! Didn't see anything of note really, but Black Hole Marsh at 05:30 this morning looked STUNNING...

Oooozing peace and tranquility

It was nice to see fledged Blackcaps (two families), Reed Warbler, and the three Oystercatcher chicks still looking good.  Two Sand Martins over the marsh were the first I've seen here for over a month, and a Siskin north over was a bit of an odd one for June!

I checked three new Swallow nests today, two still on eggs and one with really small chicks in.  Another brood of Blue Tits were ringed on Saturday too, and I confirmed the two broods I've already ringed have fledged.

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...