Firecrest Fun

The beautiful blue sky this morning tempted me over to Branscombe, so I could catch up with the Firecrest that's been wintering around the Water Treatment Works. It took about three seconds to find, and I enjoyed it for the best part of half an hour, showing exceptionally well at times...

After about twenty minutes, suddenly there were two male Firecrests in front of me! They had a brief stand off and chase around, then split up, with the second bird feeding around the entrance gate to the WTW. Often ON the entrance gate in fact...

Also around the WTW, 10+ Goldcrest, two Chiffchaff and this Treecreeper (never an easy species to photograph)...

No visit to Branscombe is complete without a sea scan. There were quite a few auks out there this morning, along with a lone Great Northern Diver, three Red-throated Divers and rather unusually, five Teal.

A couple of visits to some woodland near Colyton over the past week has shown Woodcock on both occasions, four and three. I also had at least three Crossbill here the other day, which is more than notable.  Nice to see and hear male Siskin song-flighting too.

And lastly, yesterday as I was driving along the A3052 between Seaton and Beer, a flock of 18-20 Golden Plover flew past going the opposite way. They seemed to land near Stafford Cross where Ian Mc had 15 today. Heaps of Lapwing around there too.

Beer Head

Very much an end of autumn feel to Beer Head this morning.  The weather was as perfect as it could be with 100% low cloud cover and for the first couple of hours no wind at all.  Despite this there wasn't much moving about in the now pretty baron trees and bushes. Even overhead passage was disappointing with just a few flocks of Chaffinches and Meadow Pipits and very small numbers of the other expected species. 

As a result, it was no surprise that only twelve birds were trapped and ringed this morning. But although there many not have been the quantity, there was some excellent quality including three new species ringed for the site...

A stonking Fieldfare!!

I was really surprised to catch this, because unlike Tuesday (when we put in the same effort as today) there were no thrushes about, we caught no Blackbirds, Song Thrush or Redwing. But this is worth all of them and more in my eyes - my favourite of the regular UK thrushes.  What made this capture even better was that this was a new bird for Peter, and he really deserved a reward for joining me early this morning despite knowing he had to leave prior to 9am.

Peter has a habit of rubbing under his ear when he's excited...

So Fieldfare was the first bird in the nets this morning, and the second was this gorgeous Lesser Redpoll...

In my eyes an even more stunning capture - such a charismatic sweet little bird.

And later in the morning new bird number three dropped in to one of my two nets...

A Treecreeper, and you don't see many of these up Beer Head.  Don't worry I did make sure it wasn't a Short-toed!

The (not very) full list of birds ringed this morning looks likes this:

1 Fieldfare
4 Chiffchaff
2 Goldcrest
1 Great Tit
1 Long-tailed Tit
1 Treecreeper
1 Chaffinch
1 Lesser Redpoll

As well as these, we re-caught three birds, two Goldcrests and a Long-tailed Tit.  One of the Goldcrests we ringed here three days ago, and amazingly in that time had put on a gram in weight. That is a heck of a lot for a bird that weighs about the same as a 20p piece! Really interesting to see how quickly the fat reserves can build up on these tiny birds. 

And whilst on the subject of Goldcrests, I thought it was quite fitting that what could well be the last bird I ring on Beer Head this year (have you seen the weather forecast for next week?) was indeed a Goldcrest...

It's been an amazing autumn for this species.

Donkey Ringing

....well maybe not quite, bird ringing at the Donkey Sanctuary yes.

I'm really privileged to be able to ring here as this charity owns and manages acres and acres of superb wildlife-friendly habitat, containing a surprising variety of different habitats too.

Friday morning I spent three and half hours with two nets up, which resulted in 34 birds ringed.  One of the first birds in the net was a Nuthatch, but not any old Nuthatch. The only other time I've ringed at this location was back in May 2012, and during that session I caught one Nuthatch - the same Nuthatch! 

Love the powerful dagger-like bill

She was a breeding adult when I caught her back in 2012, thankfully she's still a she!

In keeping with the trunk climbing nature of this species, the real highlights from the session were two absolutely beautiful Treecreepers.  Not an easy species to age, in fact it's only recently that a few features have been noticed. Even so, I was confident ageing one as an adult, but the other I've had to put down as a '4' (ringers age code for not a clue!).

This bird was considerably longer billed than the first,  so maybe a male?

The same bird. Incredibly it was two grams lighter than the Wren we caught an hour earlier!

I really look forward to doing more ringing here. It will be interesting to learn how many birds are making use of this well preserved part of East Devon.

The Fifth Season

It's not winter, and it's not spring!

Every year, the temperature seems to increase and we get some lovely warm and pleasant days towards the end of winter, spring feels like it is just round the corner....WRONG! We then get 'x' amount of weeks of blasting cold northerlies! From inside looking out it all looks very nice, but when you actually go out - you realise how wrong you were! I call this time of year "spring my arse".

This flipping wind (along with the freezing night time temperatures) is why there has been no more moth trapping since my first two attempts of the year last week. Saying that though, tomorrow night Garden Moth Scheme begins, so I am putting the Robinson out whatever the weather.

Anyway, this is what I have been up to over the past couple of days...

Yesterday, we had a few hours of ringing at Colyford WTW. Blackbirds seemed to be everywhere here, we caught loads! But the highlight of the ringing session was this...

A beautifully marked Treecreeper

Now to today, the river valley showed a Brent Goose (with the Canade Geese - rather notable), the Bewick's Swan and Greylag Goose still, two adult Med Gulls and the usual Blackwits...

Note the distinctive reddish tints to some of them - more false hope that it's spring!

This birding used up pretty much all the spare time I've had today, as this morning I enjoyed a lovely drive up to Tiverton and back. It was a really beautiful drive, the blue skies making our county looking especially stunning.

So why did I go to Tiverton? I hear you ask... Well it was to collect this...

An ex-Hoopoe!

This bird spent a couple of days in a Tiverton garden before Christmas - but succumbed during the cold weather. Luckily, they've been kind enough to keep it in the freezer until I finally pulled my finger out and went up and collected it!

They downer is (apart from the fact it's dead!), is that on its left leg is...

A purple, very non wild looking, bird ring

If anyone can help as to where this ring (and bird!) may have come from, then please drop me a note/call/email/comment....