Chalton STW 17 February 2013

The first real session here of the year produced 21 birds of 8 species.
Ringed with retraps in brackets are as follows:

Blackbird 1(1), Dunnock 1(0), Great Tit 2(0), Kingfisher 1(0), Long-tailed Tit 8(1), Pied Wagtail 1(0), Reed Bunting 4(0), Wren 1(0).

Also on site was 11 cormorant first thing and 2 little Egret.

The beginning of the year has seen work started on the removal of typha and willow from the pond area. Hopefully, this will be a large improvement when complete.

Clearing the news backlog

There's a backlog of news that's built up since our last post to the IRG blog so I'll start with the most recent, and work my way backwards!

A ringing session yesterday at a field near Sandy Smith Nature Reserve. Totals: 70 birds of 11 species comprising of 66 new and 4 retraps (retraps in brackets below):

Great Spotted Woodpecker 1 (0)
Dunnock 6 (0)
Robin 1 (0)
Blackbird 1 (0)
Blue Tit 6 (1) - retrap ringed at SSNR 15/07/12, 209 days ago
Great Tit 1 (0)
Chaffinch 4 (1) - retrap ringed at SSNR 24/11/12, 77 days ago
Goldfinch 1 (0)
Lesser Redpoll 1 (0)
Reed Bunting 41 (2) - both retraps ringed at SSNR 11/03/12, 335 days ago
Yellowhammer 3 (0)

Above: Yellowhammer

For more photographs of this ringing session, see here. And no, it's not a typo, I did catch 43 Reed Buntings!

Last weekend, the Priory Country Park volunteers kindly agreed to help out with managing the vegetation within the CES site. They did a marvelous job. Thank you to Jane & the volunteers for all their effort.

Above: The net rides in the 'rough' have had their annual maintenance. It's looking good.

Looking back into January, the two main bits of news I have are that I ringed 13 Fieldfare (and retrapped one) outside my house. This was the first time I'd ringed them. I also caught a few Redwings and Blackbirds.

Above: A fieldfare.

Ringing did take place at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve but with low totals, there wasn't much worthy of news. At Priory Country Park however, a controlled Courn Bunting may well be the first ever movement of a Corn Bunting in/out/within Bedfordshire.

Above: A Corn Bunting

Now for December - there was a second foreign controlled bird a week after my last post in December (when I told you about a foreign ringed Blackcap). I also made 1000 handlings at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve. And then there's the 2012 highlights which were as follows:
Priory Country Park:

• Lesser Redpoll control (awaiting details)
• Blackcap ringed in September 2011 controlled at Grafham Water Nature Reserve in May 2012
• Blackcap ringed in September 2011 controlled at Portland Bill, Dorset in April 2012
• 2nd Kestrel for site ringed
• 2nd Jay for site ringed
• All 12 CES visits were completed

2012 ringing totals and review for Priory Country Park can be found here.

Sandy Smith Nature Reserve:

• Lesser Spotted Woodpecker ringed (one of 11 new species ringed here)
• 1000 birds handled for the year
• Chiffchaff ringed in July caught at Letchworth in August
• Strasbourg ringed Blackcap caught in December (awaiting details)
• Brussels ringed Siskin caught in December (awaiting details)
• Chaffinch controled at SSNR in February originally ringed at South Lopham, near Thetford in May 2010

2012 ringing totals and review for Sandy Smith Nature Reserve can be found here.