Ivel Ringing Group

Chalton STW 29/01/2012

2012-01-29T20:02:00.007Z

No ringing was attempted today but we did have a work party. Members present were Roy, Kieran, Ken, Maureen, Bailey and myself. A number of birds were using the feeding station, buzzard and green sandpipers were seen on site along with a lot of gulls.

It was intended to create a channel through the phragmites and willow in the u-pond. With a few hours work this has been achieved.

Sandy Smith Nature Reserve

2012-01-29T18:32:00.004Z

This weekend I've been ringing at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve.

Above: A Lesser Redpoll.

Above: A Brambling - a first for SSNR.

For more details & more birds, see my blog.

Bearded Tit - Marston Vale Milliennium Country Park, 31 December 2011

2012-01-20T01:08:00.008Z

Phil Candlish kindly sent me these photos of the male Bearded Tit that I ringed at Marston Vale Millennium Country Park on the last day of 2011. I've mentioned previously that I had ringed this cracking male bird, but the photos are so good it would be a shame not to share them.

Chalton 15/01/2012

2012-01-15T19:21:00.002Z

A late start this morning turning a working session in to a ringing session. At the same time, Mike kindly gave the ringing hut a coat of preservative and the old hut was moved to one of the ponds in readiness for a hide.

Despite our best efforts only 18 birds were caught of 7 species(ringed/retraps)

Blue Tit 3/2
Dunnock 0/3
Goldcrest 1/0
Great Tit 0/4
Redwing 1/0
Robin 1/3
Wren 1/0

Chalton 7.1.2012

2012-01-07T20:00:00.002Z

The first session of the year only managed to produce 21 birds of 7 species. 11 new and 10 retraps(in Brackets) as follows:-

Blackbird 3/0
Blue Tit 5/2
Chaffinch 2/0
Great Tit 4/2
Grey Wagtail 1/0
Pied Wagtail 1/0
Robin 0/1

The frame of a duck trap has been sited and hopefully this will be in operation in the near future.

2011 - a good year, let's hope for even better things in 2012

2012-01-01T00:01:00.001Z

On Saturday 31st December, I paid a short visit to Marston Vale Millennium Country Park. Only two birds caught - a retrap Blue Tit (ringed on 19/11/11) and an unringed male Bearded Tit. There were some nice birds around: a female Sparrowhawk flew across the reed bed, a Cetti's Warbler sang briefly, 36 Fieldfare flew west, a Grey Wagtail flew over on many occasions (not sure if there was just one particularly active bird or several birds). Over 100 Lapwings were on the Pillinge, together with a few Little Grebes and some Tufted Ducks.

My December ringing totals were low, a combination of wind, rain and Christmas (retraps are shown in brackets):

Wren 1 (+1)

Dunnock 1

Robin 4 (+1)

Bearded Tit 1

Marsh Tit 2

Blue Tit 18 (+8)

Great Tit 1

Chaffinch 1 (+1)

Goldfinch 1

Bullfinch 2

Reed Bunting 3

Total: 35 ringed + 11 retraps.

Of the 35 birds ringed, 20 were ringed at Bromham Mill, 9 at Marston Vale and 6 at Bedfordshire Golf Club, Stagsden.

Overall I've had a very interesting year, ringing-wise. Highlights were: ringing of Swallow pulli at farms and stables in the Bedford area; being given permission to ring at Marston Vale Millennium Country Park and also at Harrold-Odell Country Park; first nestbox ringing at Bedfordshire Golf Club. At Marston this led to ringing Swallows, Sand Martins and Yellow Wagtails on summer evenings, along with good numbers of Sedge and Reed Warblers during the day; in the autumn the focus changed to ringing Reed Buntings as they went to roost, plus ringing 4 Cetti's Warblers and 2 Bearded Tits.

My top ten species for the year were as follows:

Swallow 145 fledged + 133 pulli = 278 ringed

Blue Tit 183 fledged + 44 pulli = 227 ringed (+ 43 retraps)

Great Tit 92 fledged + 42 pulli = 134 ringed (+ 22 retraps)

Reed Warbler 45 ringed (+1 retrap + 1 control caught twice)

Dunnock 16 ringed (+ 15 retraps)

Reed Bunting 27 ringed

Long-tailed Tit 21 ringed (+6 retraps)

Wren 22 ringed (+3 retraps)

Sedge Warbler 23 ringed (+1 retrap)

Robin 18 ringed (+5 retraps)

Other species processed (ringed and/or retrapped) in 2011 were: Mute Swan, Sparrowhawk, Lapwing, Wood Pigeon, Tawny Owl, Swift, Kingfisher, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Sand Martin, Meadow Pipit, Yellow Wagtail, Grey Wagtail, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Redwing, Cetti's Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat, Whitethroat, Garden Warbler, Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Goldcrest, Marsh Tit, Coal Tit, Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Jackdaw, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Bullfinch and Yellowhammer.

The total numbers of fledged birds ringed was 751, plus 224 pulli ringed, 116 retraps/controls. Grand total of 1091 birds of 44 species.

Nest boxes at Bedford and County Golf Club

2011-12-17T20:26:00.007Z

No time for any ringing today, as the plan was to put up 6 large nest boxes at Bedford & County Golf Club, Clapham. The club is celebrating its centenary next year and to commemorate the occasion decided they want to put up some nest boxes.

It was cold work today and took nearly 4 hours to put up the 6 boxes. There was still some ice and even small amounts of snow on the ground left from yesterday's snowfall; the chill wind really didn't help.

Malcolm Smith of Cople made 2 large boxes, designed for Barn Owls, 2 for Kestrels and 2 for Stock Doves. It is hoped to put up 20 small boxes in the New Year, which are due to be made by a local Upper School. Malcolm makes garden furniture (see price list and bird table photo) and these were the first large nest boxes he had made - designs were chosen from the BTO Nestbox guide. If you want to order any nest boxes or garden furniture from Malcolm, please call him on 07866 788810. Cople is between Bedford and Sandy, 10 mins drive from the A1.

Thank you to Malcolm Smith for making the boxes, to the Bedford & County Golf Club for providing the finance, to John Sinclair for getting agreement within the club for the project, to Head Greenkeeper Geoff Fenn for transporting the boxes and other equipment today and for his help, last but not least thanks to Tom Sinclair for his sterling work in the trees.

November round-up

2011-12-06T00:06:00.002Z

November has been interesting, but also challenging. Strong winds have either prevented ringing on some occasions, or restricted what had been planned. With the leaves fast coming off the trees, some sites are becoming more exposed to the wind and less attractive to birds. The numbers of birds ringed and the variety of species handled hides several sessions that resulted in no birds processed or just a few.

During this month, I've ringed at Bromham Mill, Bedfordshire Golf Club at Stagsden, Harrold-Odell Country Park and Marston Vale Millennium Country Park. The total numbers of birds ringed during these sessions are listed below, with retraps shown in brackets.

Great Spotted Woodpecker 1

Wren 8 (+2)

Dunnock (+1)

Robin 1 (+1)

Blackbird 1

Cetti's Warbler 4 (+1)

Blackcap 1

Bearded Tit 1

Long-tailed Tit 7

Coal Tit (+2)

Blue Tit 47 (+7)

Great Tit 14 (+3)

Nuthatch 2

Chaffinch 1

Goldfinch 3

Reed Bunting 10

Total 101 (+17), Grand Total of 118 birds of 16 species

Most of the retraps were birds ringed this summer or autumn; the two exceptions to this were:

A Great Tit ringed at Bromham Mill on 7/12/10 and retrapped for the first time since then on 12/11/11.

A Great Tit ringed at Bedfordshire Golf Club, Stagsden, on 26/10/10 and retrapped there on 20/11/11.

Thank you to the other ringers and helpers for their assistance during November. Let's hope the weather allows us to get out and about during December.

Blackbird Recovery

2011-11-30T21:59:00.004Z

News came through yesterday of a Blackbird ringed at Priory Country Park on 9th December 2009 as a juvenile male. Unfortunately, it had met a sad end - this is a common way for ringers to find out what happens to some of our birds. The fortune this time was on our side as it had made its way to FINLAND!

It was found on 23rd September 2011, at Vistanvagen, Soderudden, Vaasa, Finland - 653 days after it was ringed in Bedford - a distance of 1775km in a North Easterly direction.

Details of the ringing session this bird was caught on can be found here (it was the first bird caught that day).

Strong winds curtail ringing activities

2011-11-27T21:14:00.004Z

Having planned ahead for this weekend, the strong winds had a major impact on the ringing this weekend.

On Friday 25th November, a ringing session at Harrold-Odell Country Park resulted in no birds being ringed. Now that most of the leaves in the bushes have fallen, the area that in summer was home to a wide variety of birds, was very quiet. Redwings were eating the berries in the bushes along the edge of the lake. A group of Fieldfares was in the tops of the taller trees. Out on the lake a large group of Wigeon was very active; it was nice to watch a Goldeneye also. But our ringing area was deserted.

By Saturday 26th, the wind had really picked up in strength. Santa was in his grotto upstairs at Bromham Mill, but outside the wind made mist-netting difficult. A group of children sang Christmas carols, much to the delight of an appreciative crowd. Just two birds were caught - with one Blue Tit ringed and one retrapped (originally ringed on 25/6/11).

The forecast for Sunday 27th was for strong winds in the morning, then becoming calmer during the afternoon. As a result a planned morning ringing session at Marston Vale Millennium Country Park was postponed to the afternoon. The wind was still fairly strong at 2pm, but by 3pm it was a really pleasant, sunny, afternoon. Once again there were some dragonflies taking advantage of the warm weather; several kept on landing on both Mike and me.

Several Cetti's Warblers were heard, a Chinese Water Deer was seen and a Water Rail was flushed from the grass near the Pillinge. The Geese are still absent. The aim had been to ring Reed Buntings before they went to roost, but only one was ringed and there was no obvious gathering of others in the area. Totals for the day were as follows (with retraps shown in brackets):

Reed Bunting 1

Cetti's Warbler 0 (+1 retrap - first ringed on 13/11/11)

Robin 1

Wren 1 (+1 retrap - first ringed on 29/8/11)

Total: 3 (+2 retraps)

This is the fourth week running that we have ringed/caught Cetti's Warblers at Marston.

5 weeks to Christmas - no-one's told the Dragonflies

2011-11-20T20:11:00.010Z

Another ringing trip to Marston Vale Millennium Country Park on Saturday afternoon, 19th November. First thing I saw were a couple of Dragonflies. Don't they know Christmas is just one month away? It was a beautiful, calm, afternoon, with the temperature dropping and fog appearing at dusk.

A very successful ringing session:

Wren 2 (+ 1 retrap, ringed in October 2011)

Long-tailed Tit 7

Blue Tit 11

Great Tit 2

Cetti's Warbler 1

Reed Bunting 9

Blackbird 1

Total 33 (+ 1 retrap)

The black head covering of male Reed Buntings is beginning to emerge, as the brown tips to the feathers wear away. Thank to Neil Wright for the photos below, with a male (top and centre) and a female (below).

A Sparrowhawk flew over and about 20 Lapwings. Yet again no Geese at all. Thank you to Neil for helping.

On Sunday 20th November, David and I ringed at Bedfordshire Golf Club, Stagsden. It was a foggy, damp, morning and the sun didn't break through into about midday. A bacon bap from the Halfway House was very welcome! Totals ringed were:

Robin (+1 retrap, ringed in December 2010)

Goldfinch 1

Nuthatch 1 (pictured right with David and also below)

Great Tit 1 (+ retrap, ringed in October 2010)

Total 3 (+ 2 retraps)

We saw one or more Great Spotted Woodpeckers and several Treecreeepers. A flock of at least 10 Long-tailed Tits came through the wood.

Cetti's at Marston and a new bird for Ivel Ringing Group

2011-11-13T16:18:00.009Z

A session at Bromham Mill on Saturday 12th November resulted in 19 birds caught. Totals ringed are shown below, with those retrapped (birds that have been ringed previously and caught again) shown in brackets:

Great Spotted Woodpecker 1

Blue Tit 4 (+ 4 retraps)

Great Tit 4 (+ 1 retrap)

Coal Tit (1 retrap)

Dunnock (1 retrap)

Goldfinch 2

Wren 1

Total 12 (+ 7 retraps)

The Great Spotted Woodpecker, a female, was the first that I've ringed at Bromham Mill. The retrap Great Tit was ringed on 7/12/2010 - this was the first time she had been caught again since then; where has she been in the mean time? All the other retraps were ringed earlier this year.

Then on Sunday 13th November, I went to Marston Vale Millennium Country Park. The numbers of birds caught were low, but the quality was really high! Totals ringed were:

Wren 3

Cetti's Warbler 2

Bearded Tit 1

Total 6

Though there have been Bearded Tits present in the Country Park, we have not previously seen any in the area while we've been ringing. At least two were present, but just one caught and ringed. It was a definitely a male, possibly a young bird but we were not certain. This was the first Bearded Tit ringed by Ivel Ringing Group. See photo to the left and below to the right.

Other birds seen at Marston included: Teal, Little Grebe, Peregrine Falcon, Sparrowhawk, 2 Kestrels, large flock of Lapwing, Yellowhammer, Reed Buntings, Redwings, good numbers of Skylarks overhead. A Red-breasted Merganser was also on the pool. A Dragonfly (spot the dragonfly on the reed stalk below; sorry - not sure of the species) was an unexpected sighting. Thank you Neil, David and Phil for your help today.

4 assorted views of a Cetti's Warbler.

Unknown 'Dragonfly'

Wren (back view)

Photos of Wren and Cetti's Warbler by Phil Candlish http://www.philcandlishphotography.co.uk

Heavenly singing, flashing lights - what was going on?

2011-11-07T00:33:00.007Z

On Saturday 5th November, I went ringing at Bromham Mill again. There was a misty and cold start to the day, then conditions gradually improved. After a slow start, the numbers of birds caught increased. Most of the Blue Tits (see right) caught were looking really smart and seem to be in good shape.

Part way through the morning, I could hear singing coming from nearby. It was unusual, but not unpleasant. Not much later two police 'panda' cars parked at the entrance to the mill. Two others also turned up as well as an ambulance, all with their lights flashing. It turns out that an African religious group have been meeting for evening services by the river bank, combined with baptising (or maybe washing away sins/spiritual cleansing) in the River Ouse. Now the clocks have gone back, they had decided to meet on the Saturday morning instead. Someone saw this and misinterpreted what was going on. Hence the arrival of the emergency services!

Totals ringed for the day were (with retraps in brackets):

Blue Tit 30 (2)

Great Tit 7 (1)

Chaffinch 1

Nuthatch 1

Blackcap 1

Coal Tit (1)

Total 40 (4)

3 of the retraps were ringed on Apple Day, 16th October; 1 Blue Tit had been ringed on 28th August. The Nuthatch (above left)was the 2nd I've ringed at the Mill this year. The female Blackcap (2nd from top, on the right) was the first I've ever ringed at Bromham Mill.

Other photos: Coal Tit (3rd from top, on the right), Chaffinch (lower right).

Thank you to Adrian Fett for the photos of the Chaffinch and Blackcap.

On Sunday 6th November I went back to Marston Vale Millennium Country Park, to see (in particular) what might be coming in to roost. With a northerly breeze, the temperate was low. The numbers of birds ringed was much less than on Saturday, but the ringing of the Cetti's Warbler, one of the 'star birds' of the site, more than made up for this. Totals ringed were as shown below (no birds were retrapped):

Blue Tit 1

Cetti's Warbler 1

Wren 1

Total: 3

October round-up

2011-11-01T00:10:00.001Z

October has been a really interesting month, hampered by strong winds that made mist-netting difficult on several occasions. During this month, I've ringed at Bromham Mill, Cardington, Harrold-Odell Country Park and Marston Vale Millennium Country Park.

Total numbers of birds ringed during these sessions are listed below, with retraps shown in brackets.

Tawny Owl 1

Meadow Pipit 1 (photo below - ringed at Marston C.P. on 29/10/11)

Wren 5

Dunnock 3 (4)

Robin 4

Blackbird 2

Song Thrush 1

Redwing 1

Blackcap 1

Goldcrest 2

Long-tailed Tit 11

Marsh Tit 1

Coal Tit 1

Blue Tit 43 (15)

Great Tit 15 (9)

Chaffinch 3

Greenfinch 1

Goldfinch 4

Bullfinch 2 (1)

Reed Bunting 9

TOTAL: 113 of 20 species (plus 29 retraps of 4 species)

Totals ringed for the year are 839 birds of 41 species (plus 88 retraps of 15 species). Swallow is still the top species with 278 ringed, but now being chased by Blue Tit with 162 ringed - will Blue Tit be top by end of the year?

Most of the retraps were birds ringed in the summer or early autumn. The sole retrap ringed before this year was the Bullfinch retrapped at Cardington, originally ringed there on 27/12/2010.

Thank you to the other ringers and helpers for your assistance during the month. Here's hoping for a great November!

Bedfordshire Clangers, Blue Tits and more at Apple Day

2011-10-22T22:46:00.005+01:00

Sunday 16th October was the annual Apple Day event at Bromham Mill. The sky was blue and the weather mild, so not surprisingly the crowds turned out in big numbers.

The East of England Apple and Orchards Project had a great display of many of the varities of apples to be found in Bedfordshire and many people brought along apples to find out what varieties they were. Apples, apple juice and cider was on sale, with the Harrold Calvados society demonstrating the art of cider making.

Amongst the many other attractions on offer was some great food, including one of Bedfordshire's contributions to British cuisine: the Bedfordshire Clanger. Demand was so great that Gunn's Bakery had to rush additional supplies of Clangers to Bromham Mill.

The RSPB and Friends of Marston Vale had stalls.

Ivel Ringing Group gave a demonstration of bird ringing, giving passers-by both young and old the chance to see some birds very close up. Totals ringed were as follows (plus retraps in brackets):

Blackbird 2

Blue Tit 29 (7)

Chaffinch 3

Coal Tit 3

Dunnock 2 (2)

Goldcrest 2

Goldfinch 3

Greenfinch 1

Great Tit 8 (4)

Long-tailed Tit 9

Marsh Tit 1

Robin 1

Total 64 (13)

Photos below are: Goldfinch, Long-tailed Tit, 'Scoreboard' of birds ringed and seen, Ringing base (ringers may have been busy eating Bedfordshire Clangers), Goldcrest.

Cardington & Marston - Tawny Owl, Redwing & Reed Buntings

2011-10-16T01:09:00.004+01:00

A short session on Friday evening at Cardington resulted in a Tawny Owl ringed and 2 Bullfinches caught (one new bird and one retrap).

There was a slight ground frost in some places on Saturday 15th October. A Redwing was an unexpected catch - the first I've ever ringed at Cardington. Other birds ringed were 2 Long-tailed Tits and 2 Wrens. 2 Buzzard flew over mewing, 1 Yellowhammer was back in the winter roosting area, a few Skylarks flew over, while a small group of Linnets were in the fields.

On Saturday afternoon, a session at Marston Vale Millennium Country Park was both successful and really pleasant - initially warm, as the evening wore on it became cold but the rising moon looked fantastic. Birds caught were:

1 Blue Tit

2 Wren

8 Reed Buntings

1 Blackcap

The Reed Buntings are roosting in the reed beds. Numbers of them seem to be building up slowly.

The end of a great summer

2011-10-07T02:23:00.002+01:00

The warm weather at the beginning of October seemed to put a final 'full stop' to a really interesting summer. All the local Swallows have left and now the focus is on the arrival of autumn and winter visitors.

A big 'thank you' to all the farmers and other land-owners who let me ring Swallow pulli on their properties. A total of 133 chicks were ringed this year.

In addition 145 fledged birds were ringed at Marston Vale Millennium Country Park. Thanks to the other ringers who have taken part in this. The total Swallows I've been involved with ringing this year in Bedfordshire is therefore 278.

[The above photo shows the sun setting over Bedford after a beautiful warm evening on 7th October, with the airship hangers at Cardington visible in the distance.]

March of the ....Swallows

2011-09-09T11:20:00.010+01:00

The film 'March of the Penguins' showed the amazing journey undertaken by Emperor Penguins as they walk to their breeding grounds in the Antarctic. I admit that Swallows are quite different from Penguins - not least the fact that they can fly, but they are black(ish) and white(ish) and they both face many dangers as they try to find a way of surviving in a harsh world. The halcyon days of summer are over, our summer visitors are faced with tough choices about how long to remain in the UK before setting of on the long route south to Africa. If they leave it too late before beginning their migration, there is increased risk of bad weather while food supplies may become more limited.

At Marston Vale Millennium Country Park there are still good numbers of Swallows, Sand Martins and House Martins feeding over the lakes and reed beds. The reed beds also still hold some Reed Warblers and Sedge Warblers.

Last night Mike and I had another session attempting to ring Swallows as they went in to roost. The weather forecast wasn't promising but it was a really pleasant evening (though a touch cool) with a great sunset.

Totals ringed were:

2 Reed Warbler

2 Sedge Warbler

5 Sand Martin (including 2 adults)

11 Swallow(all juveniles)
Total 20

A group of 10-12 Yellow Wagtails also roosted in the reed beds overnight.

The Sedge and Reed Warblers seem to have a different migration strategy. The Sedge Warblers are getting very heavy, as they are building up fat reserves to give them the energy for lengthy flights. The Reed Warblers haven't put on much extra weight, so the assumption is that they will make shorter 'hops' in their southward migration.

Sandy Smith NR Latest

2011-09-04T21:39:00.008+01:00

A days ringing at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve (03/09/11) turned out a lot better than expected, adding 4 new species for the site. 2 of them ringing ticks for me and 3 of them I had never caught myself before.

Above: First up, 3 Meadow Pipits.

Above: Next, 2 Green Woodpeckers. Here David is holding one of them.

Above: A Spotted Flycatcher.

Above: Last but not least, a Wheatear.

For more info on the session, visit my blog here.

Priory Country Park - CES & other

2011-09-03T23:36:00.002+01:00

The Constant Effort season is over at Priory Country Park. All 12 visits were completed (including the odd extra visit). I haven't posted CES totals for a while and on this occasion, for my ease, I'm going to lump visits 8-12 all into one (including non-CES birds/sessions).

238 new birds, 57 retraps (in brackets) of 23 species:

Wren 8 (1)
Dunnock 6 (6)
Robin 6 (7)
Blackbird 10 (8)
Song Thrush 8 (1)
Sedge Warbler 1 (0)
Reed Warbler 24 (1)
Whitethroat 25 (6)
Lesser Whitethroat 2 (0)
Garden Warbler 19 (2)
Blackcap 91 (8)
Chiff Chaff 2 (3)
Willow Warbler 2 (1)
Blue Tit 8 (5)
Great Tit 6 (3)
Long Tailed Tit 0 (1)
Chaffinch 3 (0)
Goldfinch 10 (0)
Greenfinch 1 (0)
Bullfinch 4 (3)
Treecreeper 0 (1)
Sparrowhawk 1 (0)
Wood Pigeon 1 (0)

We'll start with the standout total for Blackcap. This site has always been good for Blackcaps - more Blackcaps have been ringed than just about all other species in the park. The total above includes birds caught outside the CES. On Saturday 27th August I caught 26 Blackcaps (the majority new and the majority male). These birds must have moved on and another lot moved in as by the following Wednesday (31st August) I caught 30 Blackcaps (only one retrap from the weekend and only because it's from a late brood & not ready to go yet).

I call on all ringers north of Bedfordshire to get a move on and ring some Blackcaps! Out of all the Blackcaps I've ringed here in the last week or two, none have been ringed other than on site. You can increase my chances of catching one of your birds!

Above: Female Blackcap

Above: Male Blackcap

Above: This bag contains a big living ball of feathers (see below)!

Above: A Wood Pigeon (the big ball of feathers).

Above: A Lesser Whitethroat. This bird represents one of two ringed on 27th August. This species used to be more regular in the park but there have been very few records this year. I assume therefore that these two birds (juveniles) were migrating through the park (we would likely have caught the adults & juveniles earlier if they had bred).

Above: Normally seen in the skys above & normally too good at airobatics to be caught. This juvenile Sparrowhawk is obviously still learning then!

Grey Wagtails at Bromham Mill

2011-07-25T14:31:00.004+01:00

Grey Wagtails have a clear preference for fast running water. As Bedfordshire is a relatively flat county there aren't many places that meet their requirements. In the north of the county, the only two breeding sites I know of are at water mills. A pair has bred at Bromham Mill this year. On Friday we ringed the second brood of two pulli.

An interesting find were pieces of Signal Crayfish in the river - a likely sign of a recent visit by an Otter.

Thank you to Roger and Adrian for your help.

Ringing at Marston Vale Millennium Country Park

2011-07-17T17:48:00.007+01:00

Today we ringed at the Marston Vale Millennium Country Park, Marston Moretaine, for the first time. The Country Park has been created on the site of former clay workings and has an area of approximately 250 hectares (617 acres) and is run by the Marston Vale Trust. The Park consists of areas of water (Stewartby Lake,The Pillinge and some smaller pools as well as a network of ditches and Elstow Brook which runs through the site), reedbeds and areas of established and more recently planted woodland. The Forest Centre includes the Lakeside Bar and Cafe, a gift shop, displays of information, a play area, cycle hire and toilets.

The aim of our work at the Country Park will be to find out more about the bird life of the area. This will be achieved by the recording what is ringed plus details of any wildlife and plants seen.

The weather was better that the forecast, but was not very favourable for ringing today - blustery wind with occasional showers, but the total of 3 Reed Warblers (see photo top left) and 2 Sedge Warblers (see photo lower rights) was a good start. Other sightings included a Sparrowhawk overhead carrying food, a family party of Long-tailed Tits, 2 Little Egrets, 3 Lapwings, Reed Buntings still singing, along with Meadow Brown and Speckled Wood butterflies. We had packed up just before the heavy rain shower came through!

Thank you to Roger and Sue for your help today.

Dead Buzzard and Barn Owl on Bedford Bypass

2011-07-15T23:50:00.005+01:00

I was told that a large bird of prey was lying in the central reservation of the Bedford Bypass (A421). So this evening I drove along the section from Bedford to the Black Cat roundabout with the A1 to look for the bird. In fact I found two.

The first was a freshly killed Barn Owl bird lying just west of the bridge carrying the road from Great Barford to Wilden. The second was a Buzzard (see photo), lying just west of the bridge carrying the Roxton to Chawston road.

Neither bird had been ringed. Sadly many birds of prey, but in particular many Barn Owls, are casualties on Britain's roads. If you do find any dead bird please check if it had been ringed and, if so, report it to the British Trust for Ornithology using this website.

Swallows - second broods well under way

2011-07-14T23:37:00.005+01:00

I ringed two broods of Swallows this evening (4 pulli in one nest and 5 in the other) in a farm in Old Warden this evening. That brings the total Swallow pulli ringed so far this year to 80.

Many of the nests checked elsewhere still have eggs - such as the ones pictured here, in a farm in Cople this evening. Others haven't started re-laying yet.

Most of the first broods were ringed in a fairly short period between 23rd May and 26th June, the second broods (and some that possibly failed with their first broods or started much later) seem likely to be ringed between now and the end of August.

In addition to ringing, I managed to upgrade House Martin this evening for the Bedfordshire Bird Atlas, prooving breeding in tetrad TL14I, Sheerhatch Wood.

Successful Swift ringing

2011-07-13T00:02:00.004+01:00

On Monday evening we visited The Emplins, Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire to ring the Swift pulli. Martin and Keith went into the lofts and ringed 28 pulli. 5 other pulli were seen but not able to be reached. They also ringed 4 adults and retrapped an adult ringed in a previous year.

Some pulli were small, but others were almost ready to fly.

Outside Mike, Katie and I put up a net in the garden and ringed 4 more adults, plus retrapping a bird that had been ringed in 2008 (and was also retrapped on 23rd June this year).

Ringing in the lofts is hot and dusty work - possibly more akin to caving than normal ringing as the photo of Martin suggests.

Chalton STW 10/07/2011 CES7

2011-07-12T21:49:00.002+01:00

A good day, in fact, one of the best catches so far with 92 birds caught. 76 new and 16 retraps as follows

Blackcap 12/0
Blue Tit 3/0
Chiffchaff 6/0
Dunnock 2/1
Goldfinch 3/1
Great Tit 1/3
Long-tailed Tit 2/0
Marsh Tit 1/0 new for the site
Reed Bunting 1/0
Reed Warbler 21/5
Robin 2/0
Sedge Warbler 6/3
Whitethroat 12/3
Wren 4/0

Let's hope it may continue.

Priory Country Park CES Visit 7

2011-07-03T16:57:00.005+01:00

Today (03/07/11), the new CES period started so I decided to squeeze in Visit 7 of 12. I had high hopes after my success at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve yesterday (click here for more details).

The wind was virtually non existant for once. It was very sunny to start with the second half of the session very cloudy.

In order of appearance, the totals were: 35 birds of 11 species: (reptraps in brackets)

Great Tit 1 (0) = 1 [a juvenile]
Dunnock 8 (3) = 11 [8 juveniles]
Wren 1 (1) = 2
Blackcap 5 (1) = 6 [5 juveniles]
Robin 3 (1) = 4 [all juveniles]
Chiff Chaff 4 (0) = 4 [3 juveniles]
Reed Warbler 1 (0) = 1 [a juvenile]
Whitethroat 2 (0) = 2 [1 juvenile]
Chaffinch 1 (0) = 1
Blackbird 1 (1) = 2
Bullfinch 1 (0) = 1 [a juvenile]

Above: A juvenile Bullfinch.

My high hopes didn't get realised but I have no grounds for complaint! Thanks to DH for helping and to DK & DB and later JM for stopping by for a chat.

Coldplay live from Glastonbury or an early start on Sunday?

2011-06-26T17:59:00.005+01:00

Much as I love birdwatching and bird ringing, one problem at this time of the year is the need to get up early. Birds are naturally most active shortly after dawn; as the day hots up they become much less active.

So while many ringers in the group were out early this morning for Constant Effort Scheme visits, I have to admit that I had a lie in after watching a great performance by Coldplay at Glastonbury last night. A short visit to Harrold-Odell Country Park resulted in a catch of just two birds:

the control Reed Warbler, first caught on 12th June, was retrapped. From the state of the brood patch, this is obviously a female. Having been caught twice at the Country Park it can safely be taken to be breeding bird.

the other bird caught was an adult Dunnock, which was duly ringed.

Reed Buntings, Reed Warblers and Chiffchaffs were singing in the area. There were still many Common Spotted Orchids and a fresh Southern Marsh Orchid. Large numbers of damselflies were on the wing, with many mating.

Later Roger and Sue joined me to ring 4 broods of Swallows in Thurleigh - a total of 15 pulli today, bringing the total of Swallow pulli ringed this year to 69.

Other recent ringing includes 18 tits (mix of Blue and Great, some juveniles and some adults) at Bromham Mill yesterday, plus one Chaffinch.

Earlier in the week a visit to The Emplins in Gamlingay resulted in two adult Swifts retrapped (both had been ringed in July 2008 as adults) and three new adults ringed. 35 Common Tern chicks were ringed on an island in a lake near Bedford on Monday evening. Two Lapwing chicks were ringed last weekend.

[The photo is of a Blue Tit ringed at Bromham Mill on Saturday 25th June]

Weekend Ringing

2011-06-20T22:16:00.006+01:00

Priory Country Park CES visit 5 - 18/06/11

48 birds of 13 species (retraps in brackets):

Whitethroat 3 (2)
Robin 3 (1)
Wren 3 (1)
Chaffinch 1 (1)
Dunnock 2 (2)
Blue Tit 3 (0)
Blackcap 3 (1)
Marsh Tit 1 (0)
Great Tit 5 (1)
Chiff Chaff 1 (0)
Bullfinch 0 (1)
Reed Warbler 2 (0)
Long Tailed Tit 9 (2)

Above: Marsh Tit (only the 4th of this species ringed at Priory CP).

Above: Thanks to Dave Kramer for this photograph of me (with the Marsh Tit in the hand) and David Howes, onlooking trainee. Oh yes, and the back of my car!

Thanks to John Anderson for scribing whilst we were processing a large 'tit flock', and to Dave Barnes and Dave Kramer and John again for helping David and myself release all the long tailed tits at the same time so that the family party remained together.

The good numbers on CES seem to be holding up - so long as a passing tit flock leaves behind a good few members of its party!

Sandy Smith Nature Reserve - 19/06/11

64 birds of 14 species: (retraps in brackets)

Great Tit 12 (6)
Great Spotted Woodpecker 1 (1)
Blackbird 2 (0)
Dunnock 0 (3)
Wren 0 (1)
Chaffinch 1 (3)
Blue Tit 7 (2)
Sedge Warbler 0 (1)
Whitethroat 7 (6)
Chiff Chaff 4 (1)
Garden Warbler 1 (0)
Goldfinch 3 (0)
Grasshopper Warbler 0 (1)
Willow Warbler 1 (0)

Above: A juvenile Great Spotted Warbler. Mum was also caught. Dad has been a regular visitor recently though not retrapped this time.

It seems to me that the number of Great Tit juveniles is greater compared to Blue Tit juveniles. Maybe time will even this number out but I'll have to compare this against previous ringing records. More work needed!

Swallows - 27 and counting

2011-06-15T01:10:00.007+01:00

A fun evening checking Swallow nests at various farms in Thurleigh, Cople, Old Warden and Northill. Only one brood ringed tonight, consisting of 4 chicks. The photo is the 27th Swallow pullus that I have ringed so far this year.

A few nests were checked and found to be empty - did I misjudge how old the chicks were when I checked them earlier in June, so possibly they have they fledged already? Or did something take the young? We will never know. One nest had dead young in; this is the first time I have ever come across this in Swallows.

Three nests checked tonight had small young and one still had eggs.

Harrold-Odell Country Park today - low in numbers, high in quality

2011-06-12T17:43:00.006+01:00

I had planned to do the 2nd visit for the BTO's Breeding Bird Survey that I do each year at Thurleigh, but as it was cool and not at all summer-like, I decided to go ringing instead. The last-minute choice was Harrold-Odell Country Park, which we visited on Monday 30th May in the drizzle. Today started off better, but lo and behold the rain drops started and there was a light drizzle for most of the morning. Under the trees it was still suitable for ringing.

8 birds caught, the highlights being a control Reed Warbler and a Kingfisher.

Photos from the top are:
1) Ringing in the Bird Hide by the lake
2) With the Kingfisher
3) Kingfisher again...
4) Garden Warbler
5) The control Reed Warbler

The full list of birds caught was:

Kingfisher - 1 ringed

Reed Warbler - 2 ringed + 1 control

Garden Warbler - 2 ringed

Blackcap - 1 ringed

Bullfinch - 1 ringed

The carrot and coriander soup in the cafe after ringing was most welcome.

Thank you to Richard and Alan for their help (and to Richard for taking the photos).

Swifts - amazing birds

2011-06-09T00:10:00.013+01:00

Ivel Ringing Group has been ringing Swifts at The Emplins, Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire, since 1988.

Swifts are one of the most amazing birds in Britain. Adults never land on the ground, as if they did they couldn't take off again (their legs are very short and their wings are long). They typically nest in roof spaces of buildings - apart from the time when nesting, adult Swifts spend their entire life on the wing.

The Emplins is a 15th Century house, near the centre of Gamlingay. There is a large colony of Swifts in the roof of the house. Most of the birds ringed by the Ringing Group are the pulli (chicks). Occasionally adults are also ringed or retrapped. On Wednesday evening I used a mist net and retrapped one Swift. Ringing details to be confirmed and added here later.

On the left is a side-on view of a Swift, while above right you can see the characteristic curved wings - which gives a 'scimitar-like' appearance in flight.

Later in the summer we aim to return to ring the pulli.

The Emplins is a highly rated bed-and-breakfast establishment, so if you want to stay in a fascinating old house, in an area with beautiful countryside and with Swifts nesting in the loft - this is the place to visit. But remember that Swifts aren't around for long; they will be leaving in July or possibly early August.

Sandy Smith NR & CES visit 4, Priory CP

2011-06-05T18:47:00.004+01:00

SSNR 30/05/11: 21 birds of 8 species (retraps in brackets)

Great Tit 9 (0) - including 6 juveniles
Whitethroat 4 (1) - the retrap being first ringed as an adult June 2010.
Grasshopper Warbler 1 (0) - the 5th this year for this site and the first female
Blackcap 1 (0) - only the third of this species for the site
Dunnock 0 (2)
Chiff Chaff 1 (0)
Sedge Warbler 1 (0)
Great Spotted Woodpecker 0 (1) - A regularly caught male.

SSNR yesterday 04/06/11: 55 birds of 11 species (retraps in brackets)

Blue Tit 4 (3) - all the new birds were juveniles
Great Tit 4 (0) - including 3 juveniles
Whitethroat 6 (3) - one of the retraps being from June 2010
Chaffinch 9 (1) - including 6 juveniles
Goldfinch 7 (2) - including 2 juveniles
Garden Warbler 3 (0) - 2 males and a female (NEW FOR SITE)
Grasshopper Warbler 0 (2) - a pair
Willow Warbler 1 (0) - the first adult caught on site
Blackcap 8 (0) - mostly adult males except 1 adult female and one juvenile
Dunnock 0 (1) - first ringed on 3rd March 2011
Sedge Warbler 0 (1) - a retrap from May 2011

Priory Country Park CES VISIT 4 today 05/06/11: 47 birds of 14 species (retraps in brackets)

Robin 4 (0) - all juveniles
Blackbird 0 (1) - fledged last year and a regular
Whitethroat 4 (0) - 3 juveniles and an adult
Chiff Chaff 5 (0) - 3 juveniles, 2 adults
Garden Warbler 1 (1) - adults of both sexes
Blackcap 5 (0) - 3 juveniles, 2 adult males
Great Tit 2 (0) - both juveniles
Blue Tit 13 (0) - 9 juveniles, 4 adults (including one in moult)
Chaffinch 2 (0) - 1 juvenile and one adult male
Dunnock 1 (2) - one juvenile and the retraps were adults
Wren 0 (1) - fledged last year
Long Tailed Tits 3 (0) - 3 juveniles
Coal Tit 1 (0) - a juvenile and only the second of this species ringed at Priory
Green Woodpecker 1 (0) - an adult male

All in all, this weekend I've ringed/processed 102 birds and given myself significant data input work! But it was worth it. For more info (including photographs) of these sessions, please click here.

Open Day at Harrold-Odell Country Park

2011-06-04T10:18:00.004+01:00

Ivel Ringing Group gave a demonstration of bird ringing at the Harrold-Odell Country Park on Monday 30th May. The country park is one of the wildlife hot spots of the north of Bedfordshire and is a popular place for birdwatchers, dog walkers and other local residents. The cafe serves delicious meals, snacks and cakes.

Part of the Country Park is designated as a Nature Reserve. Despite the damp conditions, Ivel Ringing Group managed to ring 12 birds during the day and show some of these birds to visitors to the park.

The following birds were ringed:

Blackcap -1

Blackbird -1

Blue Tit - 2

Bullfinch – 2

Garden Warbler – 3

Reed Warbler – 2 (see photo of a Reed Warbler above)

Whitethroat – 1

A male Cuckoo was calling nearby for much of the day, while the lake was a hive of activity with Canada and Greylag Geese, various ducks, Common Terns, Herons, an Oystercatcher. Swifts, House Martins and Swallows were feeding low over the water.

2nd brood of Swallows

2011-05-29T01:47:00.005+01:00

On Saturday 28th May, I ringed my second brood of Swallows for the year. There were 6 chicks in the nest, but I only ringed 5 as one was much smaller than the rest.

The nest was in an outbuilding behind a house on one of the farms in Cople.

Three other Swallow nests checked today all still contain eggs.

The brood of Swallows can be seen in the photograph. I carefully removed them from their nest and placed them in this cotton bag while I ringed them. Afterwards I popped them back in their nest and the parents resumed feeding. They are sharing the outbuilding with a Wood Pigeon that is building a nest.

CES Visit 3 - 22/05/11

2011-05-24T22:00:00.006+01:00

Sunday morning started with a bit of rain, not much & once the showers had passed it was calm... for a very brief period.

Despite the increasing wind, we caught 26 birds of 9 species (retraps in brackets)

Blackcap 5 (1) - the retrap being first ringed in 2004 and known to have been born in 2003. This is a new Ivel Ringing Group longevity record with nearly 7 years passing between first being ringed (by Errol Newman) and its most recent (5th) retrapping (me). Still, this is somewhat short of the national record at 10+ years.

Dunnock 2 (3) - including 1 juvenile
Wren 0 (1)
Robin 2 (0) - both juveniles
Garden Warbler 3 (0)
Reed Warbler 1 (0)
Great Tit 1 (2)
Bullfinch 1 (1)
Blue Tit 3 (0) - all 3 juveniles

A good and enjoyable session. Thanks to David, Sue and Roger for their help and I hope the people on the guided walk enjoyed their ringing demo!

First Swallows make a summer for me

2011-05-23T19:28:00.005+01:00

Having just written that it was 'on to Swallows', I ringed my first brood of Swallows for the year tonight in Cardington. 5 well grown young. The primaries were emerging from pin (just about in 'FM' stage - one to two thirds emerged).

The Swallows had apparently returned on about 23rd March and have re-used an old nest. It is well lined with horse-hair - but is going to be tight squeeze as they get bigger!

The other pair nesting in the shed and a pair just across the road were still on eggs.

P.S. We had the first 'significant' rain in Bedford today for many weeks (possibly since March). But when I say 'significant' it did nothing more than wet the ground during the afternoon; by the evening it had mostly dried up. This has been the driest spring that I can recall since moving here in 1980.

Tits finished - now for the Swallows

2011-05-23T18:46:00.010+01:00

Over the past couple of weeks I've ringed broods of Blue Tits and Great Tits at Parkwood Local Nature Reserve in Brickhill, Bedfordshire Golf Club at Stagsden and at Bromham Mill - totalling 42 pulli Great Tits and 45 pulli Blue Tits.

The photo on the left is of two Blue Tits from a brood of 9. I ringed 8 of them - the one on the left was typical of these; on the right is a much smaller individual, commonly called a 'runt' it is unlikely to survive as it is likely to lose out when competing for attention from its parents.

That is the last of the pullus Tits for this year, so now it is on to Swallows. Some of the first broods have hatched recently and will be ready for ringing within the week.

I've also ringed a pullus Jackdaw - the pair had filled up the bottom of a Kestrel nest box with large sticks, leaving a deep depression at the back for the young bird to sit in.

[Sorry for the poor quality of the photographs here - my new phone seems to have a much worse camera than the previous one]

Last Weekend's CES visit 2

2011-05-22T22:45:00.005+01:00

Priory Country Park session 2: 21 birds of 14 species (retraps in brackets)

Blackbird 0 (2)
Wren 0 (1)
Whitethroat 1 (0)
Great Tit 0 (2)
Dunnock 0 (2)
Sedge Warbler 1 (0)
Blue Tit 0 (1)
Robin 1 (0) - our first juvenile of the year
Blackcap 3 (0)
Bullfinch 1 (0)
Chiff Chaff 1 (0)
Garden Warbler 3 (0)
Song Thrush 1 (0)
Cetti's Warbler 0 (1)

The Thorns CES session 2:

A respectable 34 birds caught on saturday at Waterloo Thorns.

Totals (new/retrap):
Dunnock 3/4
Blackbird 1/0
Robin 1/1
Wren 1/0
Chiffchaff 2/0
Willow Warbler 1/1
Blackcap 2/0
Whitethroat 1/2
Lesser Whitethroat 2/1
Garden Warbler 1/1
Blue Tit 1/1
Great Tit 2/1
Bullfinch 3/0
Goldfinch 0/1

In addition, 2 broods of great tits were ringed in next boxes, with another 4 to come over the next two weeks.

CES 1 Chalton STW

2011-05-08T20:24:00.002+01:00

Our first CES visit to Chalton Managed to produce 21 birds of 9 species. These were ringed/retraped
Bullfinch 0/2
Chiffchaff 1/2
Dunnock 0/3
Magpie 0/1
Reed Bunting 0/1
Sedge Warbler 1/0
Whitethroat 4/4
Willow Warbler 1/0
Wren 1/0

The Thorns CES Visit 1

2011-05-03T23:26:00.002+01:00

From Guy Anderson:

Our first CES session of year was met with cloudless skies and a freshening easterly breeze on monday. A respectable total of 31 captures to the very welcome soundtrack of two singing nightingales, a purring turtle dove and a free jazz ensemble of warblers.

Species totals (new/retraps)
Dunnock 0/1
Robin 1/2
Blackbird 0/1
Lesser Whitethroat 4/0
Whitethroat 4/0
Garden Warbler 3/0
Blackcap 5/1
Chiffchaff 0/1
Great Tit 0/2
Chaffinch 3/1
Goldfinch 1/0
Bullfinch 1/0

The pick of the retraps was the Dunnock - ringed as a juvenile at the Thorns in august 2007.

In addition, we checked most of the nextboxes on site, a task made more interesting by me forgetting the ladder. But some human pyramids and gibbon impersonations later, we found at least 4 incubating Great Tits. Hopefully we'll be ringing their chicks late in the month.

CES session 2 planned for the 14/15 May weekend.

Priory Country Park CES 1

2011-05-02T16:17:00.007+01:00

The Constant Effort Season is upon us once again and now Errol has moved away, I am left to run the CES at Priory Country Park. The weather forecast said there would be little difference between Sunday (the first day of the CES season) and Monday. Sunday came first so I chose Sunday!

It was sunny all morning. Chilly first thing with the wind picking up intensity throughout the morning probably resulting in a reduced catch in the second half.

18 birds of 12 species: New (retrap)

Bullfinch 3 (0)
Cetti's Warbler 0 (1)
Dunnock 2 (0)
Wren 0 (1)
Whitethroat 1 (0)
Reed Warbler 1 (0)
Blackbird 0 (2)
Garden Warbler 1 (1)
Goldfinch 1 (0)
Blue Tit 0 (1)
Chiff Chaff 2 (0)
Blackcap 1 (0)

Interesting info on some of these birds:

1 female Blackbird was born in 2008.
1 male Blackbird was born 2007 (first caught in 2008)
1 returning male Garden Warbler was ringed as an adult in 2010
The female Bullfinch's have well developed brood patch's
A male Blackcap with a false brood patch.

Above: A male Blackcap

Above: A Chiff Chaff

Above: Cetti's Warbler

A ringing demonstration was held for the 'Dawn Chorus' Walkers who were treated to close up views of the Cetti's Warbler (first ringed in April in the park). They learnt how we catch, age and sex the birds and what measurements we take. A donation of £5 to Ivel Ringing Group was gratefully received.

Future walks at Priory could coincide with ringing sessions more frequently from now on!

Early Migrants

2011-04-17T19:53:00.006+01:00

Areas of high pressure and winds in the right direction have meant early arrivals of summer migrants this year. Whitethroats are one of these species and I caught 2 at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve yesterday along with a Grasshopper Warbler.

Above: A Common Whitethroat

Above: A Grasshopper Warbler

A list of what was caught in order of appearance (retraps in brackets): 21 birds of 9 species:

Whitethroat 2 (0)
Chaffinch 1 (1)
Great Tit 0 (4)
Blue Tit 1 (0)
Reed Bunting 2 (0)
Wren 2 (1)
Grasshopper Warbler 1 (0)
Long Tailed Tit 1 (1)
Goldfinch 4 (0)

March synopsis

2011-04-03T20:19:00.006+01:00

5 ringing sessions last month at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve (SSNR) and 3 new species caught.

Session 1: 05/03/11

Totals: 15 birds of 8 species (retraps in brackets)

Coal Tit 1
Great Tit 1 (1)
Blue Tit 2 (1)
Dunnock 1
Chaffinch 2
Long Tailed Tit 1 (3)
Siskin 1
Marsh Tit 1

Above: A Marsh Tit

Session 2: 12/03/11

Totals: 10 birds of 4 species (retraps in brackets)

Goldfinch 6
Blue Tit 1 (1)
Chaffinch 1
Wren 1

Session 3: 18/03/11

Totals: 15 birds of 7 species (retraps in brackets)

Coal Tit 1
Siskin 1
Goldfinch 2
Chaffinch 5 (1)
Lesser Redpoll 1
Blue Tit 0 (3)
Reed Bunting 1

Above: Lesser Redpoll

Above: Front view of this Lesser Redpoll. The pointed tail indicates that this bird was born last year (2010).

Above: A male Reed Bunting.

Session 4: 21/03/11

Totals: 17 birds of 7 species (retraps in brackets)

Blue Tit 2 (2)
Siskin 2
Goldfinch 5
Chaffinch 2
Great Spotted Woodpecker 1
Reed Bunting 1
Dunnock 1 (1)

Session 5: 25/03/11

Totals: 3 birds of 3 species

Goldfinch 1
Coal Tit 1
Dunnock 1

Synopsis over.

BTO Bird Ringing - 'Demog Blog': Two birds in a million

2011-03-16T17:38:00.000Z

BTO Bird Ringing - 'Demog Blog': Two birds in a million: "There are currently over 2700 volunteer bird ringers all over the country, ringing birds and collecting vital information on bird movements ..."

Chalton Sewage Treatment Works 13 March 2011

2011-03-14T20:57:00.002Z

The session here proved a little more profitable than Stockgrove. The main thing being that Mike managed to repair the ride-on-mower. Fitting a new ignition switch after the other one had been stolen earlier in the year.

Despite this, we caught 20 birds of 7 species. ringed/retrapped

Blue Tit 1/6
Chaffinch 0/1
Great Tit 0/7
Grey Wagtail 1/1
Pied Wagtail 1/0
Redwing 1/0
Mute Swan 1/0

Stockgrove Countrry Park 6 March 2011

2011-03-14T20:52:00.003Z

A coldish day was spent at the country park this morning. 24 birds were caught of 4 species.

Ringed/retrapped

Blue Tit 3/6
Great Tit 7/6
Nuthatch 1/0
Sparrowhawk 1/0

Also seen on side of tree trunk was a Long-eared Bat. Strange to be in such an exposed situation.

Chalton STW 27th February

2011-02-28T16:38:00.002Z

The session was attended by Mike, Keith, Roy, Roger and Guy.
45 birds were caught of 11 species.

These were Ringed(retrapped)

Blackbird 2/0
Blue Tit 4/8
Chaffinch 1/0
Dunnock 1/0
Great Tit 6/4
Greenfinch 1/0
Goldfinch 1/0
Long-tailed Tit 10/2
Reed Bunting 1/1
Robin 1/1
Wren 0/1

One of the Reed Buntings was a Control, awaiting details.

Chalton STW 20th February 2011

2011-02-21T18:59:00.002Z

A slightly disappointing session. Probably due to the cold. Sure that wasn't forecast. Only had 13 birds of 7 speacies which were ringed(retrapped)

Blue Tit 1/0
Chaffinch 3/0
Great Tit 1/1
Grey Wagtail 0/1
Long-tailed Tit 1/3
Pied Wagtail 1/0
Wren 0/1

Lets hope for better things to come.

Persistance Pays out, Super Siskins in!

2011-02-20T23:25:00.002Z

Check out what Ed has been doing this weekend here

Chalton STW 12th February 2011

2011-02-14T19:04:00.003Z

Despite all odds we managed a session at the site adding a new specie ringed.

A duck trap is now in operation and, although not much has been caught at present ( 1 mallard and a coot)it still meant that they were new species ringed on site. We look forward to better times to come.

Species caught were ringed(retrapped)

Mute Swan 2/0
Coot 1/0
Wren 1/0
Robin 1/0
Goldcrest 2/0
Long-tailed Tit 1/6
Blue Tit 10/4
Great Tit 2/13
Chaffinch 1/1

February 12th, Priory Country Park

2011-02-13T20:56:00.002Z

More severe wind has left me slobbing around at home when I'd much prefer being out and ringing. However, yesterday I did find some shelter at Priory Country Park and put a few nets up.

The following turned up (in order of appearance):

Long Tailed Tit 2
Blue Tit 11
Dunnock 2
Chaffinch 3
Great Tit 7
Song Thrush 1
Treecreeper 1
Blackbird 2

Above: A male chaffinch. 2 were found in the net at the same time. A single female was ringed later on.

Above: A Song Thrush.

Above: A treecreeper (the best bird of the day).

Above & Below: Two different Great Tits. The one in the photograph above, I noticed, has a partially bleached (?) tail. The photograph below is a 'normal' Great Tit tail.

In all, 21 new birds were ringed with 8 retraps (the longest known age being a Blue Tit hatched in 2008).

My January highlights

2011-02-13T20:52:00.003Z

The weather has been variable recently, to say the least. December was freezing and with all the snow, this stopped ringing activities. By the new year the snow had gone and a session Sandy Smith Nature Reserve (SSNR) on 8th Jan produced just 3 birds; a Coal Tit, Blue Tit and this:

Above: A Kingfisher that had survived the December freeze!

SSNR on 22nd Jan: 4 Blue Tits, 5 Great Tits and 1 Coal Tit.

SSNR on 30th Jan: 4 Blue Tits, 2 Great Tits, 1 Robin, 1 Chaffinch, 1 Coal Tit and 2 new species ringed for the site, 2 Goldfinch and 1 Blackbird.

Above: The first Goldfinch ringed at SSNR.

Above: The first Blackbird ringed at SSNR.

Above: A female Chaffinch.

Chalton STW 30th January 2011

2011-01-31T17:41:00.004Z

Only Mike, Roy and myself were present, but, not expecting too much as the feeding station had been moved yesterday. This is because National Grid are carrying out work to cables in the vicinity of the previous site.

However, 27 birds were caught of 8 species. Ringed(retrapped)

Blackbird 1(0)
Blue Tit 4(2)
Great Tit 2(4)
Grey Wagtail 2(0)
Mallard 1(0)
Pied Wagtail 4(0)
Robin 1(0)
Wren 0(1)

The Mallard is the first for the site. One of the Great Tits was ringed 13/11/2005 and another was a pullus of last year.

Chalton STW 23 January 2011

2011-01-23T16:42:00.005Z

A slightly damp start but didn't do too bad for our first visit of 2011. A Green Sandpiper was heard calling on arrival.

24 birds caught of 8 species. ringed(retrap)

Blue Tit 4(2)
Great Tit 3(7)
Carrion Crow 1(0)
Chaffinch 1(0)
Dunnock 2(1)
Long-tailed Tit 0(1)
Magpie 1(0)
Robin 0(1)

Stockgrove CP 16 January 2011

2011-01-17T20:13:00.003Z

First session for some time. Luckily, we were out of the wind a bit at this site.Even so we didn't do too bad with 42 birds caught including 3 retraps.

They were as follows New (retraps)

Marsh Tit 1 (0)
Coal Tit 2 (0)
Blue Tit 13(1)
Great Tit 20(3)
Chaffinch 2 (0)

One of the Great Tit being ring in February 2008

High water at Bromham Mill

2011-01-15T21:00:00.015Z

The water level in the River Great Ouse at Bromham was very high today. The volume going over the Bromham Weir and through the old bridge at Bromham was formidable. Likewise through the Mill. The rain and cloud has given milder weather, with the ground very soft.

Photos: Water boiling out of Bromham Mill (top left); Great Tit (top right); Flooding through Bromham Bridge (bpttom right)

A flock of 30+ Siskins were actively feeding in the Alders, at times breaking off to fly round in a tight-knit group calling to each other. A few dropped to drink from puddles. A Heron was by the river. Goldcrests were calling on site.

Despite all the above activity, only 2 birds were ringed today (1 Great Tit, 1 Blue Tit), while 1 Great Tit was retrapped. Birds are canny creatures and they will exploit food sources, but when exhausted rapidly move on to other sites. I had filled the seed feeder on Monday, but by today it was empty - hence so few birds ringed.

Early session at Bromham Mill

2011-01-10T17:43:00.005Z

Short session first thing at Bromham Mill on 10th January. A nice sunny morning, the ground was crunchy (not fully frozen).

13 new birds ringed with no retraps:

Blackbird 1
Blue Tit 7
Great Tit 4
Robin 1

A photo of Blue Tit L302968 is shown here. A Heron was feeding by the River Ouse. Several Cormorants flew over. A few Siskins passed through. Two Marsh Tits came to the bird feeders. A small group of Redwings were in the trees as I left.

Fat Robins at Cardington, 9th January 2011

2011-01-10T17:08:00.007Z

A short session at Cardington, with nets open from 10:30am until 1pm. There was still some frost and puddles were frozen (see right), the sun was burning the frost off and the streams were flowing. Not too many birds around, there were fewer Fieldfares in the area than the previous week, 1 or 2 Goldcrests in the bushes, 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker calling.

Totals for the session were as follows (retraps in brackets):

Blue Tit 1 (2)
Goldfinch 2
Great Tit 3
Long-tailed Tit (1)
Robin (2)

The retraps included 3 birds initially ringed in the autumn of 2009 (1 Robin and 2 Blue Tits).

Both retrap Robins were above the maximum expected by the IPMR software - which expects the maximum weight for a Robin to be 24.5g:

P546652 had fledged in 2009. It was ringed on 31/8/9 and weighed 19.6g. When retrapped on 9/1/11 it weighed 25.6g.

P546799 was ringed on 28/11/10, but was not weighed that day. When retrapped on 9/1/11 it weighed 26.9g.

The two species that appear to be putting on more weight than any others are Robin and Dunnock. Perhaps I should stop offering sunflower hearts, but provide a less-energy packed food instead.

Priory totals for 2010

2011-01-02T22:00:00.004Z

All newly ringed birds plus "incomers" in brackets.

Mute Swan (2), Pochard (1), Red Kite (1), Woodpigeon 1 (1), Green Woodpecker 1, Gt. Spotted Woodpecker 4, Wren 33, Dunnock 39, Robin 29, Blackbird 53, Song Thrush 14, Redwing 9, Sedge Warbler 3, Reed Warbler 37, Lesser Whitethroat 3, C.Whitethroat 29, Garden Warbler 27, Blackcap 97, Chiffchaff 39, Willow Warbler 6, Goldcrest 7, Long-tailed Tit 15, Marsh Tit 2, Coal Tit 1, Blue Tit 79 + 117 pulli, Great Tit 55 + 73 pulli, Treecreeper 2, Magpie 1, House Sparrow 4, Chaffinch 23, Greenfinch 9, Goldfinch 9, Bullfinch 10, Reed Bunting 2.

The Marsh Tits were the 2nd & 3rd ever, the Coal Tit was the 1st, the Blackcap total was the 2nd highest (in 20+ years), and this year's total is the highest apart from 2004 when we ringed over 400 Sand Martins.

The Red Kite was identified as an ex Chiltern's pulli released at Harewood, West Yorkshire in 2000, there were at least 3 Dunnocks from 2004, a 2003 male Blackbird ringed the following year and a group record breaking Garden Warbler ringed on its return from Africa in 2003.

In the snow at Cardington

2010-12-27T17:39:00.005Z

Though today started out with snow still on the ground, hard and icy, a thaw has at last set in. Temperatures reached 3 degrees Centrigrade by 1pm.

Small numbers of Fieldfares were around the area, a Buzzard flew over, two Marsh Tits were in the bushes. There seemed to be fewer Blue and Great Tits around, which was reflected in the ringing totals.

Between 10:30am and 1:50pm, 13 new birds and 11 retraps (shown in brackets below) were caught:

Blue Tit 2 (1)
Bullfinch 1
Goldfinch 4 (1)
Greenfinch 2
Long-tailed Tit 1 (4)
Marsh Tit 1
Robin 1 (1)
Song Thrush 1
Dunnock (3)
Great-spotted Woodpecker (1)

The female Bullfinch (see left) was only the 2nd ringed at the site this year (the first being ringed in May).

The retrap Great-spotted Woodpecker was first ringed on 30th October.

It was good to actually retrap a Goldfinch at last - this was the first bird retrapped, with a total of 27 now having been ringed so far this year.

Lastly, the Marsh Tit (see left) was the 2nd ringed at the site so far this year.

2 new species for Sandy Smith NR

2010-12-12T22:04:00.005Z

The first two birds out of the net this morning at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve were both new species to be ringed on this site. A Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Coal Tit.

In the end, 2 Great Spots were ringed but just the one Coal Tit.

Above: A coal tit.

Dunnock 3
Blue Tit 13 (mostly retraps)
Great Tit 3
Coal Tit 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker 2
Chaffinch 1 (2nd of this species ringed on this site)
Robin 1
Siskin 2

26 birds of 8 species.

11th December 2010

2010-12-12T11:03:00.000Z

Between 8am and 12.30pm today 30 birds of 10 species were caught, ringed and released in 'the rough.' New (retrap):

Great Tit 4 (6)
Blackbird 3 (0)
Great Spotted Woodpecker 0 (1)
Blue Tit 4 (4)
Dunnock 1 (0)
Wren 0 (1)
Marsh Tit 1 (0)
Long Tailed Tit 0 (3)
Bullfinch 0 (1)
Robin 0 (1)

Above: This Marsh Tit V670965 (an adult) is only the third caught & ringed at this site (the second this year, the only other being in 1993). DK got some photographs for the Priory Bird Report but DB & JA missed out having already left.

The Bullfinch was first ringed as a youngster on 11th October 2008 (also recaught a few times inbetween) and a retrap Great Tit was first ringed in Box 4 in May this year.

On my last visit (27th Nov.) I retrapped a Blackbird that was first ringed in August 2005 as a youngster.

Incoming!

2010-12-07T13:43:00.005Z

I popped into Bromham Mill first thing this morning. The plan was to put a net up for 30mins, just to sample birds using a small feeding station I've been running there for the past few months.

First bird was a Robin. While ringing the Robin, a Marsh Tit went into the net. I extracted the Marsh Tit and suddenly a flock of Blue Tits and Great Tits appeared, 14 birds went into the net in about 2 minutes. I ringed them, noting their age and sex, measured their wings and released as quickly as possible.

There was a small party of Long-tailed Tits on site also.

The trees around the Mill were looking fantastic this morning. Covered in hoar frost, it was a real Christmas card image.

Totals ringed today were:

Robin 1
Marsh Tit 1
Blue Tit 8
Great Tit 6

Thank goodness I like retraps

2010-12-06T10:46:00.008Z

A short session in Cardington on Saturday 4th December. The temperature was marginally 'warmer' - reaching approx 1 degree C. 3 new birds were ringed and 10 retraps were caught (retraps are shown in brackets):

Long-tailed Tit 1 (1)

Dunnock 1

Blue Tit 1 (6)

Great Tit (1)

Marsh Tit (1)

Great Spotted Woodpecker (1)

The 2 Long-tailed Tits were part of a small party. They are fantastic birds - very sociable and it is amazing how they survive the harsh conditions of a Bedfordshire winter. Saturday's birds weighed 7.3g and 7.5g, not much more than the weight of a 10p piece (6.5g).

Nuthatch at Stagsden

2010-12-03T14:24:00.005Z

I paid a short lunch-time visit to Bedfordshire Golf Club at Stagsden on Thursday 2nd December. My plan had been to go there first thing in the morning to top-up the feeders, but as it was snowing I waited until later.

There were no golfers braving the near-arctic conditions, possibly due to the course being entirely covered in snow (it was open for play - just totally white).

The staff are very keen to make the course more attractive to wildlife and, with some help from residents in Stagsden, have been putting up nestboxes. I am hoping to help them further this year - just need to find suitable construction materials.

I put a net up for a short while and ringed a Nuthatch, Robin and Great Tit.

Siskins

2010-11-30T23:12:00.004Z

Target species aquired! Feeders up for a second week, tape lure at the ready. 14 new birds ringed!

Above & Below: Siskin no.1.

Above & Below: The tail shape (pointed) in the photograph above is indicative of a juvenile bird (born this year) whereas the rounded tail shape in the photograph below is that of an adult (born last year or before).

Many of the 14 Siskin caught were males and many of them juveniles. None had rings on, though I am hopeful that I will get some interesting recoveries as there is a good chance of this with Siskins.

Interestingly, the biometrics (wing length & weight) were remarkably similar amongst all the birds (wing length 73 or 74mm and weight around 12.3 or 12.4grams).

See http://greenwoodringer.blogspot.com/ for more info/photographs.

See http://priorycountrypark.blogspot.com/ for info/photographs of Saturday's session at Priory Country Park.

Cardington, 28th November 2010

2010-11-28T19:33:00.010Z

Sunday morning was very cold. The pond at Bedford Park was mostly frozen, as was Longholme Lake. The River Ouse by the Embankment also had ice. At Cardington, the temperature was initially about -7.5 degree Centigrade. The ground was frozen hard, but we had escaped the snow. The good news was that there was no wind. I kept a very close eye on the nets; the aim was to remove birds quickly from the nets and process them as soon as possible. In order to do this more quickly, fewer measurements were taken than normal.

Totals for the day were 28 new birds ringed and 14 retraps (retrap totals shown in brackets):

Blackbird 1
Blue Tit 4 (7)
Chaffinch 2 (1)
Dunnock 1 (4)
Goldfinch 7
Great Spotted Woodpecker (1)
Great Tit 2
Greenfinch 5
Magpie 1
Robin 2 (1)
Siskin 1
Song Thrush 1
Wren 1

The Great Spotted Woodpecker retrapped was one of the young male birds I ringed at the same site on 30th October 2010.

The Magpie and Siskin (see right for a photo of the female Siskin) was the first bird of either species that I have ringed at the site.

The male Greenfinches were looking amazing, really bright yellow/green and very smart.

The total of 14 retraps suggests that many of the birds previously ringed are resident locally. Perhaps of particular interest are the 4 retrap Dunnocks:

Ring No. Date ringed Retrap history
P546608 21/06/09 05/07/09, 23/05/10, 30/10/10, 28/11/10
P546635 27/06/09 28/11/10
P546665 31/01/10 06/11/10, 28/11/10
P546687 26/09/10 30/10/10, 28/11/10

The fact that 608 has been caught 5 times now suggests it lives on the site most of the time. But what about 635? It was ringed a week later than 608 but today was the first time it has been retrapped. Where has it been in the mean time?

I am also getting a good number of Blue Tit retraps, but so far no Greenfinch or Goldfinch retraps - this could suggest that either the population is big and so the chances of getting a retrap are small, or the birds are moving through the area and not staying put. Time will tell.

Apart from the birds ringed, about 10 Lapwings drifted over and were in one of the fields near the village later on. There was one Goldcrest on site. A small flock of Fieldfares were in the hedgerow down the road as I left.

From Mark Fitzpatrick

2010-10-31T07:54:00.002Z

Saturday 29th October - Cardington
Really nice day. Gentle westerly breeze, warm in the sun. Not many clouds. 3 Buzzards over together. Peregrine flew over. Mixed flock of finches (100+) on the field. Highlight of the ringing were 3 Great Spotted Woodpeckers - first I've ever ringed at the site. In total I ringed 37 new birds, plus 15 retraps: Blue Tit 16 new (+ 5 retraps), Chaffinch 2, Dunnock 1, (2), Goldcrest (1), Goldfinch 7, Greenfinch 2, Great Tit 1, (3), Great Spotted Woodpecker 3, LT Tit 3, (4), Robin 1, Wren (1).

- Stagsden
Been out ringing again - lots of tits coming to feeders. Mostly Blue Tits, some Great Tits. At Stagsden also ringed 2 Coal Tits and 2 Marsh Tits. Marsh Tits are fairly uncommon in Bedfordshire. The attached photo is a very typical example of what happens when one tries to ring any of the tit species!

A nice day for ringing

2010-10-30T17:01:00.006+01:00

The weather was good, the wind was down and I didn't have to get up at rediculous o'clock. All that was needed were some birds.

A visit to 'the rough' at Priory Country Park today (7.30am to 1pm) brought the following totals: 35 birds of 10 species - new (retrap):

Redwing 4 (0)
Blue Tit 2 (1)
Great Tit 2 (5)
Long Tailed Tit 0 (4)
Bullfinch 2 (1)
Robin 0 (3)
Dunnock 1 (4)
Blackbird 3 (0)
Greenfinch 1 (0)
Wren 2 (0)

The total catch was reasonable and the first of the autumn redwing arrivals were caught and ringed (juveniles and adults). It was a bit slow mid-morning but picked up later on.

The feeding station didn't attract many birds but perhaps it isn't cold enough yet to make them desperate enough to be lured in to the feeders.

The retrap Bullfinch had mange and one robin had a weird growth at the base of the upper mandible (bill) which it didn't have when it was first ringed.

Other things of note, a flock of 18 lapwing flew over heading towards the main lake and a weasel made 2 brief appearances (I've never seen one so close).

Haar, haar.

2010-10-09T18:43:00.013+01:00

Got out early in anticipation of maybe a bit of 'grounded scarce'. The heavens were obscured by a layer of cloud as I put some nets up. The wind was also a lot stronger than the 5mph forecast. The next hour was busy with 19 birds to extract and process. First up was a Song Thrush that was being 'got at' by a juvvy male Sparr - but my intervention saved it and it got away with a few ruffled, and bloodied, back feathers.
Some minor damage to the rear end of today's Song Thrush

The bird was a Euring code 4 and much bigger than our known locals, so was probably a continental arrival.

With a little more light in the sky a couple of female Blackbirds popped by, both birds of the year and like chalk and cheese. The smaller one (123mm wing) had just 1ogc and the larger (133mm) had 4ogc. Here is the larger one that also had a fat score of 2.5
The 'continental' female Blackbird in a hurry to get away.

Then, with the MP3 lure on, it was the turn of 2 male Blackcaps to 'weigh in'. The smaller of the two was the heavier.
Shy 'teenage' Blackcap (3M) with 2 ogc; the lighter one .

By now the light was about as good as it was going to get all morning. The tits started to visit the feeders for a while starting about half an hour after (theoretical) sunrise. However, after a bit of a flurry, interest in the easy come by source of food failed to attract much enthusiasm. Four Bushtits did the honours, three of them newbies and most likely young of the year with their red eye rings.

So, after three hours of boredom, when I processed 3 more tits and a Dunnock and was thinking of taking down as the wind had backed to a worse direction, what should pop by but a young Treecreeper that I ringed a couple of weeks ago. So that was it. 24 birds of 10 species, of which one third were re-traps.
Last bird of the day - Treecreeper, aged 3, male on bill & hind claw.
Young Treecreeper with 2 ogc's and unmoulted, large white tip to alula.

Blue Tit 4 (3)
Great Tit 1 (2)
Long-tailed Bushtit 3 (1)
Blackcap 2
Treecreeper (1)
Wren 1
Blackbird 2
Song Thrush 1
Dunnock 2
Chaffinch (1)

No Chiffs, no 'crests, no Redwings, no King Harry's. The day started as it had begun - gloomy!

Observations made up for it some what, with the Sparr, 8 Lesser Redpolls, a Green Sand, 5 Swallows, 1 House Martin, several small parties of Chaffinch, 8 Wigeon, 6 Gadwall, a Grey Wag, a Pied Wag, 4 Mipits, 3 Sky Larks, a count of 180-200 Starlings west, just 1 Redwing ... and about 2 thousand Jackdaws as I was unlocking the gate on arrival.
Pie in the sky today! Next time? I've put a request in for light winds, as well.

To sweee or to sweeooo

2010-10-07T13:01:00.008+01:00

Up early and out. Brrr - a mere 5 degrees C. 3 nets up around the 'crescent' reedbed in the gloaming before sunrise. A little bit of mist over the lake and a pair of Gadwall feeding on the weed; would have made a cracking photo. Kingfisher(s) zipping about and perching in the willows overhanging the water. Not coming through my way, though.

Today was migrants' day. Visibility is restricted at this sub-site because it is set in a hollow and because of the height of the surrounding willows. This precludes 'vis-migging' as you can't see much of the sky! However, it was to be good for Chiff, Robin, Chaffinch, Goldcrest, Goldfinch and Siskin. To take it one step at a time ...
A brightly coloured (and lit!) Chiffchaff; excuse the shadow.

Early doors, at sunrise, it was just 1 Robin and 1 Dunnock. The tape was playing Chiff but no signs except for a bird singing back at base. Then a couple of Chaffinches; these were joined by 3 Chiffs shortly after. Having taken them out, another Chiff flew in, making 4. A lone female and a mixed bag of males. Three different plumages and leg colours. The biggest was brightest and the smallest was greyest, the other one being 'normal' for south central England. The 'grey one' gave the abietinus type 'seeeooo' call. Then that avenue dried up, only to be replaced by Wrens and Blue Tits, as, by now, the place was warming up quickly in the bright sunshine.

More Robins - and going by the wing length, all of todays were females, in the David Lack tradition. [Males tend to stay put]. Moved the tape to be nearer the Alders and switched to Goldcrest. Three arrived, two were caught - females again. Finger trouble with the MP3 and Goldfinch played, luring in a large-winged, juvenile male. As I took the nets down (prior to a previous engagement), I noticed half a dozen silent Goldfinch feeding in the Alders. As I packed the car, A Siskin also flew in. ~#**%*##! could have had that!

In all, 10 species and 26 birds. As usual, these is them:
Goldcrest 2
Blue Tit 4 (1)
Great Tit (1)
Long-tailed Bush Tit 1
Chiffchaff 4
Wren 1 (2)
Robin 3 (1)
Dunnock 2 (1)
Chaffinch 1 (1)
Goldfinch 1

Back to the feeders on Saturday. My No.1 helper and 'C' ringer will not be there as he intends to make for East Yorkshire. More ringing ticks for him, no doubt. But ... it'll only be 3 days to the glorious 12th!
Match that! [P.schwarzi. 1991. Beds.]

Ever hopeful

2010-09-26T14:13:00.010+01:00

Ed and I went out ringing this morning, despite a stiff northerly wind and grey skies. The breeze had got up quite a bit since yesterday, which was also beautiful and sunny. Still, you never know. The "Rough" is well sheltered from northerly winds so it might work out, nevertheless.

And so it did. The main run of 160' did catch the wind, but not until it had delivered a pair of Blackcaps in the early morning gloom, then a retrap 1CY Marsh Tit and a Blackbird. Despite the wind, a Chiffchaff 'came to tape'.

Today's target species - Blackcap (1cy male)

Ed got the feeding station net up and, to begin with, all we had were re-trap Blue and Great Tits. As it was in the lee of 'the Long Hedge', I moved the lure over there with a modicum of success. Hey Ho, apart from lots more new Blue and Great Tits, two Goldcrests, a solitary Blackcap and five more Chiffs!

The two extremes of Chiffies this morning - adult male & late brood female (juv doing PJ)

Other birds we noticed were a couple of migrating Jays (scarce birds round here, you know), a few Swallows and 110 Starlings beetling south-west, once upon a time a common bird hereabouts. Of course, the local "Bushtit" flock was moving around, 'around' being the operative word since we could see them and hear them - but not catch them!

We took down after four hours and beat a hasty retreat home before the forecast rain caught us out. We had caught 42 birds of which 27 were new and 15 were recaptures. This time the re-trap tits produced four more youngsters from our various boxes situated around the park.
Goldcrest 2
Blue Tit 8 (8)
Great Tit 5 (3)
Marsh Tit (1) - that same youngster
Chiffchaff 6
Blackcap 3
Blackbird 1 (1)
Dunnock (2)
Chaffinch 2

Promise of things to come - Goldcrest (young male)

Another good day; probably worthwhile trying again in the week. Weds? The feeders will need filling in couple of days, anyhow.
Today's pics by DK.

Chalton - summer results

2010-09-26T13:56:00.002+01:00

Below is the final count from the Constant Effort Survey at the sewage treatment works; adults first, followed by birds of the year. This is the number of individual birds (new or re-traps from other years) and makes no account of their subsequent re-capture during this year's fieldwork. The works are situated adjacent to the M1 motorway, close to Toddington service station.
Moorhen 1 + 0
Wood Pigeon 0 + 2
Kingfisher 1 + 1
Barn Swallow 4 + 0
Wren 5 + 10
Dunnock 6 + 4
Robin 4 + 7
Blackbird 6 + 1
Song Thrush 1 + 0
Sedge Warbler 20 + 13
Reed Warbler 29 + 28
C.Whitethroat 13 + 12
Garden Warbler 1 + 1
Blackcap 8 + 9
Chiffchaff 4 + 29
Willow Warbler 0 + 1
Long-tailed Tit 5 + 20
Blue Tit 6 + 17
Great Tit 2 + 14
C. Crow 1 + 0
Starling 4 + 0
Greenfinch 0 + 2
Bullfinch 1 + 3
Reed Bunting 6 + 1
128 Adults & 170 juveniles [ 2009 = 111 adults & 188 juveniles)

Magnificent Seven

2010-09-22T17:30:00.015+01:00

Great Spot. - note the dull eye of this juvenile and the emerging red crown feathers, indicating 'male'.

A lonely vigil today, starting at a dewy 7 o'clock and finishing at a (comparative) sweltering 12 noon. My main intention was to catch a few more Blackcaps, which I achieved. It was also a chance to try out - and learn how to use - the new MP3 player and speaker with a bit of tape luring. It is certainly a tad better than my 30-year old tape set-up, but then that is capable of blasting them out of the sky. I had to join the 21st century sometime!

Well, it went very well. An early Reewa and a Chaff followed by a couple of Blaca cheered me up so I set about putting a net by the new feeders. A Goldf, two more Blaca and another Reewa, plus loads of immature Bluti and new Greti kept me busy for a couple of hours, by which time I decided it was the right juncture for a cupp'a.
Just love the black and white uppers of the King Harry's
A recently fledged juvenile Reed Warbler -all three in different fitness to emigrate
One of two male Blackcaps included in the seven new individuals.

From then on, it slowed down but became the more interesting. A young male Grswo dropped in, two Robin, more tits, another Blaca, a Treec, a couple of adult Lotti, another Goldf, two more Blaca, a third Reewa and finally, at half eleven, a Coati.
On measurements, this young Treecreeper should turn out to be a male.
Coal Tit - I claimed this immature bird as a ringing tick for the park.

Now these are rare in the park; one was seen by DK in Feb 2009, but the previous record was one I and another birder saw back in 1995. Bingo.

At the end of the morning, I had bagged 50 birds of which 10 were retraps. Four of the six tits recaptured had been ringed 'at the nest' as pulli, in different plantations. Twelve species at this location is just above par. I didn't manage to catch any of the 3 Chiffs feeding on Ivy blossom, nor the lone Whitethroat that had been seen here up until yesterday. I only saw 2 Blackbirds all morning and heard an alarm call of a Dunnock without seeing one. The Marsh Tit came to the feeder but not the net! A Hobby came over, too. About 6-8 Meadow Pipits passed west-south-west during mid-morning.

The all important ringing list (re-traps in brackets, as usual):
Gt. Spotted Woodpecker 1 - second for the year
Blue Tit 8 (6)
Great Tit 12 (1)
Coal Tit 1 - 'ringing tick' for the park
Long-tailed Bushtit (2) - both lone adults
Blackcap 7 - now 2010 total (89) beats last year's
(2nd highest annual figure in 20 years)
Reed Warbler 3 - makes 37 youngsters for the year
Treecreeper 1 - second for the year
Wren 3
Robin 1 (1)
Chaffinch 1
Goldfinch 2

Blackcap is the most ringed species on the site. At present it accounts for 11.35% of all new birds. Blue Tit is next (10.49%), then Reed Warbler (5.63%), Blackbird (5.48%) & Sand Martin (5.09%).

A typical young Blue Tit, still a bit scruffy as it comes to the end of its post-juvenile moult (mainly body feathers are replaced).
Surprisingly, only one Great Tit was a retrap (ringed as a pullus, too). Not an adult among them.

One other bit of news - DK picked up a Cetti's on call/song (remained hidden - so only brief views) by the STW bridge, our first since winter 06/07.

Fatty & skinny

2010-09-12T14:10:00.010+01:00

... went out today; that's the Blackcaps, not us!
First up - a 3F Blackcap, fat 4, wt.22.3g
Another session at Priory in the 'rough' from sun-up 'til late morning produced 23 birds, including 6 retraps.
Next up - 3M Blackcap, fat 1.5, wt. 19.2g
Retraps often mean winter is on its way and today we were also delighted to catch 4 tits. These in themselves seem to appear about now, reminding us that we ought really to get the feeders up. Instead, we just cut out the rack through the waist high nettles.

To clarify today's efforts, we have:
Blue Tit 3, still with small signs of their juv plum
One of today's 3F Blue Tits
Great Tit 1,
Blackcap 6 (1), weights from 19.2 - 22.7, except the retrap which we have handled on the last 3 visits without any appreciable weight gain over the 9 days.
Blackbird 1 (2), a couple of adults ending primary moult
Robin 2 (2), all except one were youngsters
Adult male Robin in fresh/winter plumage
Dunnock 1 (1), young males of the year
Greenfinch 1, 3J
Goldfinch 2, both 3J's but only just out of the nest, many primaries in sheath.
Underwing of 1J/3J Goldfinch, showing primary sheaths.
Other birds around included 4 Tufted, 4 c.Swift, 14 House Martin, a C.Buzzard, a Jay and a singleton Spotted Flycatcher.
One man (Ed) and my (new) dog (bitch), Cerise.

PS. New Blackcaps now only 4 short of last years total for the site.

Black Friday

2010-09-03T19:16:00.002+01:00

A short session today, starting ~9am, after the fog started to lift.
Chiffchaff - 2
Blackcap - 12, 10 of these were females!
C.Whitethroat - 1
Wren - 1
Blackbird - 1
Song Thrush - 1, (1)
Robin - 1, (1)
Dunnock - 2
Greenfinch - 1
The only adult birds were two of the female Blackcaps and a male Chiffchaff (with an abietinus call).
Brings the Priory total of new Blackcaps this year to 71. Best year by far was 1994 with 107; next best was last year with 88 and then 2007 with 87. So far so good - at least 4 more weeks to go before passage ceases.

Hands Solo.

2010-08-28T14:36:00.004+01:00

At last, I could get out and ring. Hand almost like new, wellies still performing after 20 years.
Today was a solo effort, since young Ed went off to his new patch at Clophill. Nets went up and the birds came visiting.

Well, they did for about 90 minutes, then an hour long wait for 3 more and, after that flurry, one bird an hour to finish off with. I even put up 2 extra nets (100') but they didn't catch anything. I put it all down to a sudden weather change about 8 o'clock, when the skies cleared, the wind got up and the tops of the nets were bathed in bright sunlight.
"The sky at bright" - taken 8am. (Yes. That is the moon)

It went from bad to worse, too.
The list of 22 new and 3 retrapped birds is as follows:
Chiffchaff 2
Blackcap 6
C.Whitethroat 3
Blackbird 2 (1)
Song Thrush 3 (1)
Robin 1
Dunnock 3 (1)
Chaffinch 1
Goldfinch 1

Overhead there were c.16 Swifts and c.20 House Martins in the early morning sun. Also flying over from the main lake, 15 Shoveler ( spooked by the sailing fraternity), 4 calling Gadwall, & 8 Cormorant but no raptors. Inside the ringing sub-site, there was a Lesser Whitethroat on the top of one of the Elderberry bushes for some while, accompanied by a Garden Warbler at first and then by an unringed male Blackcap. Upwards of 8 Goldfinches blogged to and fro, a young Great Spot flew over, the Long-tailed Tits flew through with a few other hangers-on (tits), across (but outside) the corner of the net run. I heard a Bullfinch, a Greenfinch and noticed 2 Crows in the top of the Pear tree, something I spotted last time I was in here. No sign of the Spot Fly that we watched last Sunday.

Total CES tally this year was 96 adults of 21 species, 169 juveniles of 20 species. We have also captured another 45 individuals on extra visits and ringed 81 tit pulli in the same compartment, a grand total of 360 individual birds of 24 species. Blackcap is still "tops" for the site with 56 caught so far ... and another 6 weeks to go before they all disappear.

Number 11

2010-08-15T15:01:00.013+01:00

Today was the 15th. CES 11 due to be done today. 15th bird today was special. Lesser Whitethroat - our 4th this year. Maybe it was bred here.

A funny old day; no Swifts seen, for a start. A Sparr over the nets just as they were opened set the scene. Another dire first half (like the previous two weekends). Quite a few screaming young Common Terns flying to and fro with their parents.

It turned out to be quite a good day for the Borin Warbler; we managed to get 4 new ones.

The full line up was as follows:
Blue Tit 2 (1)
Gt. Tit (2)
Blackcap 4
Garden Warbler 4
Les. Whitethroat 1
C. Whitethroat 1
Reed Warbler 2
Wren (1)
Blackbird 1 (3)
Robin (1)
Bullfinch 1
... making 24 birds of 11 species, a bit "off the pace" for the time of year.

There was a fly-through Kingfisher (well above the top shelf), a few Swallows, both Gt. Spot and Green Woodpeckers and a Common Sandpiper over the nearby old lake (Fingers) mid-morning.

A little disappointed that we didn't catch more Whitethroats, just this one mid-session.

The weather was 8 oktas decreasing to 7, breezy but moderating, from the NE going NW'ly, light drizzle initially after four damp days and nights. Will we do better next weekend?

And while we're at it, here is a report from Mark Boyd, who did The Thorns today:

"Hi Everyone

You missed a rare opportunity to say that you were at the least productive Waterloo Thorns CES visit ever yesterday. Conditions were fine, a little breezy towards the end of the morning, but nothing exceptional. There were birds around - a bouncing sparrowhawk, a flock of 40 mixed finches, etc - but not many in the nets. All nets were up by 5.30 am. By 07.40 I had caught two birds. I caught the rest at 10.45.
Here are the totals:

Robin 1 (0)
Bullfinch (1)
Treecreeper 1 (1)
Long-tailed tit (2)
Goldcrest (1)

That's right. Just seven birds in total, of which only two were new."

One bit of good news - we had a Blue Tit leave this same CES site near Sandy and travel to Wicken Fen, a distance of 42km. This is our 4th longest distance, the best being 88km for the species.

Another CES10 - Bedford (or Dire Straights 2)

2010-08-09T12:13:00.009+01:00

Another Sunday CES session, this at Priory CP. We did, however also run a couple of nets "off site", which we'll come to.

Not quite as bad (but almost) as last weekend, even though it started off slow with just 7 birds in the first half.

19 new birds & 3 retraps covering 10 species for the CES
Blue Tit (1)
Willow Warbler 1 juv [that's 4 now!]
Blackcap 3 juvs
A 3M Blackcap, at the end of its PJ moult. Note 1 ogc

Garden Warbler 3 [a 4M & a 3P]
A scruffy juv Garden Warbler doing a body moult

Whitethroat 4 all juvs
Wren 1 a late juv
Blackbird 2 (2) - 2 wimps and 2x 5's (2nd CY)
Song Thrush 1 fresh looking juv
Robin 1 'half-breast'
Goldfinch 2 grown-ups
Male Goldfinch - or 'King Harry'

All of the warblers were fat zero and muscle 1; no signs yet of migrating birds here at 52 degrees North!

Now onto the 100' of extra netting across the footpath, a different habitat.
Just 11 new birds and 2 retraps; Net for net - better.
Blue Tit 3 (1)
Great Tit 1 (1)
Long-tailed Tit 1 juv
Chiffchaff 2 - one of each age class
Whitethroat 1 lurking adult with 5 outer primaries growing
Adult Common Whitethroat in full primary moult (MS=40) - getting ready to leave us.

Robin 1 in PJ moult
Chaffinch 1 - a 2CY male in heavy moult
Bullfinch 1 - a 2CY female, still with a good BP.

The only moving birds were 12 Cormorant east and c.12 Swifts south after feeding above the lake-side willows. Bloggers included up to ten Goldfinch and the breeding/feeding Common Terns.

CES 10, Everton

2010-08-09T11:55:00.004+01:00

CES 10 at Waterloo Thorns (370' in 5 net rides in scrub on the edge of "the Secret Airfield") was completed on Sunday morning. A decent session with a nice species mix; we fell just short of getting 40 birds.

Overall 31 new and (8 retrap)

Blackcap 2 (2)
Blue tit 2 (2)
Bullfinch 2 (1)
Dunnock 6 (1)
Blackbird 3 (1)
Green woodpecker 1 (1)
Whitethroat 9 (0)
Reed warbler 1 (0)
Garden warbler 1 (0)
Coal tit 1 (0)
Wren 1 (0)
Chiffchaff 2 (0)

Cheers - Gareth Fisher

Dire Straights

2010-08-03T13:00:00.014+01:00

"Missing - Presumed having a good time". Not today (Sunday).

Summer is turning; the creeping thistles are ripe and ready for the 'King Harry's' to strip out. Mind you, a few have already been given some thought!

Started off the first half of the Priory CES with 7 birds of 7 species. Grim. A bit better in the second half (needed to be!) with 12 birds of 10 species, ending up with 19 birds of 12 species. This compares favourably with the other CES at The Thorns which had just 26 birds using 50% more netting!

The autumn fruits are beginning to ripen; a few blackberries are ready to be taken.

The Elderberries, of which we have many on this sub-site, are ever so slowly turning red. It will be a while yet before they are deep purple and ready to be eaten.

The Teasels, on the other hand, will be ready for our Goldfinches before the last of the Thistles are stripped.

Which brings us back to the birds we caught and ringed today.
Great Tit (1)
Chiffchaff 2
Willow Warbler 1 - our 3rd of the year!
Blackcap 2 (1) -
C.Whitethroat 2 (1) - all in some stage of moult
Reed Warbler 1
Treecreeper 1 - the first of the season

Wren 2
Blackbird 1 - a new male
Robin 1 - not quite 'Xmas card' yet.
Dunnock 2
Goldfinch 1 - our first youngster of 2010

An extra 60' net that was set in an adjoining sub-site yielded another 5 birds -
Gt. Tit (2)
Chiffchaff 1 (1)
Chaffinch (1)

What will next weekend bring? A few passage birds, perhaps?

Three quarters of the way

2010-07-25T17:16:00.015+01:00

CES Number 9 completed; fortunately there was alot of cloud cover and a light breeze. Later in the day it turned very humid and the wind picked up. So what did we catch today?

A peculiar blend to say the least. Early doors, we had a fly-past as 2 Little Egberts left the roost.

First up - a 3JP Chiffie.

During the morning we extracted 26 birds from the standard nets and 13 from a single 60' we set in an adjoining compartment. Combined, I make that 33 new birds with just 4 re-traps of 15 species. A good training day with this spread.

Male (rt) and female 3J Chaffinch.

2CY male Bullfinch.

It was to be an AA day - on one third of the birds. Just eight birds were adults; the 5 new ones were a male Dunnock (where did he spring from?), male Blackcap, nesting female Song Thrush, female Chiffie and a 6M Bullfinch and 3 of the 4 retraps were moulting Blackbirds.

3JP Chiffchaff showing GC moult

RARE - Our third Willie of the season!

Mrs Song Thrush

So here is the full listing:
Blue Tit 1
Great Tit 3 (1)
Chiffchaff 5
Willow Warbler 1
Blackcap 3
Garden Warbler 1
Whitethroat 2
Reed Warbler 5
Wren 5
Blackbird (3)
Song Thrush 1
Robin 2
Dunnock 3
Chaffinch 2
Bullfinch 1

We don't normally catch as many young Reed Warblers here in this patch so that means they are dispersing and we'll have to visit our tinzie-winzie reed bed in the week for some more.

Sandy Smith NR Ringing Demo 21/07/10

2010-07-24T16:27:00.003+01:00

First of all, a big thanks to all who attended the ringing demo put on by Errol and myself at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve. A special thanks to the Greensand Trust, Liz Millbank for helping organise and Steve Squire for mowing the path & the photographs.I hope you all enjoyed it - I certainly did.

Total for the evening:

Whitethroat 2 (1 adult and one juvenile) - a site speciality. The juvenile was one I had caught earlier (just out of the nest) & it's primary feathers had grown a further 9mm in 10 days!

Kingfisher 1 (juvenile) - this more than made up for the lack of other birds!

Song Thrush (juvenile) - this was as we were taking nets down in the fading light. Sorry if you missed it!

All photographs are courtesy of Steve Squire.

Above: This was a surprise since we caught it in the net furthest away from the river and not in the net we put up specifically to catch one! Having bagged it, I took it over to the unsuspecting visitors. Without giving anything away, I slowly brought it out of the bag to everybody's delight.

Above: I'm taking a wing length measurement.

Above: The flash of blue that people normally see out in the field.

Above: Here you can see the ring, but you can also see the colour of the top of the legs. An adult would have a crayon red colour to the top of their legs. This juvenile shows a dark colour.

Barnacle Goose round-up

2010-07-20T19:58:00.006+01:00

Now have the final figures for the round-up on 11th July at Roxton.

Barnacle Geese - 298 ringed (146 retraps, 152 new); 40 birds left the scene unringed.
Of the 152 new birds, 72 had darvics added.
Greylag - 2 new, both had darvics added.
Canada Goose - 14 new birds ringed.

In 2010, at least 19 birds carrying darvics were seen elsewhere but not retrapped here, making the number of known birds at least 357 from a total of 403 marked since the 2003 moult. In total, 270 birds have had darvic colour rings added.

CES 8 - Sunday 18 July

2010-07-20T08:44:00.000+01:00

CES 8 at Waterloo Thorns completed this morning. Perfect conditions first thing spawned hope of a bumper session, but it was incredibly quiet - literally - very little bird activity of any kind. By 10am we only had 7 birds and were heading for a record low catch....until the inevitable tit flock hit. Happily this Paridae parade included a few hangers-on: treecreepers, willow warbler and goldcrest.

Final scores (new/retrap):
Wren 1/2
Treecreeper 1/2
Chiffchaff 2/0
Long-tailed Tit 4/2
Goldcrest 1/0
Willow Warbler 1/0
Great Tit 5/1
Robin 0/2
Blackcap 0/2
Bullfinch 0/2
Blue Tit 0/2

Guy Anderson

CES 8 at Priory

2010-07-17T18:06:00.013+01:00

A good day - despite the weather. Sunny intervals but increasing cloud and gusty winds.
A total of 38 birds of 11 species and just 8 retraps.

1J Wren with bright gape and dull eye

Blue Tit 1 juv
Long-tailed Tit (1) - this individual was ringed as a 3 in August 2007
Chiffchaff 3 (1) - all juvs
Garden Warbler 2 (1) - the male retrap is from early 2008
Blackcap 10 (1) - today's surprise package!
Whitethroat (3) - all moulting adults
Sedge Warbler 1 - another juv (2 days running!)
Reed Warbler 2 juvs
Wren 3 (1) - includes a 1J
Blackbird 7 - 6 juvs and a 2cy, all males
Dunnock 1 juv - no adults today, our staple diet here

We were chatting to Dave Kramer about records sent in by birders and how different things (especially colours) can be perceived and described by different people. As an example, see the Chiffchaff below ....
The same Chiffchaff photographed from two different angles.
One 'brown' while the other is 'green'.

There were plenty of butties on the wing today, including quite a few newly emerged Gatekeepers ...
several Commas ...
... and Red Admirals, too. The Creeping Thistles also had several species of bumblebee feeding on them, together with a soldier bettle sp.

The Whitethroats were in heavy moult, a sign that they had finished breeding for this year.
Primaries 1 & 2 completing, primary 3 sprouting & primary 4 still pushing through. Moult score = 11 (4421000000)

Four more CES sessions left; they should produce many more young birds and maybe some "old friends".

An early tickle

2010-07-16T19:44:00.011+01:00

An early start at the crescent before the winds got up. Not very many dog walkers around this morning. However, there has been a blue-green algal bloom in the main lake for a week or so. These winds will shift it by creating turbulence and chilling the water temperature.

First up was my first moulting Blackcap of the year, a male with two primaries dropped on both wings. The main thrust here is always the Reed Warblers. We can't get into this small reedbed as the sub-strate is very unstable (an old silt trap) if you continually walk on it. Therefore we suffice with ringing the perimeter paths. Today it was 15 birds in total, with 7 retrap adult Reed Warblers and 3 juveniles.

With the absence of dogs, some of the 100 or so swans came to the beach, (bottom right corner of main lake - see map), to haul out and do a bit of 'toiletry' and 'have a natter'.

"Here we come"
"Now for a good scratch"

Abraded plumage of an adult Reed Warbler
Fresh plumaged juvenile Reed Warbler.
Juvenile Blackcap showing soft body feathers.

The end tally was 15 birds including 8 recaptures:
Great Tit 1 juv
Garden Warbler 1 juv
Black cap 1 juv (1)
Sedge Warbler 1 juv
Reed Warbler 3 (7)
One of the male Reed Warblers was ringed as a 6M (hatched 2 years earlier or before) in 2006, making it at least 6 years old and another one was a 6Female when caught in 2007. This year to date, I have caught 17 males, 10 females, 5 unsexed (poss females as they were caught early on) and 3 juveniles at this tiny reed bed.

Today's surprise extraction ...
... only the second this year over the whole site.

Bird Ringing Demonstration

2010-07-15T18:01:00.004+01:00

WEDNESDAY 21st JULY 7.00-9.00pm

Sandy Smith Nature Reserve

Recent ringing activities (last couple of months) on this site have produced large numbers of Common Whitethroats, a few Sedge Warblers and a Grasshopper Warbler!So why not come to Sandy Smith Nature Reserve near Beadlow to get the chance see birds up close and learn about ringing from members of the Ivel Ringing Group.

The cost is £1.00 per person. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Please contact Liz Millbank, Greensand Trust, for further information on 01234 743666.

Number Seven

2010-07-03T17:11:00.016+01:00

It has been a fortnight since the last CES visit and, since then, the weather has been on the "warm side". Still, if you can't sleep because of the heat, you might as well get up and go ringing!

"First up" - [3J(F)J "Prune"]

First bird up was a juvenile Dunnock and, on the next round, 2 adult female Blackbirds off the nest and out foraging before 6am. Just the one juvenile Garden Warbler this morning and we noticed a small cyst on the gape of this bird. Not something we see very often.

Juvenile Garden Warbler
The first of two juvenile (male) Blackcaps.

Things were looking good. Three early morning Blue Tits turned out to be from very different sites; one to the east, one to the south and the other from a natural hole or a bat box. Two hours in and it was time for a spot of breakfast and pill taking. Munching on a sandwich, I went through a moult sequence with Davy on an adult (6F) Robin.

Adult Robin moulting its primaries, tertials and tail (03/07/10)
Same bird - primary moult score = 12 (3332100000).

Blackcaps were dominannt with 2 juvenile male types (see photo above showing the darker crown colouration), 2 juvenile female types and a new 2CY male. This in fact doubled our juvenile numbers for the year, bringing them level with the adults. It should be noted that one in every nine birds that we catch throughout the broader site is a Blackcap.

A Green Woodpecker tantalised us, but with the bright sunshine that dominated the session, it could see the nets probably better than us!! We caught young Robin number 8 and as yet it has to start its post-juvenile moult.

Spotty, juvenile Robin.

Also in the bag were three adult Dunnocks. The first was a juvenile female last year, the second was one of our oldest birds, a male that was ringed as a juvenile in earlyAugust 2004 and the last was a bird caught in May 2007 as a 2CY male. Unfortunately, this year it has developed "bumble foot", similar to Sedge Warblers and Chaffinches. The ring is now tight on the leg but doesnt seem to be restricting circulation to the foot.

The final tally was 20 new and 9 re-traps. Every thing stopped at 10am and no more birds were caught in the fourth quarter of "our alloted time slot". C'est la vie!
Blue Tit 1 (2)
Great Tit 1
Chiffchaff 2 (1)
Blackcap 5
Garden Warbler 1
Whitethroat 2
Reed Warbler (1)
Wren 1 (1)
Blackbird 3 (1)
Robin 2
Dunnock 1 (3)
Chaffinch 1.

Additional highlights of the morning were a passing Sandwich Tern and two Little Egberts over. DK went to photograph the second "whitey" but all we heard after a shutter whirring were some mild expletives - as he had left his 2Gig card in the computer!

Instead - here's one I nicked off Phil Slade

Also spotted the first Common Gull of the autumn whilst looking up at a Sparrowhawk in with a party of 50+ Swifts. Soon after, we picked up a "Buzzorant" while scanning with binoculars, an extremely high Cormorant drifting eastwards, invisible to the naked eye, and pondered on where it had come from and where it would end up.

Lots of productivity

2010-06-20T15:12:00.013+01:00

We thought it would be a dream day for ringing. 7-eighths cloud plus a gentle, subsiding wind, it looked as if it might get better. Dream on. It was COLD! During the first half of our Constant Effort session we, Ed and I, caught eight (8) new birds, and no retraps, of seven species. Put another way, that's one every net round, just about. Mind you, one of them was a full adult male with a stonking brood patch - and his tongue hanging out! Ed had done the last one and I normally give them away to trainees - but today there weren't any, so I had it for myself!
Today's adult male Green Woodpecker (D Kramer)

As the cloud cover increased, it warmed up a fraction. On the minus side, the north west wind picked up a shade, too. "Blow me down", at half-eight, the tit flock passed over and we ended up with ten (10) birds in the nets; the six tits, three with 'nest box rings', also pulled in four more warblers. Well, we thought that was it, a fluke, and over for the day. Perhaps another six might see us to the end of the session, finishing a bit below par for the site and time of year.

Not to be, thank God. We ended up with a grand total of 35; 26 of them were new and 27 of them were birds of the year (four already ringed). So it ended with a list like this:
Green Woodpecker 1
Blue Tit 3 (1)
Great Tit 1 (3)
Chiffchaff 4 - all youngsters
Blackcap 4 - inc a new adult pair
Garden Warbler 1 (1) - the retrap male was ringed as a 4M in May 2008
Whitethroat 3 (1) - our first 3J's of the year & 2 of them had started PJ moult
Our first young Common Whitethroat of 2010

Wren 2 (2)
Blackbird 2 - 3JM & 3JF of the 'longer-winged' variety
[we seem to have 2 sub-populations; with short wings and long wings]
Robin 2 - a couple of spotty juvs caught simultaneously
Dunnock 3 (1) - new youngsters and an old favourite lady from 2007 who was in egg again.

Just to finish off: record shots of the net rides after this week's grass cut and the sides trimming up

Nets 2 & 1 (run N/S) - now disappears into "ash woodland"

Nets 3 & 4 (run E/W) - 'downhill' towards Fingers Lake

40' extra net run - useless until autumn passage; also used as 1 of 2 winter feeding sites.

Colour ringing

2010-06-17T20:06:00.002+01:00

For an inclusive article on what colour-ringing is all about, read Mark Grantham's article on Bird Guides. [Or paste this link into your browser - http://www.birdguides.com/webzine/article.asp?a=2133]

Sandy Smith Nature Reserve

2010-06-13T17:47:00.004+01:00

No Grasshopper Warblers this time despite making a specific evening visit yesterday for this species. We did catch:

Sedge Warbler 4 (all new) - 3 male, 1 female (all adults)
Whitethroat 5 (2 retrap and 3 new) - 2 male, 3 female (all adults) with 2 in egg.

Above: A sedge warbler.

For more photographs and what else we saw/heard this visit, see my blog: http://greenwoodringer.blogspot.com/

Another CES

2010-06-13T09:03:00.015+01:00

SATURDAY 12th JUNE: The day dawned with a light cloud covering and a gentle wind - ideal day for ringing. Ed and I had two trainees with us today and they were greeted by some good old 'bread and butter' birds.
Although not vast numbers of birds were trapped in our line of nets through mixed scrub, we ended up with 14 species, ten of which yielded juveniles.

In no particular order the youngsters were - a Garden Warbler, 2 Blackcap, a Chiff, a Long-tailed Tit, 2 Dunnocks, a Robin, a Greenfinch, a Chaffinch, a Blue Tit and 4 Great Tits. These are fairly representative of what breeds in our little one acre patch, situated as it is in a busy country park. Only young Whitethroat was missing, although we know that there are some 1J's about (just out the nest).

The highlight of the day was a Red Kite over the top of us at 08:30, half way through the session. DK took a rather good photo of it and we may be able to add it later.
DK's shot of today's Red Kite - wing tags indicate it was taken to W. Yorkshire in 2000 as a chick from the Chilterns programme - or hatched there [Right pink, Left orange]
Meanwhile ...
A different sort of 'kite' soon after - from the local airstrip

The full total was 17 new and 11 re-traps:
"Whoops. Dead end!" Juvenile Blue Tit.
Blue Tit (1)
Gt. Tit 1 (3)
Juvenile Long-tailed Tit. Note reddish-purple eye ring
Long-tailed Tit 1
Chiffchaff 1
Blackcap 2
Garden Warbler 3 (1)
Whitethroat 1
Male Reed Warbler - 2nd calendar year. Note dull eye colour.
Reed Warbler 2
Blackbird 1
Robin 1 (1)
Juvenile Dunnock showing 'orange' gape flanges
Dunnock 2 (2)
Chaffinch 1
Greenfinch 1
Bullfinch (2)
Male Bullfinch in 2nd calendar year (re-trap)

The oldest birds today were a male Dunnock ringed as a 3 (1st yr) in August 2006 and a male Garden Warbler ringed as an adult in May 2008. The juvenile Blue Tit was ringed in a box elsewhere in the park , whereas the Great Tits all came from a nearby box.

Hopping through the grass

2010-06-06T15:49:00.003+01:00

Hopping through the wet grass, I put up a net at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve and caught 7 new birds. 1 dunnock, 5 whitethroat (see photograph below)...

... and one Grasshopper Warbler.

More photographs on http://greenwoodringer.blogspot.com

Quick 'n easy

2010-06-05T13:20:00.007+01:00

Today, Ed and I set up at the "crescent" reed-bed; that is, on two sides, not through the middle.

Above: The 'ringing station'.

Not a bad morning 'cos we were all done by 9 o'clock.

20 birds in 3 hours is, for us, a good result. As 12 of the birds were Reed Warblers (see photograph below), extraction was "a piece of cake".

Many of the female reed warblers were showing signs of being in egg. Going by this evidence, it will be a short while yet before we catch the first fledgeling Reed Warblers.

Other birds around were -
Mr & Mrs Swan (she's "orange 500") and their 6 cygnets (that we'll deal with when they're a bit bigger),

a Kingfisher over the net here and a Turtle Dove purring away in this willow alongside the net,

and a very vocal Reed Bunting that eventually got fed up singing to itself and took the wrong turning for breakfast/elevenses.

In all, we caught just 8 new birds and a dozen re-traps, of which 2 were 'new-for-year'.
Chiffchaff 1 - a 2CY female nesting nearby
Blackcap (1) - a male caught as a juvenile in June 2008
Reed Warbler (today's target) 5 (7) - oldest was a 2006 bird
Wren 1 - a new 2CY female
Dunnock 1 (2)
Chaffinch (1) - a 2CY male
Reed Bunting (1) - the 2CY male.

Above & Below: These photographs show the same male blackcap.

A brood patch is where adults loose their 'belly' feathers and blood vessels engorge and come to the surface of the skin to enable heat transfer from the adults to eggs & young.

In the photograph below, the male blackcap is shown with a false brood patch. Sometimes, males are known to help with the 'sitting on the nest' duties. In other species where male and female are hard to tell apart, the false brood patch of a male can easily be mistaken for the brood patch of a female (such as the Garden Warbler). This was an easy one though!

In the immediate area, birds that we saw making use of the main lake-side airspace included Greylag (uncommon here), Common Tern (starting to fish more earnestly; family duties?), Swift (much fewer than last week-end), Cuckoo, Gt. Spotted Woodpecker, Common Whitethroat, a party of Long-tailed Bushtits (working their way over the nesting Reed Warblers) and a pair of Goldfinch.

Two days from Priory

2010-05-31T15:01:00.000+01:00

With rain persisting through much of the daylight hours on Saturday, ringing was obviously dropped from the wekend program. Looking out at first light on Sunday, it was apparent that we would have to ring somewhere with a bit of shelter. So we, of three different rankings, had a makeshift session at the back of "the sheep pen".

The main accomplishment was picking up several young birds, evenly split between Blackbird and Robin.
So the tally was 10 new birds and 9 re-traps as under:
Blue Tit 1
Great Tit (1) - this had 'moved house' from the CES area
Blackcap (1) - a 5M
Garden Warbler 1 - a 5F
Whitethroat (1) - another 5M
Wren (1)
Blackbird 4 (2)
Robin 4
Dunnock (3) - oldest, a 4F in July '08

Female Blackcap with "gunge" from feeding her youngsters.

Bank Holiday Monday took us back to CES, visit 4/12. My 'C' ringer from Bucks joined us for some practice in extraction and looking at "funny little birds". [He spends much of his free time checking birds of prey and ringing things in boxes].

Regular Ed with 'newby' Dave (but permit numbers say otherwise)

We were lucky enough to catch seven 3J's, considering the conditions; 1 Dunnock, 3 Robins, 1 Blackbird & 2 Greenfinches.

Young Robin and young female Greenfinch

The best moment for me was catching both of a pair of LESWH, that had arrived about three weeks ago. You never know when these are around because of the very short song period of the males and their 'hushed' contact calls.

Lesser Whitethroat (2CY female [5F])

Ed proudly presented us with the 12th species of the day, a 2nd year Reed Warbler; note the abrasion.

Immature male Reed Warbler - prospecting?

Today's tally was a modest tit-less 23, 16 new and 7 re-traps.
Long-tailed Bushtit 1
Chiffchaff 1 - a breeding female
Blackcap (1) - nesting female
Lesser Whitethroat 2 - a pair
Whitethroat (2) - a pair with young nearby
Reed Warbler 1
Wren 1 (1)
Blackbird 1
Robin 3 (1) - re-trap male was ringed as a '3J' exactly 3 years ago!
Dunnock 1 (2) - one time juveniles from '04 and '07
Greenfinch 3 - 2 juveniles and a female novice breeder
Bullfinch 2 - both 2CY females

Female Bullfinch

Because of the gentle/moderate westerly, a lot of insects were been blown off the willows. To our delight, we were entertained by the comings and goings of 150 to 200 Common Swifts for much of the morning. And I nearly forgot; something has been nobbling our nestlings. The evidence was found in the middle of the rack.

[Click on picture to enlarge, then click again (+)]

Now that we've managed to get this visit in, we can think about ringing a new site next weekend. We've had 2 "out of season" recce's, so we'll see whether it's worthwhile ... or not, as the case may be.

Acros at dawn

2010-05-27T10:29:00.010+01:00

Up in the dark, down to the river in twilight, up with two nets at dawn - although you wouldn't have thought so, after the welcome, overnight rain. The sun appeared briefly before 7 o'clock but didn't really get going until half-7. Off back home soon after 8am.

The 'crescent' reed bed is a mere one third of an acre (0.13 hectare) and one net was erected on each of two sides, facing Fingers Lake. Alot of movement also takes place across the main path to the narrow reed strip that grows along the edge of the (steep-sided) main lake but catching is difficult to organise safely.

This 2CY, female Reed Bunt was a right wriggler and this is the best of 10 button pushes!

Today's tally was 7 new and 7 re-captures as follows:
Blue Tit (1)
Reed Warbler 4 (6)
Blackbird 1, Chaffinch 1
Reed Bunting 1

Yesterday, I caught the first 3JJ (recently fledged) House Sparrows in the garden.
This shows the vivid yellow gape of a young bird ...

... and the poorly feathered underwing and loose body feathering.

CES Solo

2010-05-22T14:09:00.012+01:00

Looked a lovely day in prospect when I woke up. How wrong can you be.

With no trainees or other helpers, it was down to me today. First bird at 6 am, second half an hour later, then a third at 7 o'clock. Well, by then the fog had come down and there was a slight breeze . Forty minutes later, a Blackbird. Then, a bit of a rush; three birds at 8, one at 8.30 and two more before the hour was out. Shortly after, 2 male Whitethroats had an arguement - to their detriment and my pleasure.

Was the fog thinning? Ah haa, 09.17 and there's hope of some sunshine. Hope accomplished and three birds in the nets with the final bird at 9.50. Well, not quite. I spooked the second Wood Pig of the day into the top shelf, shortly after, but that was it. Zilch until take down at 11.30.

The day's tally was 11 species, 13 new birds and 4 re-traps as follows:
Woodpigeon 2
Blue Tit (1) - we had lifted this bird off a nest 1 week ago
Blackcap 1
Garden Warbler 1 (1) - r/t female first ringed last May
Whitethroat 3
Reed Warbler 1
Wren 1
Blackbird 2
Dunnock (1)
Chaffinch 1 (1)
Goldfinch 1
Would have been good practice for the trainees - had they not had events on their social calendars.

The May blossom was a picture when the sun came out.

Characteristic "loose feathering" of a juvenile bird.

Back view of a male Chaffinch. Note the new versus old tertials.

... and, when the sun comes out, my all time favoutite ...

Just for good measure (500 gm worth) ...
The best bit today was listening to a Turtle Dove for half an hour before the fog closed in (c.6.30). Other delights were a persistent male Cuckoo, a low-flying Oystercatcher and a "dot in the sky" Buzzard.

For an overview of how we got on with our tit boxes, go HERE

Another handfull

2010-05-19T22:24:00.001+01:00

Go to Errol's blog HERE.