Two days from Priory

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.

Bully for us!

At 6.30am Errol, Mike, Jo and myself met at Priory Country Park to find out what birds were around. We weren't exactly rushed of our feet but a few nice birds came our way. The wind was quite still when we arrived but picked up and started to blow the nets by the time they were up! We used the CES line and 2 extras.

Tally for the day was 6 new & 10 retraps:

Wren (1) - male from last summer
Dunnock 1 (3) - one was an 06 juv [1335 days]
Robin (1) - 08 juv
Song Thrush (1) - male from 17 July 08 (5M)
Blue Tit (1) - a 5F
Gt. Tit 2 (3) - all last years birds
Bullfinch 2 - poss a pr of 5's
Greenfinch 1 - a smart 6M

Most of the females were exhibiting signs of losing feathers on their bellies in preparation for the nesting season. One or two of the males were showing signs that they knew the breeding season is coming!



Above: We caught a female Bullfinch first & the male was seen calling nearby at the time of capture. It wasn't until later we caught this male.



Above: Errol couldn't let it go without a stern lecture!



Above: Many birders have observed the dramatic decline in numbers of Greenfinch - even since last year. There is much discussion as to the cause of the decline. It is sad to think that these birds are becoming a rare site in Bedfordshire!



Above: Errol & I both noticed some recent large mammal activity (a new hole in the ground & large amounts of soil) nearby and unusually for Errol, he was first to comment....! Apparently there aren't many records of this type of mammal visiting the park.



Above: This same mammal had left other signs of activity - scratches on logs/branches and the destruction of some of the logs left for insects/grubs. In the photo, the holes in the tops of the logs have been clawed at in search of food. That's a 300mm rule on the log - for comparison.