Another CES10 - Bedford (or Dire Straights 2)

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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