No stamina, some folk!

Well. I woke up early. Got going early. Arrived early. Walked around a bit (minus 4C). Opened the gate. Shut the gate. Waited the best part of half an hour but no takers. Got in the car and went home. Pointless knackering oneself, lugging all that gear across a wet meadow just on the off-chance of some birds.

Put up a 40' in the garden and waited. Too much sun. Wind got up, as well. Temperature didn't (plus 4C). Never mind; bound to catch something. Need 16 birds, any sort will do, to fill the page in my ringing book.

Jo! Klokka hal' åtta. En stillitz - endog to!

Well, they came slowly, two at a time (could be a norsk pun there). Next half eight, then half ten, half eleven, half twelve, half two, and a late rush about four. Happily, I had other things I could do to fill the time. Alot of this ringing is a waiting game. Arnold Zwetsloot 'phoned for a chat and mentioned that they had shut the trap until next winter. They had also run out of 'F' rings on the last session and had to let 30 ducks go. Naturally, the rings turned up soon after!

Anyway, back to today. Ended up two short, but ten new birds - as follows:
Wren (1) - regular 2CY female
Dunnock (1) - one of several that feeds under the shrubbery
Blackbird 3 - a 6F, a 6M & a 5M
Goldfinch 5 (2) - a bit of return movement; 4 males, 2 females
Greenfinch 1 - yesterday there were half a dozen or so, today just two

Hoping to get another Norfolk morning in this week (two weeks on the trot), as I have to attend Jenny's mum's funeral.
Priorities, my boy!
See my other blog here

Monday, Monday!

A day of mamas and papas?

Another catch was taken at the Blunham trap overnight, this time of 182 birds as follows:
Mallard 6 (11)
Gadwall 8 (43)
Tufted 47 (54)
Pochard 1 (1)
Wigeon 3 (7)
Greylag 1
I haven't had a chance to speak to Chris yet (I couldn't go, as you will see) but the last seven weeks have seen a goodly number of birds ringed and retrapped here.

My efforts remained within the garden. I couldn't "disappear" (even with a mobile) as I was expecting some important 'phone calls. So I erected a couple of nets early on this cold and damp day. Object - Goldfinches.

It started off with a 6 male Blackbird, one that I have not seen at all before. The resident pair and the neighbouring pair are keeping the garden clear of interlopers - but none of them were around today, probably too busy nest building and standing guard in other peoples' gardens. Or hiding somewhere warm and dry!

I did eventually catch 10 Goldies, two of which were retraps, both ringed as post juveniles in previous years. There were 4 females and 6 males, none of them carrying any fat worth talking about. The first bird of the day was the heaviest (a male at 17.3g), though the rest were not 'underweight', and only two birds scored 2 on breast muscle.

At lunch time, five Long-tailed Tits managed not to avoid the nets, and some others called anxiously from the neighbouring gardens as their companions were extracted. One female was beginning to get a decent brood patch and one of the males was real feisty; perhaps the alpha pair. Their cousins down at the park have already started splitting up into pairs, with or without helpers.

The only other birds to not dodge the nets were a new Dunnock and a new 6 female Blue Tit that was acquiring a brood patch. It looks as though we were just in time erecting the last 10 boxes (to make 30 in all) at the park last weekend. One box was even being investigated by a pair of Blue Tits within 24 hours. My garden tit box remains untenanted meanwhile.

Duck ... no, DUCK!!

By invitation, Errol and I made a trip over to Blunham this morning to help with ringing a catch of ducks (well, there was no point watching Murray lose the tennis!).

As Errol was scribing, it was he who counted the total catch - 92 retraps and 71 new birds of 6 species . New = Tufted 56, Gadwall 9, Mallard 2, Pochard 2, Wigeon 1 and Teal 1. About one third of the retraps were Tufteds, getting on for half were Gadwall (they just stay feeding in or near the trap when it's cold) and the rest evenly split between Mallard and Wigeon.



Above: Three quarters of the team: Errol (scribing left), Chris (ringing middle) and Joe (dishing out the ducks, right) who - it turns out - I taught hedgelaying and coppicing to last winter at Shuttleworth College. I was behind the camera, briefly here and there, but I spent most of my time processing most of the retraps (and ringing one or two of each species. 6 ringing ticks in all - Thanks Chris!).



Above: A smart bird - Teal.



Above: A male Pochard



Above: A male Gadwall. A large percentage of these were already ringed. Does that make them quite site faithfull? It either means they are suckers for food in a trap or they know when they're on to a good thing!



Above: A male Tufted Duck.

As there are quite a few Pochard on the lake at present, we will be taking another catch quite soon.

For some other pictures of the ducks visit www.greenwoodringer.blogspot.com

Wildfowl returns

WWT have sent through a few recovery records for the Blunham trap.

Pochard - 6M on 13 Jan 08, shot at Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu (Loire-Atlantique) France on 17 Dec 08; a case of wintering 577 km further south 11 months later.

Tufted - 3 males shot in the Russian Federation:
3M on 31 Dec 01, shot in Pecherskiy district, Komi Assr, RR, 2694 days later on 17 May 09, 3583 km ENE.
6M on 7 Jan 05, shot in Khanty-Mansi, Tyumen, RR, 1594 days later on 20 May 09, 3865 km ENE.
4M on 30 Nov 05, shot in Yamal-Nenets, Tyumen, RR, 1274 days later on 27 May 09, 4002 km ENE.

Recovery of Tufted FP93907

Wigeon - 6M on 20 Feb 06, shot near Berezovskiy, Sverdlovsk, RF, 3970 km E on 15 Apr 09.

Recovery of Wigeon FH00889

Duck day.

Went along to help ring the catch at the Blunham trap from last night. Two days ago, we (Arnold and I) had inspected the south lake and the trap. Three-quarters of the lake was frozen over with an open channel from the boat right the way across to the trap. The trap was full of Tufted, there was a decent number of Gadwall, perhaps 150, about 70 Pochard and a handful of odds and sods. The water level was rising.

Ringer (Chris), winger (Paul) & flinger (Joe)

This catch was the first of the winter, mainly due to the lousy weather we've been having, but ringing had also been put off because of the low number of migrant duck on the local lakes.

"Am I the first?"

"Yes. Just shut up; there's a queue building up"

The total catch was 160 - 127 new & 33 recaptures; of these, 86 (60 + 26) were Tufted. Second highest were Gadwall with 48 birds (43 + 5).

Gadwall - soft as tripe?

"That's what you think. I'll be off in a trice"

Compared to the Tufted, the Gadwall were a 'wilder' proposition, prepared to wriggle given the slightest chance. You may have twigged that we ring on the left leg. It's safer for us "amateurs", as you can cradle the bird better. Boss man, Arnold, rings on the right - and much quicker, so much so, you have to keep alert if you're scribing!

"Errol did me today"

There were just 7 Teal, 4 Pochard including 1 retrap, five Wigeon, a lone female Goldeneye and a couple of handfuls of Mallard that had most likely been released at a 'farm' about 3 miles south of here. These last were a bit of a farmyard mixture (but looking to all intents and purposes like the real thing), and most preferred to walk back "to the digs" .

"... and me!"

The noticeable thing was the large number of male birds throughout compared to females, especially with the Tufteds. There were also very few 1CY birds. Sexing is generally easy. Ageing is done on the tail first and foremost, with median coverts, primary tips, eye colour, leg colour, moult limits all playing a part. In the last resort, we age and sex the ones we're not quite sure of after a cloacal examination.

My next job is to put IPMR on trainee Chris's computer and get him inputting these data and working backwards through umpteen years worth. I then might give him a hand putting the recoveries in!