To sweee or to sweeooo

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

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.

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.

CES 8 at Priory

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".

Lots of productivity

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.

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.

Weekend continued

It is still only March, so we shouldn't hope for too much yet.
However, we (Ed and I) did get out to a new site (for us) at Randalls Farm Education Centre by the now defunct Stewartby brickworks. We got there late morning and set about erecting 4 nets around the southern part of the site. This area was a demonstration forestry plot for the Marston Vale and was planted in the 'seventies with a variety of trees to see which grew best and which failed on this heavy Oxford Clay.

The upshot was 13 birds, all of them new. Our current target species is Chiffchaff, as part of a project out of Sheffield University.


However, the object of the exercise was to have a few birds to show the 'Watch' group kids that meet here on the last Sunday of the month.

Chiffchaff 3 - a male & 2 females
Great Tit 2 - possibly a pair
Long-tailed Bushtit 3 - a pair & a helper male
Robin 3 - 2 males, 1 female
Bullfinch 2 - a pair


When pondering where to put one of the nets up, we spied a Buzzard hanging in a Hawthorn bush beside the railway and under a pole mounted transformer. We will never know the cause of death as it could have been (i) a train, (ii) electrocution, (iii) poisoning (unlikely) or (iv) completely natural.


It was long dead and home to a large, black (ground?) beetle and its larvae.

Home in time for tea; a satisfying jaunt in the sunshine.