Pied Flycatcher

This bird deserved a post all of it's own. It's the first of this species I've ringed and I'll let you enjoy the pictures.



Above: Pied Flycatcher

Below: A Pied Flycatcher digiscoped in Menorca earlier this year.

It's the way the wind blows

The winds turned easterly late last week, so I took up an invitation to go ringing on the east coast and it was an experience in extracting and ringing!

Dawn to dusk ringing and 208 birds were ringed on Saturday & we thought that was busy! We drafted in extra rings and help and ringed 311 birds on Sunday!

Birds were arriving all the time - the wind bringing lots of Brambling, Song Thrushes, Chiff Chaffs, Robins (I've never seen so many!), Goldcrests, Goldfinch some siskins and blackbirds amongst others. No foreign ringed birds or rareties though ...



Above: Bramblings.

And then the wind changed (at least the general weather pattern must have changed somewhere) and in so doing, turning off the easterly migration tap.

So, not having even seen a redstart on Saturday or Sunday, one turns up on Monday along with a late pied flycatcher (see more recent post for photograph). These must have been migrating from somewhere different to the birds we caught over the previous 2 days. We did continue to catch brambling, robins, thrushes etc. but only ringed about 50 birds. There were noticably much fewer birds arriving during the day.

We therefore had time to entertain Blyth (Mark & Jenny's 18 month littl'un) who is cuddling up to Norman (below).

Ringing firsts

I've had great difficulty in deciding which of the following birds (see photographs) was my favourite. 1 day ringing migrants brought 4 new species into my hands & we watched as more and more birds arrived throughout the day.



Above: Last bird of the day was this female Sparrowhawk. I've held one before at Priory (but it already had a ring on) so this was a nice end to the day.



Above: This male Redstart was one of many on site.



Above: This female Ring Ouzel was a really nice addition to the ringed list.



Above: If you made me choose my favourite from the four, I think this Brambling would just about sneak it.

Buckton

A trip to Buckton with Mark Thomas last weekend was good but was missing a lot of migrant birds. In the end it was too windy & the wind direction wasn't quite right. We had only a handful of migrants all weekend so we did some sea watching on Sunday.



Above & Below: Gannets. There are a lot of Gannets on the cliffs here (way too many to count). Also seen Fulmar & Kittiwakes (at a distance).



We did get some ringing in on Friday & Saturday.



Above: Not a new species for me (I have ringed 1 before) but a new species for the blog. Linnet.



Above: A new species ringed for me and there were two of them. 2 migrant siskins added themselves to my tick list and ringing record. Smashing!



Above: Another ringing tick - Tree Sparrow. Cracking! We caught 7 in total, one of which Mark ringed as a juvenile earlier on in the year (he has ringed over 100 juveniles this year).

Buckton - Flamborough Head

Buckton is on the cost and most birds found there in spring/autumn are migratory. All photographs thanks to Mark Thomas (www.bucktonbirder.blogspot.com).

Apart from 1 new species ringed - Linnet (my 61st species), ringing conditions (weather) were poor most of the time. Slow trickles of newly arrived birds but no major fall. So we treated ourselves to a lot of bird watching - i.e. checking goldcrest after goldcrest for the odd pallas's warbler + firecrest - goldcrests seriously outnumber these birds! Perserverance paid off and I saw a number of species I have never seen before.



Above: Firecrest



Above: Pallas's Warbler



Above: Snow Bunting



Above: Subalpine Warbler




Above: Waxwing - simply stunning.

Also seen were Ring Ouzel & Rock Pipit (not seen before). On the seen already list - Woodcock, Jack Snipe, Snipe, Long Eared Owl & many more of lesser note.