Lesser Redpoll recovery details

Back on 28th October last year, I caught a Lesser Redpoll at Priory Country Park which already had a ring on it (not one of mine). The guided bird walk on that day, led by Dave Barnes, were lucky enough to see this bird during a ringing demo and I can now tell you where it came from.


It was originally ringed on 13th October 2012 near Bestwood, Nottinghamshire. It moved a distance of 113km in a South, South East direction, within 15 days. This was evidently part of an autumn migration of birds moving south.

From dawn till dusk

Normally, I'm up at the crack of dawn to ring birds when they're at their most active. Today, the weather forecast predicted rain so I stayed in doing chores. Having found the card reader, I can now take the photographs off my camera and show you some of the birds I've caught when I've been up early.



Above: A Lesser Redpoll ringed at Priory Country Park. This bird had been ringed by another ringer on another site somewhere in Britain. I will post the original ringing details of this bird when it comes through (it may take a while!). This came out of the nets shortly after dawn and the lucky people who came to the guided bird walk on 28th October got to see this bird.

I've had a successful time catching this species both at Priory CP and Sandy Smith NR, having doubled the previous ringing totals for this species at both sites.

Above: A Woodpigeon ringed at Priory Country Park in September.

Above: I renewed my friendship with this Green Woodpecker, also in September. My first retrapping of this species at over 1 year since it was first ringed by me.

Above: A Goldcrest - a new species for Sandy Smith Nature Reserve ringing list.

As the days are shorter, I've been staying out most of the day with my ringing which has worked out nicely on occasion, particularly in catching Goldfinches at Proiry CP.

Above: The spectacular sunset over Bedford from Wednesday 7th November. And no, I wasn't driving, or cycling when taking this photograph (I was sat in the passenger seat). There have been several good sunsets recently and this leads me nicely onto dusk.

Dusk is a time when birds go to roost and lately my thoughts have been turning towards catching birds coming to roost. Having done some chores and desperate to get out ringing, myself and Mike put 4 nets around the outside of a reedbed roost produced the following (retraps in brackets):

Wren 2 (1)
Great Tit 0 (2)
Goldcrest 2 (2)
Blue Tit 4 (5)
Long Tailed Tit 0 (4)
Chiffchaff 1 (0)
Reed Bunting 5 (0)

And lastly one special bird, a species I haven't ringed before.

Above: A Corn Bunting.

The Corn Bunting is the species depicted on the Ivel Ringing Group logo so it's about time we started catching them again!

Bird Bank

A bank holiday weekend full of birds was my hope. Apart from one net round on Sunday morning (14 birds) it wasn't exactly full, but there was enough to make it worthwhile.

Saturday and Monday were spent at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve and Sunday saw me fulfilling my commitment to complete 12 CES sessions at Priory Country Park.



Above: Lesser Whitethroat at Priory Country Park. Our first one ringed all year here, a juvenile.

The catch at Priory included a mini-influx of Blackcap - probably on the move along with the Lesser Whitethroat.

A ringing demo to the guided bird walk allowed us to demonstrate our craft to 5 lucky onlookers who saw a Long Tailed Tit and a Blackcap. They just missed the round with 14 birds but went away before we spent ages, and ages awaiting our next bird!

Above: Willow Warbler at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve.

I've caught a few Willow Warblers here recently (none at Priory Country Park as yet this year).

Reports of Winchat at SSNR earlier in the week had me wandering to find them. Saturday morning and first thing they weren't around but mid morning 2 appeared. House Martins on migration passed over. Monday morning and House Martins were again on the move and though I looked for the Winchat, I drew a blank. A couple of Linnets were a bonus.

Star bird of the bank holiday weekend was to be a bit of a surprise. The first one to be ringed at SSNR. During the winter I may have seen one (views weren't great and not enough to positively ID it) - not on the site, but very nearby. So it's been a possibility.

This is another bird record that will be deposited in my growing 'bird bank' (or IPMR to other ringers!).

Above & Below: A Nuthatch. At this time of year (after post juvenile moult & moult in the adult), we are unable to age these birds as there are no reliable differences in plumages.

For a second, I thought I'd caught a second one later on, but it wasn't to be (it was the same bird!). Hopefully next time it (and others of its kind) will make an appearance later in the year, and/or next.

"Cracking bird Gromit!"

Sandy Smith NR Ringing Demo 21/07/10

I've helped on ringing demo's before but I organised and delivered my first demo on Wednesday. We didn't catch many birds (4) but one made up for at least 10 that we didn't catch!

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!



Above: An adult kingfisher has crayon red legs, this juvenile has dark legs on top.



Above: The flash of blue that is normally seen.



Above: Here I am taking a wing measurement.

I have ringed kingfishers before (3 I think and handled several more) but this is the first kingfisher I have ringed on my own rings.

Little, Rainbow, Barn

Sometimes, without trying, you get your timing just right. Last Friday I was working in Milton Keynes and on the way back, we stopped to put the last 30 binders on a layed hedge to complete a project (we ran out of binders on Tuesday when I had planned on finishing it!).



Above: Hedge 1 at Rectory Farm that we layed. Whilst using the outdoor 'facilities' here, I flushed a Little Owl sat in a hedge.



Above: A short drive later and I was at hedge 2 at Rectory Farm- also layed by BTCV. I needed photographs of the completed hedge for the funders (GrantScape) and my timing was just right to catch this rainbow too!

Then, on the way back to the office via Astwood my jaw dropped, my finger pointed ahead of me and I shouted Barn Owl! We watched it fly over the road and hunt in the field opposite. About 10 seconds after I shouted Barn Owl, somebody else in the mini-bus did!

Saturday morning, I went with Errol ringing at Priory Country Park where we ringed our first Chiff Chaffs of the year. It wasn't a classic morning but we finished with a couple of nice Song Thrush's. We also saw our first swallows (12+) and frog spawn.

Late Saturday afternoon and I took a walk out to Castle Mill (not far from my front door. Here I saw 1 Swallow, 2 Little Egret, 1 buzzard, 2 oystercatcher, 1 Green Woodpecker, 2 Grey Wagtails, Great Crested Grebes, Herons, Coots, Moorhens, Cormorant, Mallards, 5 Tufted Ducks, 1 Redshank.

Today, a ringing demo at Randalls Farm - 3 chiff chaffs and a pair of bullfinches were the highlight. Another walk to Castle Mill produced 2 (maybe 3) Mistle Thrushes and nothing that wasn't there the day before.

I was puzzled by the behaviour of the Oystercatchers. There is an obvious pair here and they stick to eachother like glue - even in flight (nothing odd there) but there was a third bird that called as it flew in and the pair seemed to chase it away. It (or another) came back and it was allowed to land. A minute or two later, the pair follwed and landed in the vacinity (hidden from my view) where all 3 remained for a few minutes. Then all 3 took to flight and the pair seemed to chase it away again. Then a short while later, it (or another) came in again and landed next to the pair. There were periods of quiet but also noisy periods. They chased it away and then let it stay? Could this 1 bird have been a male that was trying to outmuscle the resident male?

2 more came over later & two more as I was leaving. Puzzled I am.

Down the hatch!

Call me a nut if you like for all the bad jokes, but I've got one hatchet job left to tell you about!

Last weekend, on Saturday 24th October 09, it was Feed The Birds day/weekend. The RSPB were holding many events across the country, one of which was at their HQ - The Lodge at Sandy. Being nearby and having been told about a ringing demonstration at this event, I decided to help out at a site I have never ringed at before. I was rewarded with another first:



Above: A Nutchatch. We don't know whether this bird hatched this year or before as there are no significant details in the plumage (i.e. differences in the moulting process of birds of different ages) to be able to tell the ages apart.

I have to thank somebody else for the above photograph (I don't know who) but I have a few photographs on my camera that I currently cannot get to work so I may post some of those when I can access them.

We also caught & ringed a number of blue tits, great tits, a long tailed tit, coal tits (my favourite of the tit family), chaffinches and a song thrush. A large number of people - old and young alike - took great pleasure in watching and being told about the birds & why we ring them. Some even got to release the birds, so hopefully there will be some young people walking around with a memory that will last them a lifetime!

After 6 hours demonstrating bird ringing at The Lodge, on Sunday 25th, I visited another site I have never even been to, let alone ringed there - Stockgrove Country Park. I spent another 6 hours demonstrating bird ringing to lots of interested visitors. More details about the event and what we caught can be found at http://www.ivelringinggroup.blogspot.com/

Another new site brought another new bird for me:



Above: A Redpoll. Whilst the Nuthatch was not a surprise at The Lodge as I know they are there, this Redpoll was. The shape of the tail feathers (pointed and not rounded) meant this bird was born this year.

News: I have recently had my application for a 'C license' endorsed by my trainer, so I am awaiting a decision from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) as to whether this has been approved. If it is, I get to go out on my own with a couple of nets (albeit under remote supervision).

Ringing Demo

A while back now, I helped Mark Thomas on a Ringing Demo in Willington where we caught this beauty.



Above: A Jay

There were several (at least 3) more making a racket nearby but were not caught.