A few wild flowers

I spend a good deal of my working life working to protect and improve grassland sites for wildflowers (amongst other taxa). They take a lot of looking after as we need to keep nutrient levels low enough for the wildflowers to thrive. We protect and enhance existing meadows by cutting & removing the grass once a year and removing scrub regrowth and we increase grassland areas by removing nutrient loving brambles and scrub.

I thought I'd share with you a few of the flowers I've seen this year:

Above: A Bee Orchid

Above: A Pyramidal Orchid (not yet fully in bloom)

Wild orchids are the signature species of many a grassland site and a site stuffed full of them is a sure sign that it is in healthy condition. The Bee Orchid is rarer than the Pyramidal Orchid on the site I took these photographs at.

Above: Common Toadflax

The Common Toadflax is a later flowering plant that, this year, benefitted from an early cut when we removed a lot of coarse grass that would have outcompeted this plant otherwise. A colony of 30+ plants this year were the first I've ever seen. They're not flowering now but if you want a tip for things to look at this time of year, this very wet weather is good for autumn fungi forays.

Moving on though, a Green Wood Ringer post would not be complete without the mention of birds and ringing. There has been nothing out of the ordinary to report of late except for two good catches of birds ringed at Priory Country Park (93 and 73) and the reaching of 1000 captures for the year at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve (including the 2000th new bird for the site).

I am awaiting official reports of recoveries & controls from the Ivel Ringing Group secretary that should include a Lesser Redpoll ringed by me and controlled in Northumberland.

A weekend trip to my Dad's in October to clear out his loft left little time for ringing but a gap in the weather and an early start produced a nice bird.

Above: A grinning Bald Coot (my brother Mark) meets a young Sparrowhawk!

Enthusing other people (family, friends, the wider public) about wildlife and birds is part of what I do and I hope it makes people more appreciative of the world we live in and inspires them to take better care of it. I do my little bit by monitoring birds and taking practical action to create, protect and improve habitats. Embarrasing my little brother along the way is a rare bonus!

A Weekend away

Last weekend I went to see my parents in Gloucestershire. The main reason was to drop off a mothers day card in person (hope you had a good day mum!). The secondary reason was to see my dad and do some ringing at his house on Saturday. Apart from half an hour when I had to close the nets due to rain, I did reasonably well, including adding 3 new species for this site!

Above: An adult male Sparrowhawk. This is the first male I've ringed. Last time I ringed here, a sparrowhawk escaped as I approached the net so it was nice to get one on the next attempt!

Above: A female Siskin. Like a lot of people this winter, my dad is reporting Siskins coming to his garden feeders for the first time ever (he's been there about 20 years). At least one male was around but it firmly decided against carrying a ring on its leg despite flirting with the idea several times!

Above: A big, fat Woodpigeon. Enough said!

As well as the 3 new species, a retrap House Sparrow (ringed Nov 2012) was notable as the first retrap of this species (House Sparrows are notorious for being hard to recapture) and as usual for this site, a whole bunch of Blue Tits.

Ringing totals for the day (retraps in brackets)



Blue Tit 18 (7)

Great Tit 3 (1)

Coal Tit 2 (2)

House Sparrow 1 (1)

Woodpigeon 1 (0)

Siskin 1 (0)

Sparrowhawk 1 (0)

Dunnock 2 (2)

Normally I would expect the ratio of Blue Tits to Great Tits to be more even than this, but this area is unusual (at least I think so) in that the number of Blue Tits far outweigh the number of Great Tits.

I've been out strimming grass all week so far for work in far from ideal weather conditions. Strimming will continue until Friday, only punctuated by a day scrub clearing and burning on Thursday. I'm hoping conditions will improve, at the very least by the weekend.

Large and Little

As I was driving into Sandy Smith Nature Reserve (SSNR) this morning a Buzzard (Large) was sat on a post nearby (the other week it was on a post next to the road) but a surprise came a little further on in the form of a bird of prey (Little) sat on a fence. It let me stop the car, roll down my window and even reverse my car to get a better camera angle without flying away. It was all of about 2/3 metres away.



Above: Merlin at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve today (24/11/12).

Given that this bird did't fly away as soon as the car came near, I had to check that it was ok. On exiting the car it did fly away so yes, it was ok and it was definitely not plastic! Not wanting to disturb it any more and wanting to get on with my ringing session before the rain arrived, I carried on.

Todays ringing session produced 40 birds of which 13 were new and 27 retraps as follows:

Great Spotted Woodpecker 0 (1) - a new longevity record for the site at 1 year, 348 days.
Wren 1 (1)
Robin 0 (1)
Goldcrest 1 (0)
Long Tailed Tit 0 (2) - one being a new longevity record for the site at 2 years, 80 days.
Coal Tit 0 (2)
Blue Tit 4 (11)
Great Tit 0 (9)
Treecreeper 2 (0)
Chaffinch 2 (0)
Goldfinch 1 (0)
Lesser Redpoll 2 (0)

Above: One of 2 Treecreepers ringed at SSNR today (the 2nd & 3rd ringed at this site).

That is now 5 new Goldcrests for SSNR this year (none previously) and 24 Lesser Redpolls (including this Autumn (35 this year).
A ringing session at SSNR on 11th November produced 37 new and 27 retraps:


Wren 6 (0)
Dunnock 0 (2)
Robin 0 (1)
Blackcap 1 (0) - the first winter record for this species at SSNR.
Goldcrest 2 (0)
Long Tailed Tit 9 (7)
Blue Tit 8 (7)
Great Tit 4 (9)
Chaffinch 4 (1)
Lesser Redpoll 3 (0)

The notable bird here being a winter record of Blackcap. Again, more Goldcrests and more Lesser Redpolls. I need 186 more captures to beat last years total number of handlings. I may get 2 or 3 more sessions but I am unlikely to make it - I'll try though!
On the weekend between the 2 catches above, I went to Gloucester to see family. On the Sunday (18th Nov) I managed a ringing session at my Dad's house in the Cotswolds:

Dunnock 3 (2)

Blackbird 1 (1)
Blackcap 1 (0) - A new species for this site
Goldcrest 4 (0) - A new species for this site
Long Tailed Tit 7 (0)
Coal Tit 1 (0)
Blue Tit 13 (5)
Great Tit 1 (0)
House Sparrow 4 (0)

Given that I don't ring this site very often at all (my last session there was last Christmas), most retraps are likely to produce a longevity record for the site.
The retrap male Blackbird was first ringed 2 years, 285 days before its later recapture. I assume this is one of a ringed pair my dad regularly reports as coming to feed on the scraps he is always putting out for the birds.
One of the retrap Blue Tits was first ringed 2 years and 327 days previously (now the oldest record for the site).

Above: Male Blackcap - a good winter record at my Dad's house in the Cotswolds. I have seen Blackcap maybe once or twice before at his house in 20 years.

As ususal, I hope to be able to share more bird ringing news soon! Wish me luck... and dry weather!

Recovery at last!

My first ringing recovery (i.e. a bird I ringed found elsewhere).

A female Great Tit (ring number L098462) ringed at my dad's house in the Cotswolds, found freshly dead 496 days later on 14th May 2011 at Chedworth, Gloucestershire, 8km away.

I'm pleased as I was beginning to think I was doing something wrong!

Back to Blue Tit Alley

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope you had a good Christmas & I hope 2011 brings you lots of occasions to turn that frown upside down!

Today was my first ringing session of the new year at my Dad's house (aka Blue Tit Alley) and it brought lots of birds between 8.30am and dusk (with 2 hours off for a walk and lunch). 55 in total of 10 different species.

Wren 1 (ringing tick for here - surprised I didn't catch one earlier)
Blue Tit 41
Goldfinch 3
Blackbird 3
Coal Tit 1
Dunnock 3
Great Tit 1
Robin 1
House Sparrow 1
Chaffinch 1

What can I say. Blue Tit 41. 41! 41!! 41!!! They just kept coming and coming. 2 of them were retraps - L098313 (ringed on 07/02/10 as an adult [Euring age 6]) and L098364 (ringed on 29/12/10 - 4 days ago!). 36 of these blue tits were born last year.

If I add the total number of Blue Tit ringed last Wednesday (15) that makes 56 ringed in two sessions here. In contrast, just 1 Great Tit was ringed (only 1 or 2 seen during the day also).

A sparrowhawk swooshed past one of the nets missing by about 1 metre (and me by about 5 metres).



Above: Today's Wren. It was let go away from the nets, then it must have circled the house (missing another net) before flying into the same net again only 1 shelf higher! It must have wanted to roost nearby!

Last Wednesday's totals:

Blue Tit 15
Blackbird 4
Coal Tit 1
Dunnock 2

I'm surprised I don't get very many retrapped birds (226 birds ringed and only 12 recaught) - particularly amongst the tits. This may be because I don't ring here often enough. It could also be because the neighbours also feed the birds (most of the birds come from the direction of their garden into our feeders and back out the same way because it's well vegetated & therefore safer). I'm sure I'll get more, I just need to give it time and put in more effort ... starting tomorrow morning before I go back to Bedford.

Blue Tit alley

You think to yourself as you watch those birds come to your feeders, well there's at least 6 blue tits (as that's how many you've seen at the same time), but probably not many more.

At least that's what my dad used to believe! I've now shown him that there are at least 61 blue tits visiting the feeders in his garden! My cold fingers took a right hammering. Especially today as 27 of 36 birds caught and ringed (including 2 retraps) were blue tits!

Totals were as follows (from 24/12/09 to 03/1/10): new (retraps)

Blue Tit 61 (2)
Dunnock 5 (1)
Robin 3
Goldfinch 7
Starling 1
Coal Tit 6
Blackbird 5
Great Tit 5
Chaffinch 3
House Sparrow 1
Greenfinch 3

Total 100 new & 3 retraps of 11 species.

One that left without a ring: Redwing (could have been 12 species). I wasn't happy as that is going to be a hard one to get again! It was a first for the location.

I was happy though that I hit 100 birds ringed over the festive period. Today I had higher numbers than on other occasions, but not so much variety. I now look forward to handing out jewellry to Bedfordshire birds after I have collected my Ivel Ringing Group rings.

Boxing clever

I changed, slightly, where I put the net today in an attempt to make the net less visible. The problem being, my Dad's house (in the Cotswolds) is the only house in the village that is brick (all the others are cotswold stone). When it was built they must have sneaked it past the planners (or at least got in before they tightened the rules!). It is also painted white (sorry, I've been corrected, magnolia). It is easy for the birds to see a net against a magnolia background!

I don't have much room for feeders and a net so, to catch the birds, I have to box clever!

Boxing day brought 27 birds of 7 species into the net. 14 Blue Tits, 2 Goldfinch, 3 Dunnocks (one being a retrap from Christmas eve - it didn't take long!), 1 Starling, 1 Robin, 3 Coal Tits and 3 Blackbirds (a second net caught these and nearly caught a 4th).



Above: With my brother behind the camera, he had me posing with this Blue Tit. 11 of the Blue Tits were born this year, with 3 adults. On Christmas eve, 2 of 3 Blue Tits caught were adults.

I noticed a complete absence of Great Tits at the feeders today. My Dad says they visit occasionally, but are outnumbered by the blues. Perhaps the nesting sites nearby are dominated by the blues?



Above & Below: Coal Tits are my favourite of the tit family. They sneak in, grab some food, and sneak back out to eat. Again, I've been corrected again, apparently here, they stick around on the feeders for quite a while. They must feel safer.



Below: A blackbird. I put a net up elsewhere in the garden especially to catch these. They feed near the other net, but fly in and out low. I'm after a blackbird with somebody else's ring on it (I'm informed there is one in the area. Perhaps just a matter of time and perserverance).

One blackbird was a possible continental. All were born this year.



Below: The patio is where birds feed on my dad's scraps. I had to move the feeders from being all against the fence (most birds would have come in over the fence, into the bushes, fed, and popped back over the fence had I not moved them!



All in all, I am pleased with the total. A starling was a bonus. The Goldfinch are a target species (my dad is particulary interested in these and he did give me some money to buy the rings!). After the two I caught early on, the rest seemed to see the net at the last second & avoid it.

The Dunnocks all seem to fly into the net at the same place from the same direction. I think it must be the way they follow the bushes around and circle the house! My first and only retrap so far was with a Dunnock caught on Christmas eve.

A house sparrow made a brief visit. I'm still waiting for a pied wagtail & jackdaw to come feeding (they do on my dad's patio). Then we'll see whether they make it into the net!

A festive first

My first ringing session on my own.

In order of appearance, Blue Tit, Dunnock, Blue Tit, Dunnock, Blue Tit, Robin. I had a bet (no money passed hands) with my dad as to how long it would take to catch a bird (I had already predicted a blue tit would be the first bird!). I had less than 5 mins and my dad had more than 5 minutes. As it turned out it was around 5 minutes. I didn't count the seconds.



Above: The better photo of the two is the Dunnock (no birds were harmed - the hob under the cooking pot was not on!!).

Below: The camera is a bit tempremental, therefore I released the bird before getting a better shot of it (well, it is only a blue tit!).



A collared dove and several blue tits flirted with the nets! Also seen nearby 2 coal tits, several more blue tits, goldfinch, greenfinch, blackbirds, more dunnocks and robins. This time I only put one 30ft net up for an hour. Next time I shall have a longer session (I'm going to try for a all day one on boxing day (I'll let them feed on christmas day!). I'm also going to put a net up elsewhere to catch the blackbirds. My dad says he's seen a blackbird with a ring on it recently so there's a possible control (that's what's call a bird that we catch, but somebody else e.g. not me - has put a ring on) lurking about somewhere!!

Merry Xmas everybody!