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.

Priory Country Park - Of late

The Constant Effort season is over at Priory Country Park. All 12 visits were completed (including the odd extra visit). I haven't posted CES totals for a while and on this occasion, for my ease, I'm going to lump visits 8-12 all into one (including non-CES birds/sessions).

238 new birds, 57 retraps (in brackets) of 23 species:

Wren 8 (1)
Dunnock 6 (6)
Robin 6 (7)
Blackbird 10 (8)
Song Thrush 8 (1)
Sedge Warbler 1 (0)
Reed Warbler 24 (1)
Whitethroat 25 (6)
Lesser Whitethroat 2 (0)
Garden Warbler 19 (2)
Blackcap 91 (8)
Chiff Chaff 2 (3)
Willow Warbler 2 (1)
Blue Tit 8 (5)
Great Tit 6 (3)
Long Tailed Tit 0 (1)
Chaffinch 3 (0)
Goldfinch 10 (0)
Greenfinch 1 (0)
Bullfinch 4 (3)
Treecreeper 0 (1)
Sparrowhawk 1 (0)
Wood Pigeon 1 (0)

We'll start with the standout total for Blackcap. This site has always been good for Blackcaps - more Blackcaps have been ringed than just about all other species in the park. The total above includes birds caught outside the CES. On Saturday 27th August I caught 26 Blackcaps (the majority new and the majority male). These birds must have moved on and another lot moved in as by the following Wednesday (31st August) I caught 30 Blackcaps (only one retrap from the weekend and only because it's from a late brood & not ready to go yet).

I call on all ringers north of Bedfordshire to get a move on and ring some Blackcaps! Out of all the Blackcaps I've ringed here in the last week or two, none have been ringed other than on site. You can increase my chances of catching one of your birds!



Above: Female Blackcap



Above: Male Blackcap



Above: This bag contains a big living ball of feathers (see below)!



Above: A Wood Pigeon (the big ball of feathers).



Above: A Lesser Whitethroat. This bird represents one of two ringed on 27th August. This species used to be more regular in the park but there have been very few records this year. I assume therefore that these two birds (juveniles) were migrating through the park (we would likely have caught the adults & juveniles earlier if they had bred).



Above: Normally seen in the skys above & normally too good at airobatics to be caught. This juvenile Sparrowhawk is obviously still learning then!

Two sites, two different sets of results

Two different sites: Saturday - Sandy Smith Nature Reserve (SSNR), Sunday - Priory Country Park (PCP).

Each has their own feeding station but the habitat at each is different. At SSNR, I ring in a patch of Alder regeneration and at PCP I ring in a patch of thorny scrub.

At SSNR I caught 1 Dunnock, 3 Wrens and the other 28 birds were Blue Tits and Great Tits. 32 birds of 4 species.

At PCP, I caught 7 Long Tailed Tits, 6 Blue Tits, 5 Great Tits, 3 Wren, 1 Dunnock, 3 Blackbird, 1 Goldcrest, 2 Great Spotted Woodpeckers, 1 Song Thrush and 1 Sparrowhawk. 30 birds of 10 species.

A greater range of species can be regularly found in the habitat at PCP whereas SSNR is a more specific habitat and carries fewer species. Birds at Priory come to the ringing area to feed and roost. Where I ring at SSNR, birds pass through on their way to feed elsewhere (mainly the tit flocks at this time of year) - hence the feeders to bring them in!



Above: One of 2 Great Spotted Woodpeckers caught at Priory Country Park.



Above: A juvenile male Sparrowhawk. The visible bulge on his brest is not fluffing of the feathers, we believe this was his lunch! My first self caught Sparrowhawk.

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.

Cork the claws of this Hawk!

Yesterday (07/11/09), a ringing visit to Priory Country Park brought a trickle of birds throughout the morning/early afternoon.

Early on, a Sparrowhawk was passing the feeding station in search of food (in this case Great or Blue Tits, not the nuts). It came away empty clawed! But Errol must have wished we had put a cork on this particular birds claws: he was telling me to keep my extremities away from the claws of this sharp toed hunter, but did not heed his own advice ... Ouch!



Above (thanks to Errol for this photo): A Sparrowhawk. This male was born this year (it had heart shaped markings on its front). This bird, already sporting a ring (thanks to Errol a few weeks back), did not add itself to my ringing list. The spectacle was enjoyed by regular birders at PCP Dave B, Dave K & John A.

For a list of other birds caught at Priory on 07/11/09, visit the IRG blog: www.ivelringinggroup.blogspot.com

Were I to keep a list of birds handled and/or processed but not ringed it would be short. I'd like to keep it this way! Others include:

Marsh Tit (processed but not ringed)
Mute Swan (recoveries of colour ring numbers from the field)
Eider Duck (handled only)
Curlew Sandpiper (handled only)
Turnstone (extracted from a mist net only)

Other news:

This afternoon, at Cardington Tesco, I was approaching the car, only to look up at the sound of very agitated Long Tailed Tits. The reason for this was a Sparrowhawk passing over towards Longholme Way.

I am close to aquiring my 'C' license. I am organising and amassing equipment etc. in earnest!