Busy couple of days!

Friday mornings are turning into a regular trainee session at one of our farm feeding stations-and so it was on Friday; but with only one of our trainees available, Jenni had plenty of extraction and ringing practice. A steady flow of (mainly) blue and great tits always provides good training--with a few goldfinches for variety. Unfortunately the siskins/chaffinches and brambling weren't playing today.

Just time for a quick bite of lunch and a skim of the paper and we were gathering at Belvide for another try at the starling roost. A good turnout of experienced team members plus a couple of trainees was supplemented by a welcome visit from our friend Darren who now lives and rings in Israel, but for whom starling would be a ringing 'tick'.
The initial influx of reed buntings was disappointing with only a handful caught out of 30-40 which dropped in.
However, it wasn't long after 16.30 that the starlings gathered and were clearly attracted by the Sten Walhstrom sound. Further excitement was generated by the presence of two sparrowhawks and a peregrine constantly buzzing the murmuration. At the end we caught a very respectable 53 new starlings which we were all happy with--and Darren was very pleased--'' a bit different from Tristram's'' was a parting shot that was kind of difficult to know exactly how to respond to.......

A fairly relaxed start on Saturday morning saw much of the same team gather at Wildside Activity Centre in urban Wolverhampton for an annual demonstration. There was a great turnout of visitors-which is more than could be said for the birds. However, three goldcrests and a couple of long tailed tits and a song thrush gave us plenty of opportunity to delight the visitors and stimulate discussion.

All in all a good weekend for the team--thanks to everyone who helped-in person and/or spirit.

NB for anyone interested who missed or would like to hear about our exploits in Mongolia in 2018--I'm giving an illustrated talk in Brewood at the Three Stirrups pub on Wenesday 30th Jan at 7.30--free entry.

The Sleepwalkers out and about!!

In the VERY early hours of Sunday morning Kev and his son Gareth set forth on an imaging/ lamping session near Great Bridgeford and managed to ring a Stock Dove, Skylark and Redwing. They also saw 2 Woodcock, 3 common Snipe and a handful of Skylarks. All of the data helps via census reports to recorders.
Feeling chipper and full of beans they decided to stay in the field and had a netting session at their feeding station. This set up is really starting to pay dividends now and they 27 new birds including a very useful 6 Yellowhammer.
Well done boys--keep taking the tablets.....

2018 Annual Ringing Totals

The table below shows all the new birds ringed by Belvide Ringers during 2018

Mallard	2	Great Tit	272
Moorhen	12	Blue Tit	459
Black Headed Gull	139	Coal Tit	26
Lesser Black Backed Gull	1	Marsh Tit	1
Snipe	4	Nuthatch	19
Jack Snipe	18	Treecreeper	6
Woodcock	8	Starling	72
Sparrowhawk	2	Chaffinch	29
Woodpigeon	1	Brambling	2
Stock Dove	2	Greenfinch	23
Barn Owl	5	Goldfinch	28
Kingfisher	3	Bullfinch	22
Gt Spotted Woodpecker	11	Linnet	1
Green Woodpecker	1	Siskin	6
Skylark	12	Lesser Redpoll	16
Sand martin	35	House Sparrow	25
Swallow	24	Tree Sparrow	1
House Martin	46	Reed Bunting	40
Tree Pipit	4	Yellowhammer	7
Meadow Pipit	23	Magpie	1
Grey Wagtail	5	Jay	1
Pied Wagtail	11
Wren	44		TOTAL
Dunnock	39		4,157
Robin	72		of
Redstart	9		66 species
Wheatear	6
Blackbird	105
Song Thrush	21
Redwing	604
Fieldfare	16
Mistle Thrush	1
Grasshopper Warbler	1
Sedge Warbler	333
Reed Warbler	261
Lesser Whitethroat	9
Whitethroat	50
Garden Warbler	39
Blackcap	387
Chiffchaff	183
Willow Warbler	72
Goldcrest	30
Spotted Flycatcher	3
Pied Flycatcher	32
Long Tailed Tit	97

Overall we are pretty pleased given that there has ben quite a bit of disruption from a wide range of factors all of which had a generally negative impact on our activities. The number of Moorhen reflects the investment in anew trapping device and we hope to build on this. The large number of Black Headed Gulls is due to us starting a colour ringing scheme the results of which are already coming through. Woodcock, Jack Snipe and Skylark numbers show how we are developing new links with local farmers to continue our work using the thermal imager. Summer migrant breeders were not exceptional either way, although the combined numbers of Sedge and Reed warblers was high. Finch numbers were relatively modest reflecting a poor season at our feeders combined with few Siskins about this year. Finally the 72 Starlings was the result of finding a good sound lure to attract them into an area of their reed-bed roost which is accessible, and we hope to build on this next year. Time will tell if we can exceed these numbers in future years--but regardless of whether we do or not, a good time was had by all.
I would like to thank all team members for their efforts and good company, and all our many contacts--too many to mention individually-- who have in any way helped us to achieve what we have.
Colin.

What's Up Doc ?

One of the great things about ringing as a hobby is the diverse group of people it appeals to. There's rarely a moment when conversation dries up! Our group is no exception with retired members, others just starting out in their working lives, and many from a wide range of backgrounds, professions, skills and non-birding interests.
One of our team has been spending the last few years following her academic interests and I'm delighted to report that Claire is now:- Dr Claire Cresswell, and is now a lecturer at Sparsholt.
Many congratulations Claire and all the very best for the future, from all of the team. The sadness is that it means Claire now lives in Hampshire so her long-term future within the group is in doubt--however this is a small price to pay to see bright young things making their mark in the world. Go for it Claire!! 

Feeder Session

We have had a few decent sessions at a local farm feeding station over recent weeks providing our trainees with some useful extraction practice--especially tits. While this is obviously worthwhile, it is nevertheless a bit more exciting and interesting when finches start feeding in  numbers. This morning we had good numbers of Great and Blue tits as usual, but alongside these were a Blackbird, Robin and Coal tit; with 12 Goldfinch (plus a bird ringed from somewhere else-news later), and very encouragingly 2 Siskin. These typically start to attend our feeders in Spring. When they have started at feeders this early in previous years it has usually meant a good year for Siskin in that if there are big numbers in the wild they quickly denude their preferred natural food-alder seeds-and need to come into gardens to find supplementary food at feeders. We caught an adult male and an adult female. The male is shown below.

And yet more interesting reports.....

Every now and then we get a cluster of reports sent to us by the BTO, about birds that have been reported from elsewhere.
This week we had a couple of particularly interesting ones:-

The first was a Blackbird which Pete caught during one of his Redwing catching sessions at Chillington on 14th December 2016. We regularly mention to visitors that it is highly likely that some of the Blackbirds we see in Britain during the Winter months may well have their breeding sites in eastern Europe or even further afield. This bird provides us with some hard evidence.

It was recaptured on the German island of Helgoland in the eastern North Sea --on 24, 25 and 27th of October 2018. We suggest the bird spends it's winters in the UK, then travels back to the north east of Europe or even into Russia to breed. On its journey back to spend the winter of 2018 in the UK it dropped into Helgoland to feed up before it's onward journey. By it's third day on Helgoland it had put on weight-again an indication that it was preparing itself for an onward flight.

In the same batch of reports was one of a Chiffchaff, which Kev caught on 17th October at his Wolverhampton Racecourse site. It's impossible to say where this bird came from--a breeding site somewhere in the UK or northern Europe? However, we DO know where it spent the winter because it was recaptured on the 8th January 2019 at a nature reserve in Dorset!!

Ringing is great fun, stimulating and provides useful data on movements which we have been unable to know by any other methods.

A 'Real' report of an 'Athletico' bird !!

In June last year we colour ringed 100+ nestling Black Headed Gulls on one of the Belvide islands. So far we have had reports of 9 of those birds from around England and Ireland--see our 2018 Belvide ringing report on the WMBC website.
We struck gold today however when a chap called Eduardo Blanco sent me a picture of the legs of a BHG carrying red colour ring 27F2--in the centre of MADRID !
It's becoming clear for this and similar projects that these birds disperse much further than we may have expected.
We are looking forward to getting more reports from distance as we then start to look forward to Spring to see how many/if our young birds return to their nest site to breed; or do they spread out to ensure a mix of genes in a wide gene pool?