Belvide Ringers on Tour !!

After the recent very successful Belvide post breeding ringing season several team members are on the road.
Pat and his partner Linda are travelling round British Columbia in an RV--not doing any ringing but sending back some cracking images:-

A super view in the Rockies

Before he went I set him the task of getting a pic of a Varied Thrush--more often heard than seen. I didn't expect him to succeed, but as this picture shows he certainly did--big time!! Well done Pat

It's a real stunner.

Sadly I haven't been able to attach the best item which is a short video of a chance encounter with a black bear seen catching an enormous fish--sorry folks but my IT skills are sadly lacking. If I can get someone else to sort it for me I will post it later.

 

 

Meanwhile Kev and son Gareth decided to spend a week on the tiny island of Bressay in the Shetlands--ringing in partnership with the Shetland RG. They are staying in a house with probably the only garden on the island with trees and shrubs--making it a magnet for birds:-

Prior to their first day, easterly winds had been blowing and, as they tend to do at this time of year, they had displaced migrant birds from their more easterly migration routes. They could barely believe their luck when first-----

---this Little Bunting dropped into a net. Breeding in the taiga forests of northern Europe and Russia, only about 250 individuals of this species have ever been ringed in Britain. To be fair it's not a spectacular looking species, but the next special bird--a Yellow Browed Warbler, is a little gem

Up until about 15 years ago, this species was an extreme rarity here. They also breed in the northern forests and most migrate south to spend the Winter from  India to China. Over recent times they seem to have expanded their breeding range west and in  most years now we can expect several hundred 'Yellow Brows' in Britain at this time of year. Nevertheless a brilliant bird to catch.

The winds then turned strong and south west holding up their ringing and confining it to local birds like this Wren

and this Starling

Both of these belong to the 'Zetlandensis' sub species --but you would be pushed to notice that from pictures.!!

Eventually winds eased and migration from the north east restarted as shown by this Redwing

These delightful small thrushes breed in taiga and tundra regions and come to Britain in their hundreds of thousands during October and November.

Winds have turned easterly again so I hope that they will get some more cracking birds over the last couple of days of their trip--fingers crossed.

The boys had a fantastic sighting of a bull and several smaller members of a pod of Orcas--a lifer for them. I haven't been able to download and attaché their video either --sorry!!

 

Meanwhile back at the ranch Pete has started his annual Redwing catching sessions in a walled garden near home.

This is the first bird of this season--from now until just before Christmas--but I hear that numbers are building so we hope he can get near his 2000 bird record.

 

Several team members are off to the Algarve on Monday for the annual ringing trip to Vilamoura--accompanied as usual by guests invited from three other ringing groups. I will try to post our activities here but the wifi can be temperamental so please bear with me........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Black Headed Gull project Year 2

I found this post languishing in the 'drafts' box and although it's a tad out of date--it is worth publishing because we are starting to get records of the birds we ringed at this event
 being sent to us--more details later:-

Last summer we colour ringed 125 Black Headed Gull chicks at Belvide in a relatively new colony on the island at the west end. We have had some fascinating results some of which I've mentioned here and in West Midland Bird Club newsletters. We have been especially interested in chick movements from new colonies to see if they differ from those chicks reared in established colonies. Therefore we decided to only ring chicks from two consecutive years and then stop--any longer and it would cease to be dispersion from a 'new' colony.

The lousy weather on Saturday meant a significant amount of work rearranging things for the Sunday but at least it was worth it because rain and wind were replaced by sunshine and calm air--perfect conditions. A strong team of 17 ( in 4 different teams with specific jobs)  mustered at 6 am for a detailed briefing. The first team in action were our good friends from Cannock Sea Scouts whose very important job was to keep an eye on any birds which took to the water--scooping them up and ushering them onto the shore. They did a brilliant job. This is their second year and they report thoroughly enjoying themselves carrying out a rather different set of activities than normal!!

Scores on the Doors

Here is a quick summary of the superb season we have just finished at Belvide.
We have been ringing at the site since 2017 and in overall terms this is the second best post breeding season we have had-2017 was the best.
Some key data:-
Total number of new birds ringed- 2531--not bad for a 200 metre stretch of reservoir shoreline!
Total number of species ringed - 38-slightly above average
New species ringed--Linnet and Magpie
Key species totals--Blackcap was the most ringed with 775 individuals, more than twice the previous record;
Sedge Warbler (373); Whitethroat (27);Chiffchaff (319); Goldcrest (31); Long Tailed Tit (58); Kingfisher were all second highest totals ever
Reed Warbler ( 319); Garden Warbler (26); Willow Warbler (58) were all third highest totals ever
Most of the other species were around the average for recent years.
I will produce a full report at the end of the calendar year which will have details of other ringing activities at Belvide and can be found on this site and on the West Midland Bird Club website  

Habitat work

Our thoughts are now turning to late Autumn and Winter ringing activities. One such is studying numbers of Jack Snipe at a local nature reserve. I'll post more details about these fabulous little birds in due course--but for now we needed to improve the habitat for them.
The area they love to roost in is slowly but surely changing as willow and birch saplings become established--so these need to be halted as soon as possible.
A small but beautifully put together team started an assault on these saplings on a lovely Sunday morning. We were very ably helped by our friends from Cannock Sea Scouts who really enjoy getting stuck in to bird related conservation projects.

The trolley was very useful in transporting the cuttings off-site

Henry had a full time job as our trolley dolly.

 

A pretty impressive result--you can just make out the third pile of cuttings. Time will tell how useful this work has been but I'm confident it will make a big difference and we are already planning a second attack in the Spring.

I hope I will have some pictures and information about Jack Snipe soon. In the meantime Pete will be trying very hard for Redwings and I will be out in the Algarve trying to catch some of the 700+ Blackcaps we ringed at Belvide this Summer!!

 

 

One curtain goes down as another goes up

Today was our last session of the post breeding passage season at Belvide--and what a brilliant season it's been!! I will post a summary table soon but for now, several records have been broken and the team members have had a really enjoyable time. Good company, good birds and plenty of activity to help the trainees move forward have all played into ths positive set up.
Today's catch was pretty good at 40 new birds but I guess it's testament to the great season we've had that this signalled the end. Of the 40 new birds, 20 were Chiffchaffs--expected at this time of year as they are one of the last warbler species to move down to spend the winter in southern Europe ( actually many stay on here especially if it is a mild winter).
We had a celebratory al fresco breakfast of bacon and sausage rolls finished off by some superb Millionaire's Shortbread made by the fair hand of Ben--I'm still feeling the sugar rush as I type......

Just ready for the rolls!!

Over the last week we have raised the curtain on our thermal imaging season--of which much more later. Last night we ventured out for just a couple of hours to test some new equipment and were very pleasantly surprised by the number of birds we saw-and ringed! We estimated around 40+ skylarks of which we ringed 4; a couple of Meadow Pipits of which we ringed this one:-

Perhaps best of all were the dozen or so Grey Partridge we found in just one field. This is good evidence for the farmer that his methods are helping this threatened species. We managed to ring 4--which may not seem many but in the context that fewer than 100 are ringed in Britain in most years--it's a great score for one night in one field.

This bird still has quite a lot of juvenile feathers and the lack of a dark brown horseshoe shape on the belly probably means its a female.

We are setting the nets for the influx of Redwings ( a thrush species from Scandinavia and points north and east) which reports suggest is gaining momentum--more later.

Finally from 13-30 October several team members -along with invited guests from around the country will be on the annual ring trip to Vilamoura and Olhau in the Algarve--I'll try and get some reports to the blog from there 

 

 

The party's ( almost) over

We have had a superb post breeding season at Belvide this year with several records broken. But all good things  etc etc--and so it was this morning. Under almost perfect ringing conditions the team turned out once again, but low expectations were realised.
Only 34 new birds were ringed this morning including 11 Blackcaps, 7 Chiffchaff and a late Sedge Warbler.
This made the decision to treat Saturday's session as a curtain downer very easy. We will of course have a normal ringing session but follow with a few celebratory treats......
I will post a round-up of the season shortly after Saturday