Another surge!!

After a couple of fairly quiet days, my friend Stu in Malvern dropped me a note wondering if migration was nearing an end. I sent back hoping for more migrants based on my notes from the previous few years.

A relatively small team met on Monday and as we opened the nets we could see and hear birds in the bushes so it was game face on. It was one of those days we hope for with a steady stream of new birds until we left at about 10.30. We ringed 223 new birds of which 139 were Blackcaps and 43 were Chiffchaffs. These two species--which typically migrate later than most warblers are now becoming the predominant species with only a hand-full of other warbler species. 

The only other species of note were 4 new Robins and 5 new Dunnocks. We are pretty sure that we have ringed probably all the resident birds of these two species so it looks like these had somehow got caught up in a big migration push.

Yesterday morning I had a late and fairly modest catch of 5 Meadow Pipits, and the team met again this morning just as the sun was rising.

Although we weren't aware of birds in the bushes as on Monday, it soon became apparent that there had been another movement as birds quickly appeared in the nets. Again it was mainly Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs, but the latter almost eclipsed Blackcap for the first time ever at Belvide.

We ended the day with 122 new birds with 51 Blackcaps and 45 Chiffchaffs. We caught another 9 Meadow Pipits bring the Belvide total this year to 100. The most unexpected bird was this stunning Lesser Redpoll which appeared without the usual calling and again unusually for a highly gregarious species it was alone.

Over 350 new birds in 3 days--what a fabulous year 2020 is turning out to be--for Belvide ringing anyway!!

Kevin has been putting in the hard yards at his racecourse site yesterday and managed a very creditable 29 new birds including 9 Meadow Pipits and a stunning juvenile Sparrowhawk

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS WEEKEND'S SESSION WILL BE ON SUNDAY

Up and down few days....

 We decided to create a new site for trying to catching Meadow Pipits and on Thursday morning Pete stepped up to the plate to give it a test run. It was perfect morning and Pete ended with a respectable 27 new birds--one of which was a classic adult bird which had completed it's post breeding moult as you can see in these two pictures:-

As you can see all of the coverts are wide buff fringed and all the same--compared to this wing of a juvenile bird with w mixture of white and buff edged coverts:-

This adult tail has broad feathers with rounded tips...

Compared to these pointed feathers on a juvenile tail:-

Friday morning looked for all the world as good a day for 'mipit' migration so we set up again--but no--the birds knew better and passage was sparse--leading to only 16 new birds ringed--but great fun nonetheless.

Just to underline how little we really know about predicting bird migration we saw that the forecast for Friday into Saturday predicted fine weather with a cloudy rainy front passing over around 3-4 am. I couldn't wait to get to the nets and was looking forward to a bumper catch--sadly the birds had other ideas!! We ended with only 55 birds which wasn't a bad total but nowhere near our expectations. I guess it's things like that which add a touch of spice through uncertainty.

Monday looks good--to us--but we'll see if the birds thinks so during the morning. I'll post the results after the session as usual.

AH SO Grasshopper !!

 It was an absolutely perfect morning for ringing as predicted by the weather forecast!! ( Not often I say that....). I'm so glad we decided to arrange an extra session because we ended with another 146 new birds.

The make up was pretty predictable with 129 migrant birds of which 74 were Blackcaps. We also managed another Lesser Whitethroat, but the picture below records an historic moment:-

These are two Grasshopper Warblers and this is the first time we have ever caught more than one at a single session. We have now ringed 8 of these at a site where we don't even manage an average of one per year. It's going to be interesting scanning the end of year data to see if this is a some local effect or part of a UK wide good showing of Grasshoppers.

My last post showed items about ageing Meadow Pipits. We caught another 11 this morning but with this group was a slightly different specimen. I've mentioned previously that Grasshopper Warblers have 3 variations of base colour--yellow, grey and brown. Meadow Pipits have the same range for some reason. We call them ''colour morphs''. The picture below shows two of these. The right hand bird is the most usual --the brown/buff morph. The other bird is one of the greyer morph birds:-

Some suggest that the greyer birds are perhaps from Iceland--but having ringed several thousand Meadow Pipits in Arctic Norway, I've seen all three morphs up there. 

   

Meadow Pipits are coming!

The forecast for this morning's session wasn't too good with fresh westerly winds and bright sunshine. The clear sky materialised but the wind remained quite light until we left at 10.30. 

We had another pretty stunning session with 110 new birds plus one Blackcap which had been ringed elsewhere-details when we get them. Again Blackcaps made up the bulk of the catch with 62 , next was Chiffchaff with 16. The usual range of other warblers were in single numbers but unfortunately we didn't catch a Lesser Whitethroat. However, this was amply compensated for by our SIXTH Grasshopper Warbler--unprecedented  numbers for us.

Meadow Pipits aren't spectacular birds but they are intriguing. They are a very common breeding bird throughout Europe right up to the Arctic Sea coast into Russia. Some birds do stay in the UK during winter, but the majority migrate south spending the winter mainly in southern Europe with vast numbers on the Iberian Peninsula. As far as ringing is concerned the next few weeks is essentially our annual chance to ring them as they pass through our area on their way south--over the last few days they have started moving--and we started catching them. One of the reasons I love catching this species is that they really present trainees with a challenge--as I hope the following pictures illustrate:-

Here is a typical example of a Meadow Pipit (mipit for short). There are several clues to it's age but I've labelled a fairly obvious one. The two feathers ( greater coverts) labelled 1 are buff edged and new adult type feathers just moulted in. The rest of these coverts are labelled 2 and have white edges typical of un-moulted juvenile feathers--so this is a juvenile bird.

The tricky issue about mipits is that their moult doesn't seem to follow a pattern with almost every individual having a different strategy:- here are two more from this morning--both juveniles:-

In this bird all the GC and MC feathers are white edged and juvenile, but this bird has started to moult its tertial feathers. Number one is white edged and juvenile but number 2 has broad buff edges and is an adult feather moulted in.

On this bird two tertials have been moulted but one is still juvenile--however, feather 1 is a greater covert that has been moulted into an adult type--but you can just see the white tip of a juvenile greater covert labeled 2.

OK I hear you crying ENOUGH !!

So here's a couple of other pictures:-

Here's a mipit tail showing all of the feathers as pointed--readers will know this is a typical juvenile feature.

Last; have a look at the foot:-

Readers who have been following a while may remember the foot pictures of Skylarks showing the long straight hind claw. Like Skylarks, Mipits spend a lot of time walking on short grassland and hey presto they also have very long straight hind claws.

Here endeth today's lesson...........

 

After the Lord Mayor's Show

 So much excitement as we had at our last session could never be sustained. Today's session still managed a respectable 120 new birds but there was no real 'show stopper'.

The range of species was as we have seen recently, with 49 Blackcaps and 29 Chiffchaff. This later species is starting to surge as is usual at this time of year. At the same time the passage of Willow Warblers is easing off as most of them have already gone south. I'll be showing a graph of how these two species time their migration in a later post. While on the subject of Willow Warbler, today saw 3 new birds which took the season total into record numbers. Over recent years we have ringed between 30 and 50 individuals in a season--the previous record being 143 in 2008. So far we have ringed 145 this year--interesting as to why this is; it will also be interesting finding out if we are part of a wider pattern across the country.

We did have a couple of interesting re-traps--birds we catch which we have previously ringed at Belvide. First a Chiffchaff which we first ringed on 31 August 2018. We haven't seen this bird since until last night when we recaptured it--amazingly only one day later than our first encounter 2 years ago!!

At this time of year Long Tailed Tits tend to form roving flocks which attract other tit species as well as other species such as mixed warblers. This morning we caught 2 Long Tailed Tits, 1 Wren, 2 Chiffchaffs and a Blue Tit in the same net at the same time. All were ringed, and when we checked they had all been ringed by us on the same day-(27th July)--at the same time. So it looks like they have become real buddies and spend their time roaming around the reserve. The Chiffchaffs will shortly be saying goodbye.......

Last, we had an inkling that we may be having a passage of Meadow Pipits any time soon, possibly starting on Saturday? More news then. 

Much binding in the Marsh!!

 Yesterday was the last day of August and the weather was perfect for the beautifully-put-together team. The first net round was suitably impressive with a good number of Blackcaps and other warblers. On returning from a later round I was met with the news that we had ringed our FIFTH Grasshopper warbler of the season. Since we don't even average one per season this was a really special moment---but the faces of the team betrayed they thought this wasn't going to be the key moment of the day.......

Liz had extracted an 'interesting' bird and Pete and Kev agreed but asked me to open the bag and see what I thought--always an exciting prospect. I took out a bird and after only a few seconds the experience I'd had in Poland over several years with this species confirmed in my mind that we had a MARSH WARBLER !!! I quickly confirmed a couple of key measurements the team had taken then alerted the site's top birder Steve to give his opinion.

This was our group's first and the site's Marsh Warbler and one of only a handful ever seen in Staffordshire ever--so we had to be sure. In the end it was relatively straightforward so I have produced a few pictures to illustrate why it was a Marsh and not a very similar Reed Warbler.

First the whole bird--slighly more olive green tinge rather than browner Reed, especially on the rump. At 70 mm the wings are longer, as is the primary projection--the distance between the longest wing feather and the secondaries. The face is plainer and the bill is marginally shorter with a slightly steeper forehead. There were some additional features:-

In Poland where I have been very fortunate to have ringed dozens, one of the first and quickest features to see is the claw colour. The right hand claws are creamy-white in the Marsh and dark horn colour in the left hand Reed.

One of the definitive features needs a couple of measurements. Firstly the wing length--in this bird 70mm. Second is the length of the so-called notch on the inner web of the 2nd primary wing feather:-

I've shown the measurement with the white lines. In this bird it was 9mm--there is a diagnostic table we use which shows the ration of wing length to notch length--and this confirmed our ID. Simply put Reed has shorter wings and longer notch, Marsh have longer wings and shorter notch!

The colour of the rump is also a useful supplementary feature--but having seen quite a few pictures of the two birds below, cameras vary immensely in the colour shown in the final picture. Fortunately this shot shows a realistic view of the subtle difference. The right hand bird is a Marsh with a slightly more olive tinge to the rump than the more rusty tones of the left hand Reed.

Last but by no means least there was one other feature-- of absolutely NO use in the field. Our friend Rob who rings hundreds of Marsh Warblers in Poland always gets us to check for tongue spots. When reed-bed warblers are in the nest, they have two dark spots right at the base of their tongues which gives the adults a target to aim for when pushing food in. In Reed Warblers these spots last for a few months after fledging--but by this time of year are always lost in Marsh Warblers. This bird had no spots...QED

So we were able to release the bird with a cast iron ID after a relatively short time to allow it to get on with it's life and migration. Who knows where it came from but north eastern Europe would be the most probable given that it's a relatively common bird out there. Perhaps someone--(my friend in Poland??) may re-catch it next summer and put a piece in the jigsaw.......

As the excitement subsided, we had time to reflect on what a great job trainee Liz did in suspecting this was a potential Marsh warbler and bringing it to everyone's attention--nice one Liz!!

The rest of the session quickly got back underway and we ended with a satisfying total of 123 new birds--64 of which were Blackcaps. One of these showed a feature  I've been talking about--the replacement of the crown feathers at this time of year to black in males and brown in females. The latter is tricky to show as sometimes the colour change is a tad subtle--but in this case it's pretty obvious:-

Finally for this post we recaptured a Marsh Tit which demonstrated beautifully an ageing feature which not everyone is aware of given that lots of ringers don't come across many examples of this species:-

I have marked the outer few greater coverts with the white square-and you can see quite clearly they are longer and paler tipped than the same feathers nearer the body. This clearly shows that this bird still retains some of its longer pale-tipped juvenile coverts but has moulted in some of the shorter non-tipped adult greater coverts--proving this was a juvenile bird.

August ended with a bang--September is a month of mass bird movement with many species exiting the UK before bad weather starts so we are hoping for more exciting days in September.