End of Year Bash

 We've had a great year as a group and we decided that as a fitting end we would organise a bit of a celebratory session at one of our special farm sites. On Tuesday 8 team members gathered at 18.00 along with aour good friend Paul from the Shropshire RG.

Essentially we had four teams of thermal imagers and divided the whole farm up in order tocarry out a full survey of the farm and try to ring as many birds as possible.

The result was a little disappointing in terms of the number of birds ringed--although the quality was excellent:- 9 Skylark; 4 Woodcock, 2 Jack Snipe, 2 Grey Partridge, 2 Fieldfare and 1 Stock Dove.

In truth if we had caught these birds 4 or 5 years ago we would have been ecstatic, but it serves to illustrate how expectations have increased due to the success of thermal imaging.

What was much more successful--and useful in conservation terms for the farmer was the fielf by field analysis of the number and species of birds we saw. There will have been some double counting in the figures below, but even so, the totals are impressive:-

81 Skylark; 56 Grey Partridge; 34 Woodcock; 29 Common Snipe; 6 Jack Snipe; 5 Stock Dove; 2 Redwing and 69 Fieldfare !!!

Here are a few pics of the species we ringed:-

Woodcock

Jack Snipe

Stock Dove

Common Snipe

Redwing

Fieldfare

Grey Partridge

So, 2021 is almost done and a full report will be included here soon. In the meantime we are raring to go into 2022 and see if we can make it another record-breaking year. I hope to be publishing more information as the busy post Christmas/New Year period gets under way and our ringers' pliers get in shape. News coming soon---a Happy New Year to all our readers!! 

Bits and Pieces

 There's been so much activity in the group recently that it's been quite difficult keeping up! I've decided that the simplest thing is for me just to give you a flavour of our activities--with a few pictures which I hope will be both attractive and informative.

Paul has been running sessions for our trainees regularly on Saturday mornings at the feeding station at Brewood Park Farm. This gives lots of necessary practice at extracting Blue and Great tits--but as the winter wears on more and more interesting birds come in search of food as their naturally available food diminishes.

We were really pleased to ring our first Siskin for some time:-

You can see that this is a male because of the black cap--and that it's a first year bird by the white bar across the wing--in an adult bird this would have been yellow/green.

Here is a view of a male Chaffinch which you don't see every day:-

First look at the superb green colour at the rump area--a characteristic of male Chaffinches but not always seen. Now look at the tail feathers--all quite broad and rounded with the central two having black markings near the shaft. Both features of an adult male bird.

I have mentioned the work we are doing at the Patshull estate, and among quite a lot of activity recently, we managed to put up 4 new owl nestboxes with the help of a superb bit of kit driven by our friend John; here's an example:-

There's never any guarantee of success--but we are keeping fingers crossed. Also a big thanks to Murray who very kindly made these and other boxes for us with wood provided by the West Midland Bird Club.

It's always gratifying when newly qualified ringers get cracking with their new permits. Liz caught this smashing adult male Blackbird in her garden:-

And by the large size of it , it could well be a bird visiting us from the continent.

She is also gradually managing to ring several of the House Sparrows feeding in her garden like this stunning male:-

Jenni and Sam are getting their lamping act together at Church Farm and Patshull with their thermal imager. They didn't have a large catch last week but they did have three quality birds in the forms of:-

                                                  Common Snipe and a Woodcock, shown below:-

And a smashing Stock Dove which we are finding reasonably regularly roosting in fields

Kevin has been pressing on with his colour ringing scheme for buntings and has attached over 20 to Yellowhammers recently--here's a cracking male:-

And finally for now, Pete and Paul have been relentlessly depriving themselves of a lie in on most mornings in order to continue ringing large numbers of Redwing. Daily numbers fluctuate widely--but they have so far managed almost 700 in a year where there hasn't been the numbers that we sometimes see. Well done chaps!!

Just a quick reminder of how smart these small thrushes are!!

More news soon as we come to the end of the year--with some record breaking numbers to report....!

 

Just a brilliant group!!

 These last few weeks have really demonstrated that which I already knew--that we have a great group of people in our ringing group. So many of them have been out early mornings, late mornings, afternoon and evenings catching phenomenal numbers of great birds.

The most numerous has been the Redwing which have arrived in big numbers. Pete has been catching regularly in the twenties and thirties, Jennie in smaller but regular numbers while  Kevin and Gareth have had several catches in the 40's with one fabulous morning at Great Bridgeford where they caught 88!!

Gareth finally managed to catch a troublesome but tiny male Sparrowhawk:_

It may be small but a powerful and efficient predator nonetheless.

Liz is the latest of our trainees to get her ringing licence, and she enjoyed her first solo garden ringing session this morning. She ringed a few House Sparrows, all of which were males like this smart individual

Kevin has been ringing at his (almost) city centre site at the Racecourse which regularly turns up exciting and interesting birds. The latest is this rather plain but special Chiffchaff:-

'Normal' Chiffchaffs are variously greeny/grey/ brown with brown legs and yellow soles to the feet,  whereas this is very pale grey above, white below with black legs and feet. It's a Siberian Chiffchaff of which there have been quite a lot around the country over recent weeks. I wonder how it's feeling based in Wolverhampton?

Kev has also started catching Yellowhammers at Patshull ( so far) which is giving him the opportunity to start his colour ringing project to find out more about this farmland species. Here is a Yellowhammer with a normal metal ring on its right leg and a plastic colour ring on it's left leg with engraved letters and numbers on:-

The aim here is that birders -especially if they have a telescope-can read the colour ring in the field so we can collect data without having to recapture the bird.

Finches can be quite difficult to catch but Paul is persisting manfully against the weather gods and is steadily building up numbers of particularly Linnets

Jen, Col, Sam, Shaun and Tom have been out with the thermal imager on a few nights even though the moon is quite bright and they have started catching good numbers of Skylark--Jen and Sam were well pleased a couple of nights ago to also catch their first two Woodcock of this season, recently arrived from who knows where in north eastern Europe or Asia.

More news next week!

 

 

So much activity!!

 Team members are really stepping up to the plate to make the best of a settled period of weather, with sometimes up to 4 teams out and about on any given day. As a consequence we are ringing lots of birds --mainly Redwing as mentioned in the last post--but also a range of other special birds.

Here is yet another Sparrowhawk--this time showing the juvenile characteristics mentioned lately--which compare well with the adult type shown last time,

The eyes on this bird are turning orange--but the breast and belly have arrowhead type markings rather than bars--and the wing feathers are all edged buff--all juvenile features.

This is a male Blackcap which is a warbler--so why isn't it in southern Europe/North Africa given that it's November. Well over the last twenty or so years there have been increasing numbers of Blackcaps wintering in the UK. Ringing studies suggest that they are NOT 'our' birds but they come from eastern Europe to exploit the warmer temperatures here-along with good food provided by gardens in the form of berry bearing plants and things like fat balls.

This is a great portrait of a male Blackcap with a black cap. But more careful study shows it to be a juvenile bird because of the bits of brown plumage in the cap which are the remnants of the feathers it had when it left the nest.

Farmland birds are really under the microscope at the moment and one such species of concern is the Yellowhammer. Fortunately the farms we work with are doing lots to support this species and we ring quite good numbers. This was Kevin's first session at this farm and he ringed a pleasing 7 individuals.

Close examination of this bird shows that all the wing feathers are of the same generation, showing it to be an adult ( ie more than one year old)--and the relatively small amount of yellow is because it's a female. Juvenile females have virtually no bright yellow on them at all.

The weather looks reasonable for the coming few days so I hope to report lots of good birds next time!

Back in Action

 Apologies for the lack of posts recently but I've been away on a couple of holidays and playing catch-up ever since. Things are getting back to normal and November has got off to a belting start.

I posted a while ago that Redwings had started to reach us from breeding sites far to the north and east--and for a few days we managed to catch good numbers. Then it almost stopped----puzzling. As a guide, during the recent past few years, Pete would catch between 30 and 50 Redwing every morning. This year it's been 10-20! Until these last few days when it has been obvious that a second major wave of these--and the first Fieldfares, has arrived; and as a result the catch rate as increased considerably. We have ringed over 200 in the first few days of November. One of the issues we have when ringing Redwings is that they attract predators-mainly in the form of Sparrowhawks. I have previously shown pictures of very young Sparrowhawks with pale yellow eyes and arrowhead shaped brown splodges ( technical term!!??) on their breast and belly. But here are a couple of pictures of an almost adult male with orange eyes, orange breast and bars rather than splodges:-

We've also started our thermal imaging activities during the day for Jack Snipe, and at night mainly for Skylarks, Grey Partridge and Woodcock ( the latter of which have just arrived).

One very interesting aspect came out during our session a couple of days ago. For starters we ringed 7 new Patridges which is a really high number--but most intriguing were 3 birds which appeared to have only just left the nest. Here is the head of one showing the dappled crown pattern with the buffy cream coloured cheeks only just starting to appear:-

Lots of other activities going on--more later.......

 

 

A Team Day

 Today we had teams out in several venues:- Kev and Gareth on their final day on Shetland; Pete and Paul at Chillinton; Sam and Tom at Belvide; Pat, Shaun and Col at the Jubilee Wood demo and Paul and Sam at BPF.

Kev and Gareth had a quiet last day but the previous night managed Common Snipe

and Jack Snipe--see how much shorter the Jack bill is below:-

Back home Redwings have been arriving -sometimes in big numbers so we have been trying to catch them. The first picture is of the underwing patch which gives this bird its name--but is it really red?? I'll leave you to decide....

The next two pictures show how we age this species as juveniles:-

First by the wing--in a juvenile bird there are pale tips on some of the feathers which are not on adult wings. And the tail feathers are pointed not rounded as in an adult

am had a very nice surprise at BPF with a young buzzard--a bird we catch very few of--very impressive!!

Earlier in the day, Sam had another nice surprise with a second Cetti's warbler of the year at Belvide. The picture he took provides an excellent view of the key points of what this species looks like

Overall the team ringed 95 new birds this morning of a good range of species including 33 Redwing, 18 Linnet, 9 Goldfinch, 4 each Song Thrush and Goldcrest plus Buzzard and Cettis Warbler

More from our next sessions

 

Finch Fest for the Aged Members......plus more stuff

 Our BP farm has a good strip of seed rich cover crop which is attracting good numbers of finches-mainly Linnet-at present. The three ancient members of our team-Pete, Paul and I have managed to devise quite a good technique for catching them and in two catches over the last few days, we have ringed over 50 birds. Linnet is a red data species so we're very happy to report to farmer Tim that his cover crop is working well for endangered species. At this time of year, Linnets form feeding flocks and like most other finch species the males have very subdued colours in order not to create aggression within the flock. Here is a picture of an adult male:-

As you can see ( or rather can't see) there is no beautiful pink/red on the breast as in the breeding season. But if you look carefully at arrow 2 you can see a feather with red on it--but the outer part of the feather-which is what we see-there is a buff edge which in effect hides the colour. This buff edge wears off during the winter to reveal the red in the spring just in time for breeding--clever!!

Arrow 1 shows a small whitish rod at the bend of the wing which is the sheath through which this flight feather is growing. Only adult birds replace their flight feathers at this time of year, so this along with the tail feather shape:-

You can see all the tail feathers have rounded tips-confirming this as an adult bird.

Along with Linnets, there are good numbers of Goldfinch and Greenfinch. This picture is of an adult male Greenfinch:-

It's a male because of all the green and bright yellow on the wings, tail and belly--and an adult because of the tail shape as in the Linnet--all the feathers are round ended.

Meanwhile, Kev and Gareth are still catching some quality birds on Shetland. This is a Redwing, newly arrived from Scandinavia and points east. We have heard that Redwings have just arrived in the Midlands overnight so I hope to report decent catches over the next few weeks.

Finally for now, thermal imaging of Skylarks is underway again with three visits over recent weeks leading to around 40 new birds being ringed and 7 already ringed birds being re-trapped. More news on these soon.......

Jacks are Back!!

 Today saw our first survey of wintering Jack Snipe at our special site. We saw 11 Common Snipe and 3 Jack Snipe--these latter are, we hope, the first push of these delightful little waders into the UK from their breeding grounds much further north and east. 

We managed to catch one.......

This turned out to be an adult bird AND it was carrying a ring that we had put on in March 2020. This is a little more evidence of both the value of this site; and the consistency with which the same birds can use such sites year after year. We hope to carry more reports of this species as the winter moves in.

Yesterday I talked about the hard work that Kev was putting in for average rewards up in Shetland. It looks like the arrival of son Gareth has changed fortunes a bit. They had a great day birding yesterday seeing some special birds--and today the nets provided yet another superb species.

This fabulous ball of white fluff is an Arctic Redpoll. Lots of white, with slightly pink cheeks and a small beak that looks like its been 'pushed in'. There's quite a bit of debate about whether there is just one species of Redpoll with different races--or whether there are several species. DNA analysis seems to favour the former--but current ringing/recording rules suggest using the latter--confusing or what? So I'm pretty sure this will be recorded as an Arctic Redpoll and the scientists can fight out their differences....

Well done boys--hope there are more special birds in the coming days.

Uneven start to October

 This year has been brilliant so far for the group-and in some ways it still is; but the domestic scene is suffering a bit from team members strutting their stuff elsewhere!! I'm as guilty as anyone having taken team members away to our successful Portugal trip. Jenni is still having a great time ( we assume ?!) on the island of Skokholm, Kevin has been on Shetland for two weeks and has just been joined by son Gareth for a third week, and currently Sam is in Suffolk on a family holiday. So we are a bit short of active ringers--while our resident active ringers have not been having the best of luck either with the weather or the number of birds available to ring.

Pete is eagerly awaiting the arrival of Redwings from Scandinavia. Between now and late December he regularly catches several hundred of these birds in Chillington. He thought the birds had started to arrive a couple of days ago when he caught two--but the passage has dried up again. I'm sure it won't be too long before I will be reporting on some good catches from him.

Paul has been working on the feeding stations at Brewood Park --and just today he's finally hit on a method for catching the good flock of Linnet that are feeding on a cover crop grown by the farmer. Linnet numbers have been falling in the UK so these are interesting birds to catch. Here is a picture of a fairly drab juvenile female:-

Even adult males are quite drab at this time of year as their bright red breast and forehead is disguised by the buff tips of the feathers to avoid aggression between birds in their winter feeding flocks.

Ageing is reasonably easy by both feather shape-- as in the picture 

These are typically pointed juvenile tail feathers although you can see that this bird has already moulted in its new adult type central tail feathers which are much more rounded.

The greater coverts on the wing are also a sign. The yellow bar shows three outer greater coverts which are unmoulted juvenile feathers with lighter tips and edges -as well as being shorter.

Kevin is putting in long days on Shetland but although he has caught a decent number of birds, he hasn't yet connected with any of the rare birds which are on the islands at the moment. He's also been hampered by the pretty awful weather with lots of rain and gale force winds. Let's hope he gets a bit more luck this week. His best bird has been a Scandinavian finch called a Brambling which had already ringed in Spain--we haven't yet got the full story

Adult males like this one are absolute stunners!!

We must give a mention to Ben who has had a superb season at his new Witches Oak site--and who is keen to develop his and the groups experience by trying to ring some wildfowl. He put in a sterling effort during the night last Thursday and wa really unlucky when several birds including Widgeon, Snipe and Green Sandpiper all managed to get out of the nets before he could get to them. Plans are in hand to rectify this!!

Finally a mention of the stellar performance of trainee Tom as the netter at one of our early season thermal imaging sessions at BPF for Skylarks. We managed to catch 19 birds of which 5 were already carrying rings--details on these are being investigated and I'll report them soon.

Finally, Pat reports the appearance of the first few Siskin in his garden--let's hope he attracts the same large floks as last year!

Good luck to all team members over the coming autumn/winer season--I know  their efforts will be rewarded!!   

 

Jolly Boys on Tour

 Apologies for the lack of posts recently but four of us plus four from other teams made a last minute decision to continue with our planned, annual ringing trip to the Algarve at a well-known golf venue-Vilamoura. This was our 15th visit, during which time w have worked closely with both the Portuguese ringing scheme and the authorities of the Parque Ambientale. Our results are demonstrating what an important area the Parque is for migrant birds to stop off and refuel before flying across the sea to spend the winter in Africa.

I won't go into great detail here, but the following table will give you an idea of the importance of the area via both the numbers of birds we ringed, and the range of species. Ben was in the vanguard and managed two days of ringing--the follow-up team managed another 6 full days-after spending a good day and a half clearing out the two years growth of brambles and other vicious plants which had obscured our netting sites;

My first time on the brush cutter--Simon/Scott-please come back next year!!

 So 8 days of ringing produced:-

In short almost 1300 birds of 51 different species!! What a great effort--and worth all the faffing about with testing and passenger locator forms ( what a nightmare they are..)

We had a national rarity in the third ever Common Rosefinch ever ringed in Portugal ( our group ringed the first two about ten years ago). It's probably one of Europe's most boring looking birds in juvenile plumage-as this one was; although the bright scarlet plumage of adult males is stunning--

One other new ( non bird ) species we saw for the first time were a couple of wild boar--you can just about make it out in the picture

They can be quite aggressive when startled or when protecting young--and they can easily demolish mist nets without blinking so we will need to keep an eye out for these over the coming years.

I've decided not to put any more text--rather just show you some pictures of the birds we caught which you may not be too familiar with:-

Adult male Bluethroat

Melodious Warbler

Juvenile male Ortolan Bunting

Quail

Male Spanish Sparrow

Subalpine Warbler

Blue Headed Yellow Wagtail

Wryneck

So we all returned safe, tired and very happy--ready to continue with Autumnal ringing projects back home--more of which soon.

Kevin is out on a small island in Shetland for the second time this year--he's putting in a lot of graft but the strong wind and heavy rain are thwarting his efforts. However, he's still a couple more weeks to go and he'll have support for the last week from son Gareth when he joins him--good luck both--I'll post any results they get.