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.