All good things come to an end!!

 Today was our last scheduled visit of the post breeding/migration ringing sessions at Belvide for 2022. We had a great turnout and 9 guests joined us to see some of the last catch. Everyone had a great time with plenty of regular species to show; with this little beauty as a bonus!!

This is a juvenile Stonechat, and it just happens to be the first of this species that we have ringed at Belvide--great stuff, yet another new species for the project.

In case you are under the impression that this means our activities will slow down.....they won't!! You will be hearing soon about other activities more related to Autumn and Winter birding. But for the next few days, most of the team will be taking part in our annual ringing amp in Vilamoura in the Algarve region of Portugal. It's a tough life ( Norway a couple of weeks ago--now Portugal)--but someone's got to do it......I'll try to get some blogs out to you showing some of the stunning species we will be ringing out there.......

Mainly about Mipits......

 Much action again this week, with over 250 new birds ringed. Most of these have been Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs, typical autumn migrants making their way to southern Europe for winter rather than southern Africa.

However, another intriguing species is starting to come through in good numbers-Meadow Pipits ( or mipits for short!!). Intriguing because we're not absolutely sure where they come from--or where they go. To add to the problem, they are quite a challenge to age ( we can't sex them as males and females look alike). I have tried below to show the key features of tail and wing feathers to help ageing--only up to one year old as is the case for most small birds.

First the wing.....here is an adult wing, where all the feathers have the adult feature of broad buff edges to most of the non-flight feathers.....

Compared to this juvenile wing where many of the feathers show juvenile much lighter coloured tips

This juvenile is quite easy to age, however, many show sometimes only a few juvenile feathers in amongst adult ones so you need to look very carefully.

Moving now to the tail, first an adult tail with all rounded broad feathers......

Again, this compares with a juvenile tail with mostly narrow, often pointed feathers.....

Finally, birds quite often show anomalies in their feathers and tis mipit had patches of white feathers in the head--quite confusing for the unsuspecting......

Back in the Groove

 Although it's always exciting to go abroad and sample new ringing experiences--it's always great to be back on home turf. And the hectic pace we have set continues with over 500 new birds ringed in the first 19 days of September! The numbers include a good catch by Gareth at his Dairy Farm, including 2 Lesser Whitethroat, 17 Blackcap and a Cetti's warbler.

The team has been active at Belvide with a couple of 100+ catches by the team even when stretched in numbers of personnel available-thanks to Kev, Glynn and Roy!! As usual there were a couple of slightly different species to increase interest and provide our trainees with new challenges,

New trainee Roy was very pleased and surprised to be able to get up close and personal with his first Kingfisher. This is a male as can be seen by the black lower mandible of the beak, which would have had  patch of red if it had been a female.

A less glamourous but very important new species for him was this Spotted Flycatcher...

As you can see--fairly nondescript--the light tips to some wing feathers show it's a juvenile--species. However, we always appreciate these because they have diminished in numbers by a massive percentage over recent years--at least some are successful thank goodness!!

Blackcaps, as expected continue to dominate in the catch as big numbers gather to gorge themselves on the abundant supply of Elderberry and Bramble fruits. They use these to build up their fat reserves in preparation for their southerly migration.

Paul has been active and had been concentrating on hirundines ( swallows and martins)--in two ways.

First he and Pete, have been experimenting with catching Barn Swallows as they go to roost. 

Here's an adult male with a red throat and long tail streamers...most of the birds we catch at this time of year are juveniles with no or short streamers, and light brown throat patches. 

Paul is now getting much success at sewage treatment works on cool damp mornings. He recently caught over 60 birds in a couple of hours--most of which were House Martins, ......

Teams will be out regularly over the coming week--so more news soon. But to round up this report we have had some great news about one of the Grey Heron chicks we colour ringed back in May. We have had very little information over many years about the movements of our young Herons, but AT LAST, one of the colour ringed birds has been seen in Lancashire at the Marin Mere reserve!. We await further details from the observer, but we didn't expect our birds to travel so far. More details when I get them.