A New Site; New Hope

 After a while of positive negotiations, Gareth spent a few hours this morning at a new site. In fact this disused sand quarry was one of our sites when it was active, and it had an active Sand Martin colony. Once the quarry was de-commissioned, plans have been put in place to convert to site into a nature reserve--and Gareth is in at the start to see how this develops.

With any new site it takes time to find out the best places for birds--and of course these will change as the vegetation develops. So this morning's modest but varied catch was encouraging. This Chiffchaff was one of the birds he caught:-

The cool damp conditions were conducive to hirundines ( Swallows and Martins) flying low, and he caught a couple of House Martins and this Sand Martin:-

ID features of Sand Martins are the brown and white, with a brown breast band which shows well in this picture. What doesn't show is the fact that the bird was already ringed--and when the ring was checked we found it was one we ringed at the same site as a recently hatched bird at the colony there 5 years ago! 

We all wish Gareth good luck at the site and look forward to reports from the site in future.

Ageing birds

 We are still increasing the number of birds ringed this year, with feeding stations still continuing to attract a few birds, with some Summer visiting warblers beginning to show up. 

Last week we also paid a first visit of the year to our Grey Heron colony to ring the chicks with normal metal rings and larger more easily read in the field plastic rings. We were a body short on the team which meant we had no-one to take photographs--but we hope there will be some form what we hope will be a second visit soon.

Meanwhile, here's a reminder of some of the feathers we examine in order to age a bird as 'juvenile'-ie hatched sometime in 2022, and 'adult' ie hatched sometime before 2022.

These two Greenfinch illustrate the point very well:-

This is the tail of an adult -the feathers are rounded and the ends are black with grey edgings. Compare this to a juvenile tail:-

The feathers arenot as black, and the tips are pointed with only a narrow grey edge.

The wings of the same two birds-first the adult:-

The greater coverts (1) are all the same generation, as are the primary coverts (2) which are rounded, green outer edged and tipped with grey. The alula, (3), is bright yeallow.

Now the juvenile wing:-

The outer4 greater coverts (1) are a different shape and colour ( juvenile) from the inner ones. The primary coverts (2)don't have a green outer web or tipped grey; and the alula (3) is mainly grey rather than yellow.

If you look carefully you can pick out most of these features with careful study.

 

Siskin City Update

 Team member Pat lives in mid Wales, and over recent years he has found that his garden feeding station is incredibly popular with birds--especially small finches called Siskins. They breed in the surrounding conifer woodlands--but during winter their numbers are swelled by influxes from elsewhere in the UK and almost certainly from Europe.

Pat is getting to know when birds are likely to appear in big numbers--generally after wet weather. We assume that wet conditions somehow prevent the birds from getting at their natural food--seeds of Alder and Birch trees.

Pat sent us a note today to say that he was catching well, and I just happened to ask what his numbers were since the start of 2023. When he downloaded the data even he was surprised--in a good way!

He has ringed ( using only 1 net in his garden) 642 new birds of 18 species!! To give you an idea about the importance of Siskin--they accounted for 564 of the total--incredible!

What's also very interesting is that of the 564 Siskin, 526 of them were juvenile birds. The next picture shows how we can tell juvenile Siskins from Adults......

There are several clues in this picture but perhaps the two most obvious have been labelled. Label 1 shows 2 white tipped ( ie juvenile feathers) within the median/lesser coverts. These have not yet been replaced by greeny/yellow tipped adult feathers like the others.

Similarly, label 2shows 4 greater coverts again white tipped and therefore juvenile unlike the green tipped inner greater coverts which are adult type.

Within the Siskin are small numbers ( but increasing according to Pat) of another small finch- Lesser Redpoll. These finches get their name from the old English for ''red head''. However, over the years we have noticed that within the population there are individuals with a mutation of the red colouring mechanism--instead it produces a yellow gold colour; like this one...

We call these '' gold tops'' which will only mean anything but the obvious to readers over a certain age--this was the name we as kids used for the full cream milk which had gold tops on the bottles.

Well done Pat--I'm sure there are plenty more out there just waiting for a ring...... 

 

HOW A WINTER FEED PROGRAMME CAN HELP FARMLAND BIRDS

 

Many of us help birds through the lean winter months by putting out food in our gardens, but the farmland finches and buntings rarely visit garden feeders unless they are in very rural areas. As the winter merges into spring, many birds find it difficult to get enough food. Perhaps strangely, finches and buntings have a particularly difficult time. There are a few reasons. Most significant is the fact that their prime natural food source—ie seeds are in short supply. Lots of birds have been feeding on those plants that still have seeds on them, and most seeds left over in the fields  after harvesting have been eaten. During spring at places at latitudes such as the UK experience mass movements of birds including finches making their way north and east to breed. This put even more strain on scarce supplies of seed. Furthermore, during early spring although the weather is warming, there are often extreme fluctuations and regular frosts; again increasing the demand for food to enable the birds to maintain their body heat and hence their wellbeing. Partly as a result of these factors, and others, many of these species are declining in large enough numbers to be classified as Red Data species, which are deemed to be particularly vulnerable and in need of help. With this very much in mind, Tim at Brewood Park Farm signed up to the Winter Supplementary Feed Programme to see what he could do to provide some help for some of these Red Data, and other species.

 

So which species are we talking about? Here are some of them.

 

 

 

This is a male Linnet

	This is a male Brambling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      This is a female Yellowhammer

 

                                                                                                            

   This is a female Reed Bunting

 

Two years ago, Tim purchased a mechanical seed feeder ( see below) which proved to be successful, so ahead of winter 22/23 he bought two more. All 3 are placed at various areas around the farm-near hedgerows so the birds can fly to and from the feeding area from safe cover.

 

 

The three main benefits of these seed feeders are:-

-- they only need to be topped up with seed once a week so easy to maintain,

-- the timer can be set to replenish seed whenever needed,

-- the spin mechanism spreads the seed out over a large area.

It’s fascinating watching birds gather on the nearby hedges and telegraph wires ahead of the time the spinner is due to spread seed!! 

How successful have these spinners been? We have a lot of data on this but perhaps focussing on data from March 2023 will illustrate the benefit.

We ran 6 ringing sessions at the feeding stations during March. Unfortunately we weren’t able to run any more sessions because of unsuitable weather. Nevertheless, we managed to ring...

177 Linnets (red data)

12 Brambling

44 Reed Buntings

25 Yellowhammer (red data)

14 Chaffinch

Although these are impressive totals, they represent only a fraction of the total numbers of each of these species actually SEEN at the feeding stations. We believe that the Yellowhammers are probably resident birds either nesting on the farm or in the near vicinity. The other species are probably passage migrants since few are seen on the farm during the breeding season. Daily counts show that for Linnet in most days the flock was in the hundreds, Chaffinches and Reed Buntings up to a hundred, and Brambling 20+. Of course, it is impossible to know from day to day how many of these are the same birds as they are actively moving through, as shown by the very small number of birds recaptured This suggests that the total number of birds benefitting from the supplementary feed is likely to be in the thousands.

Having seen such success at his farm, Tim is now wanting to persuade other farmers to get involved in this Winter Feed Programme. He gives regular talks to farmers and agricultural specialists at home and abroad on "no till" farm management and its benefits to wildlife and birds in particular. He will be using the results from his winter feeding success to show others what can be achieved.

From our perspective as birders and ringers, as always it is and big ‘thank you’ to the land owners at Brewood Park Farm and Tim for the interest and enthusiasm and it particular the provision of the mechanical seed feeders.