Great effort team!

 There's only a month of 2023 left. It's been a difficult year on many levels, and the weather hasn't helped, so Pete and I were really chuffed this week to find that our group has managed to pass the 6000 new birds ringed for the year. This is way down on out recent pear totals--but it has been difficult so we are really pleased.

Emma, chipped in this week with a session at here Dudley Zoo site, and on Saturday Kevin managed to ring 12 Redwing......he's not done any sessions since then, but I fear they may have been his last Redwing of the year. This morning Pete, Roy and I were out trying for Redwing, and our combined total was.......ONE (!!!!).

Yesterday we ran a very successful demo again for the folks at Jubilee Wood reserve and managed a very welcome catch of, among other things, 28 Goldfinches and a male Blackcap!! These are great events which get the community involved, and bring the members of the group together for a very enjoyable morning.

Gareth has not had much chance to get out recently--but he's been planning for the future by putting up this Barn Owl nest box.....fingers crossed!

We're all on high alert for Waxwings as they filter south and west ( we hope). Gareth had an encouraging sight outside his house on Saturday, with this bird on the wires....

Not a brilliant pic but no question what it is. Again--fingers crossed for Gareth for more.....

We've been running regular sessions at a local education trust site for the last few years, and this morning we had a fairly modest catch--but it gave us a chance to provide some interesting pics--we hope!!??

It's encouraging to see a few more Greenfinches at feeding stations. This is a male as can be seen by the amount of yellow in the wing and tail ( see next pic)--and yellow on the belly. Ageing Greenfinch can be tricky and several features should be examined before making a decision.....

First the shape of the tail feathers...

You can see the wide yellow making it male--but the shape of each feather looks quite wide and rounded at the tip--which is an adult feature.... but is that a pointed feather near the centre? 

Now lets have a close look at the wing....the greater coverts (1) are grey and green ( adult) with no sign of brown feathers ( juvenile). However, the primary coverts (2) are pointed, and they do not have bright green outer webs, nor are their tips tipped in grey. Finally, the alula (3), is not clean yellow as it would be in an adult. So this is a juvenile bird which has moulted out some of its juvenile feathers--but there are sufficient juvenile feathers still present to give away its age.

Star bird of the day was undoubtedly this female Brambling....

Not as bright as a male--but knowing that this bird has definitely travelled here from northern Scandinavia at least is always fascinating. Two of the features of Brambling which can often be overlooked are shown in this next photo....

The bright lemon yellow where the wing meets the body is stunning--as are the dark blotched on the flanks--both shown well here.

This was a very early Brambling in our experience so we are hoping it means there are lots more about--lets hope!!

Church Farm coming to the fore

 Redwing numbers have remained low again this week, along with most other birds. Here are a couple of pictures from this morning which show how to age Redwings--and which are sometimes visible in the field.....

This bird has a white patch at the end of a tertial feather ( blue arrow) which is a juvenile feature. Often there are more feathers with these tips on. The shape of the tail feathers is also key as can be seen (just!!) in this awful picture!!

It is a rubbish picture but you can make out how each feather is pointed--making it juvenile--adult tail feathers are broad and round.

Aside from Redwings, team members have been pushing on with other species too, and we reached an important milestone today when we passed 6,000 birds ringed this year. This is quite a few less than recent years but it's been a difficult year with several obstacles getting in the way of us ringing as many birds as normal.

However, we continue to develop our relationships with our farm managers. I've posted several times about Tim at Brewood Park Farm, but we have also been working closely with Michael at Church Farm. Michael is working closely with Tim on developing a no till approach and his farm is becoming another rich source of birds. And just like Tim, he really appreciates the results we provide to him.

When conditions allow, we try to do a couple of ringing sessions at a feeding station a week, and a thermal imaging session once a week. This week saw us ring the first Woodcock of the season, as well as providing Michael with totals of the species we saw in his fields, and at the feeding station.

Being set in a small hamlet, and with what looks like a healthy population of House Sparrows--we are hoping to set up a project to study the movements of House Sparrows in the village. We are about to see how many of the village community want to take part in the project--which will involve us putting coloured plastic rings on the sparrows' legs in combinations which will make them individually identifiable without us needing to catch them. We are putting on a demonstration of bird ringing for the village on Saturday 2nd December where we will also be able to explain the project in a bit more detail----looking forward to it!!   More details about this as things develop.

Where are they??

 I'm referring again to Redwings. Team members have again been putting in the hours with little reward--most upsetting has been the lack of flocks flying about. Speaking with friends in Cumbria and the east midlands suggested that for some weird reason, there are lots of Redwing to the north of us but few here or to the south of us--not something that we have been aware of in the past.

However, Kevin seems to be bucking our overall trend and in the last two days he's ringed over 50 Redwing at his Racecourse site, which is within touching distance of Wolverhampton city centre!! At this morning's visit he also had a Blackcap. Well done Kev.

Speaking of Blackcap--we had an interesting report of one of our birds this week....

This is the computer generated report which we get for any ringed bird found again. If you look carefully you'll see that this Blackcap was ringed by us at Belvide, as a juvenile bird on 12th August this year. By now we would expect our Blackcaps to be at or well on their way to wintering sites in southern Europe or North Africa. For some strange reason this bird has flown almost due EAST, and as of 12th October it was caught by a ringer in Holland!! Maybe it's going to spend the winter in northern Europe--but to date most of the wintering birds have been from Eastern Europe---another conundrum for us!!

The season for spending evenings scouring farm fields with our thermal imagers for birds. We have had some success, the most significant being our first Woodcock of the season at Brewood Park Farm. They are wonderful birds...

It's unlikely that you would be able to see this next feature in the field, but one of the ageing criteria can be seen in this next picture. The feathers pointed at are the primary coverts. On all of these feathers of this bird there are small buff coloured tips. This makes this bird a juvenile--had the tips been white, it would have been an adult.

Just before I sat down to write this blog, group member Liz circulated a message from rare bird alert that a flock of 20 Waxwings had been seen at nearby Chasewater. We are now on alert with everything crossed that more will come our way; several of us have got our eyes on some small Rowan plantations because Waxwings love their berries...........

Struggling a bit!

 Normally by this time of year we are building up really big numbers of Redwings--as I have mentioned in previous years. But for some reason this year is different. Team members are putting in the hours, but there are fewer birds around-where we would be expecting to ring 50 or so per day, the numbers currently are nearer5-10 per day. We will have to wait for the annual BTO report on ringing to see if this is part of a national trend or something local.

One of the species which we are ringing good numbers of is Goldcrest. Many of these birds will be UK breeders--but our wintering population is bolstered by lots of migrants from Scandinavia--birds which would starve though lack of insects in the cold north. I though you might like to see an interesting sexual difference in plumage.....

Here is the top of the head of a bird caught this morning--showing why perhaps it's called a Goldcrest. All females have a head colour like this with a yellow stripe down the centre of the crown.

However, if the yellow feathers are parted and the crown then looks like this....

The golden orange feathers underneath show that this bird is in fact a male. When in the breeding season, male Goldcrests can part the crown feathers and erect the orange ones to display to the females--pretty cool....

We have also been hearing about an influx of Coal Tits from the continent also. This bird is a UK bred individual as can be seen by some of the buff tones on the flanks and on the back....

Continental birds are much greyer on the back. Also note the very marked white stripe on the back of the head which is typical of Coal Tit. The following picture shows how we age this species....

We need to look carefully at the greater covert feathers which are those above the coloured lines. You can see that the feathers above the red line are almost black in their centre--these are adult type feathers which have been moulted in over recent months. However, those above the yellow line have lighter centres--these are juvenile feathers showing that this is a bird hatched this year. Have a look on your  feeders--it's very difficult to see in the field especially as Coal Tits typically fly on and off the feeders very quickly--so good luck!!