'' I walked behind with me old cock Linnet''-----

---so goes the old Cockney song from back in the day when Linnets and other common finch species were regularly kept as caged birds by lots of people. Here's a close up of the head and breast of a cock Linnet in breeding plumage in case you have never seen one...

You can clearly see the two key features of a pink breast patch and plain grey cheeks. The area of the forehead just above the beak also has some patches of pink but they are often difficult to see as in this bird.

But why post material about Linnets? Well, we really are in the last throes of the winter feeding stations as birds gradually disperse and concentrate on breeding. But for some reason however, one of our farms is still attracting good numbers of Linnets which don't seem ready to breed. We only managed 3 short sessions this week because of unfavourable weather conditions but we still managed to ring 58 new Linnets along with 4 more Yellowhammers ( bringing this winters total of Yellowhammers to almost 100), 3 Great tits plus one each of Goldfinch, Reed Bunting, Chiffchaff, Robin and House Sparrow.

The total of Linnets ringed at this one site over recent weeks is now an incredible 137 and the lack of retrapped birds suggests that there is a constant flow of birds through the site. We just hope we can get some recoveries of our birds to give us some idea as to where they are travelling to in order to breed.

I mentioned we caught another 4 Yellowhammers and just had to show this picture of an adult male caught this week:-

There are two reasons for showing this picture. First they are gorgeous looking birds so why not show it!? But second, regular readers will have read me banging on about adult finches and buntings having muted colours on the outer edges of their feathers during winter in order to reduce aggression between males especially. These outer edges wear off as we move into spring revealing the bright breeding colours lower down the feathers--and that's beautifully illustrated by this bird. You can still see some dull feather edges round the head, but most have worn off showing this stunning yellow head to warn off other males and attract females--brilliant!! 

 

What do recoveries really tell us?

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that we had caught a Brambling at a farm feeding site, which had been ringed originally in Norway. Since then we have had details back from the Norwegian ringing scheme.

The bird was ringed as a male hatched in spring/summer 2020, and ringed on 10th October almost in the southern tip of Norway. We can say that because Brambling don't breed in that area, that this was a bird which had been raised much further north ( and probably east) --and was on it's autumn migration to warmer south western parts.

164 days later on 23 March 2021, Paul caught the bird at the farm feeder. No Bramblings had been seen at the farm all winter so it is safe to assume that our bird had spent the winter further south and was stopping off to feed up on its way back to Norway or wherever it had been raised.

The ringing records will now show a bird recaptured 164 days after original ringing and 845 km from it's original ringing site. Now this is all great information and data that we wouldn't have had were it not for ringing. But it also shows shortcomings--we don't know where the bird originally came from; we don't know where it went between ringing and recapture, and we don't know where it will end up, and we don't know how much distance it covered during it's migratory journey.

So, what's to be done? Well two things really. This example shows the need for continuing to ring birds because although this one bird leaves questions--if we take the total number of Brambling which have been ringed and recaptured we can begin to fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge. Indeed this has been one of the great successes of ringing -- large databanks of bird movements which can be analysed to build up a good picture of migratory movements over the last 100+ years since ringing began.

The second thing calls on developments in new technology. Satellite tracking is developing at pace but as yet the most informative devices are too large ( and costly!) for use with the smaller birds.  However, I'm sure this will change fairly soon and the prospect of attaching these trackers to small birds and following their movements in detail and in real time will be an absolute thrill and a massive game changer--bring it on!!

The team goes March-ing on........

 I've just been reviewing progress in March 2021, and it's fair to say that I've been really impressed by the success that we have had. One of our key priorities is training new ringers--but to do so we need good totals of birds so that trainees get plenty of practice.

We ringed just over 900 birds, of 34 different species during March--thereby providing our smashing trainees with plenty to keep them going. This has been even more important given that lock-down arrangements have meant access to training events for most trainees has been difficult to say the least.

Rather than set out a potentially tedious list of all our species caught-I thought it might be better to take each active team member and briefly set out their highlights:-

I have mentioned Pat quite a lot recently mainly because his rural Welsh garden feeders have played host to lots of birds including many Siskin. This has continued during March at what Pat now calls  ''Siskin City'' returning a total of 179 Siskin plus a good supporting cast including 44 Goldfinch.

Like Pat, Jenni has recently achieved her 'C' permit and is using it enthusiastically, with several farmland and garden feeders on her patch. One garden feeder in particular has begun to attract good numbers of Siskin, and Jen has ringed 73 plus 41 Goldfinch. In her small home garden she managed to catch a beast of a bird as shown below:-

Woodpigeons are beefy birds which often simply roll out of mist nets so not too many actually get caught ( certainly compared to the number of them there are around!!). Novel species like this provide a welcome variation from the many many Blue and Great tits we catch....

Gareth has had his licence for a bit longer, and he is pressing ahead trying out some new sites. He has been rewarded, not by large numbers of birds--but by some quality in having the group's first migrant Blackcap and Chiffchaff on return from their winter quarters either in southern

Europe or north Africa.

Kevin is an experienced ringer and is pushing on with some new sites also. One garden in particular is showing great promise for the future even though it's been a bit late for him to start this winter. He has ringed 25 Siskin there but the most significant species has been the 6 Brambling he's ringed. The garden is part of a mature woodland with some ancient Beech trees. Brambling love beechmast so we are hoping in future years ( especially when there is a good beechmast crop) Kev will catch more of this splendid migrant finch which I featured in a recent post.

At the other end of the experience scale, Paul has been ringing for almost 40 years!! For those of us who are a bit long in the tooth, new kit, new trainees and new species all help to keep us enthusiastic. This no more evident than at Paul's main farm site, where he installed with the support of the farm manager a ''spinner'' continuous feed dispenser:-

You can see the seed hopper at the top and the small motor at the bottom with a spinner device between the two. It's also pretty 'green' --you can see the small solar panel to keep the mechanism working. The regular supply of seed has attracted good numbers of birds, and Paul has managed, by regular visits, to ring 108 Linnets, 84 Yellowhammer, 33 Goldfinch, 24 Chaffinch and 24 Reed Bunting, among other species. It's given all us old timers a boost!! 

 

 

108 Not Out !!

 Team members have been hard at it over recent weeks, as I will report next--but for now I'd like to share with you our success with one species in particular-the Linnet. This is a small finch which was commonly kept as a cage bird back in the day, and one which as a group we have rarely handled in the past. However, one of our farm feeding sites has attracted a regular feeding flock and during the last few weeks we have managed to ring a substantial total of 108 Linnets!! And when I visited the feeder yesterday afternoon, there was a group of 20+ still actively feeding.

What is intriguing is where these birds are headed. There isn't any suitable breeding habitat on the farm ( this species love nesting in gorse bushes), so they must be feeding up ready for a movement to breeding grounds elsewhere. Very few of the birds are in breeding plumage-but here is an adult male which is ready to breed:-

As you can see it is a male which has a bright red breast, and a grey head. Most of the males we have been catching are juveniles ( less that one full year old), and they have not yet aquired their full breeding colours. But this next picture illustrates a more general point -especially about the way finches and buntings finally get their breeding colours:-

This young male has actually grown breast feathers which are red--but the tips of the feathers are white-why? Well most finches form gregarious feeding flocks during the winter, and juvenile ( males especially) have pale tips to many of their feathers to hide the underlying colour, to reduce aggression between males. As the Spring wears on, so these pale tips wear off to expose the colour and -hey presto!!, let breeding behaviour commence!

Just a couple of pictures to show some other features. Males and females are easy to tell apart in breeding plumage because the females don't have the red breast, but in winter plumage they are a bit more tricky. However, the colour of the wings when folded are a really good clue, as you can see in the following picture:-

The bird on the left is a male with a russet brown back, the female on the right has a streaked, grey brown back.

Finally ageing can be interesting......However, juvenile birds tend to have pointed tail feathers while adult tail feathers are slightly more rounded. Both can be seen in this picture:-

You can clearly see that most of these feathers are pointed because this is a juvenile bird. However, a closer look at the two outer tail feathers between the fingers, shows a couple of feathers which are subtely more rounded--how come? The likelihood is that somehow the juvenile outer two feathers have been lost and the bird has regrown them  and, as expected they have grown through as adult looking feathers.

More about the rest of the teams recent success soon........

Magnificent ''Mountain Finch'' !!

 My last post centered on Pat's efforts in his garden. Not to be outdone, other team members; notably Paul, Jenni, Gareth and Kevin have been putting in a tremendous effort both for themselves and some of our trainees working within the current rules. Between them they have ringed well over 500 birds at our various feeding stations in the area. They have ringed some excellent species including Yellowhammer, Linnet, Lesser Redpoll, Goldfinch, Siskin and Reed Bunting--but within their catches has been a small number of Brambling. The rest of this blog is devote to this very interesting species.

For those of you not familiar with Brambling, let's have a look at a smart male bird almost in full breeding plumage:-

As you can see, the bird is a finch, and as such it has a generic scientific name of Fringilla- which is the same generic name of one of our commonest finches- the Chaffinch. The specific name of the Brambling is montifringilla- meaning 'mountain finch'. 

So Fringilla montifringilla is the scientific name of the bird we know as the Brambling. But why mountain finch? Well it's a tad misleading-rather than mountain finch it should be thought of as the finch of high latitudes. If you look at a map of the breeding area of this species it shows a very large swathe of Europe and Asia north of a line of latitude starting approximately half way up the west coast of Norway stretching way to the east. Essentially then this bird breeds in northern latitudes, but in most winters, millions of them spread south to find food--they love beech mast. Birds at this time of year are gradually moving back north and can often appear in gardens because natural food is often hard to come by  and gardens offer an easy option. So keep an eye out for Chaffinch sized birds which are essentially orange and black--as you can see in the picture, with a prominent white line down the back -look carefully at the picture.

We have caught a handful of Brambling this year, but Paul hadn't caught any at his feeders--until this morning when one bird of a small group popped into a net. As he extracted it he noticed it was already ringed--and that the ring was unusually on the bird's left leg. It called for spectacles to be donned!! On careful examination back at base, the ring number was recorded as :- EP 21606; but the address to contact was Museum Norway Stavanger !! Brilliant--an adult male as in the picture above, which had been ringed somewhere in Norway and was on its way back. I will post more details when we have had the information back from the Norwegian ringing scheme.

Brambling are relatively easy to sex and age. Females are much less colourful as males as you can see in this bird:-

Ageing is on several plumage features but the following two photos demonstrate the most obvious clues within the tract of feathers we mention a lot in these items--the greater coverts:-

This adult male bird shows greater coverts ( shown within the white bracket) which all have jet glossy black feather centres 

In contrast this juvenile ( less than one year old) male bird shows a clear moult limit as we call it --where the new adult feathers (1) are jet black, whereas the old juvenile coverts which have not yet been moulted out (2) have grey matt centres:-

We're really looking forward to finding out more about our ringed Brambling-of which more soon I hope; and more about our other feeder catching at the weekend.

 

  

Pat off to a flying start!!

 It's great to see any newly qualified ringer really getting to grips with their hobby and making the most of new opportunities. So it is with Pat who got his C permit around Christmas along with settling in to a new home just west of Welshpool. It quickly became apparent that his garden was a bit of a magnet for birds-especially Siskins which have a good population in many parts of Wales. 

In early January the BTO issued guidance which strongly urged all ringers to ring only in your own garden. This meant Blue Tits, Great tits and the odd finch for many of us--but for Pat this was a great time to really get used to ringing a wide range of garden birds on his own. Looking at his monthly ringing totals he has gradually become more confident and currently his garden total for this year stands at 415 new birds of 19 species!!

Of these the most abundant species is Siskin, with a superb 218 ringed. Goldfinch at 22, Starling at 11 and Greenfinch at 10 are a great supporting cast.

Having said that there is a healthy breeding population of Siskin in Wales, there is supporting evidence from what Pat describes as a cold foggy morning in March when along with plenty of un-ringed birds he caught 4 birds which had been ringed elsewhere:-

3 of them had been ringed variously over the last three years within a 25 mile radius of his house. However, the fourth bird had been ringed in June 2017 near Inverness--almost 500 miles away. So, as well as local birds, there is a wide ranging movement of Siskins going on with birds from all over the UK and Europe moving around searching out food sources during late winter--which makes this species such an interesting and exciting one to study.

Pat has also taken some great pictures of Siskins which serve to show how, even in the field it's possible ( given a decent view) to sex them ( quite easy) and age them up to 1 year old ( a bit more tricky). I hope these pictures illustrate the key features for you to try at home--if you have any Siskins feeding of course!

Here is an adult ( more than 1 year old) bird-the white line shows the greater covert feathers which are all yellow tipped

This is a juvenile male bird and the white mark shows that if you look carefully the outer 2 or 3 greater coverts are both shorter than the rest and white tipped

This is a female Siskin--no black cap, not brightly coloured and a streaky breast and belly. The line also shows that the outer group of greater coverts are much shorter than the rest--making this a juvenile female.

This is a slightly trickier bird. The cap is black but the feather tips of the cap are pale and the overall colour of the bird is not very striking. However, the breast and belly are not as streaked so it's not a female. Finally the white line shows the outer greater coverts are shorter and white tipped --showing this to be a (very) juvenile male.

Thanks for these pictures Pat!

Up and Runn........Walking

 We are so sorry for the lack of material over recent weeks. The lockdown conditions up until recently meant that we were strongly advised to only ring birds in our own gardens. For most of us that meant catching not very much if anything, although Pat out in Wales has had an exciting time because he has a good population of Siskin feeding in his garden and he has had quite a few potentially interesting controls of Siskins ringed elsewhere. I'll report on that when we have more details.

Since the ease of rules a little while ago, we have been able to respond to our good friend and farm manager Tim, who has recently been awarded Innovative Farmer of the Year on top of a previous Soil Farmer of the Year award. Tim is really keen on knowing how his 'no till' strategy is benefiting the birds and so he was really enthusiastic about us being able to survey his land-especially the area around a new winter feed 'spinner' mechanism:-

This mechanism enables us to stay away from the site for a few days as the hopper is filled with supplementary winter feed which the underlying mechanism spins periodically and sprays the seed out over a small area. It also has a solar panel to power the mechanism. The birds quickly get used to the undisturbed provision of lots of food!

The set up has been very successful in attracting farmland species and in just a small number of recent visits we have managed to ring a very significant 71 Yellowhammers!! This is around as many of this species as were ringed in many years in the whole of Staffordshire. It's great news that winter supplementary feeding stations like this and others are helping Yellowhammers survive over winter and we hope go on to breed in the area. Other interesting totals were 27 Linnet, 25 Chaffinch, 20 Goldfinch and 11 Reed Buntings.

A Yellowhammer

Many people know that feeding stations in their gardens also attract predators such as Sparrowhawks to the many small birds feeding there. It's no different to our farmland feeding stations where both Sparrowhawks and Kestrels have been seen. Our resident male Kestrel ( aka Kenny as we call him) got himself caught one morning:- 

He's a superb specimen and a very successful breeder having fledged 10 youngsters in the last 3 years on the farm, and we have already seen him 'food passing' to his mate  which is a sure sign that they are getting ready to rumble!! One of the reasons they are able to raise good sized broods is in great part due to the higher than average numbers of small mammals on the site--yet another benefit of the no till strategy. Every night when we survey the farm using the thermal imager it's really noticeable how many mice we see compared to the fields on nearby conventionally ploughed farms.