A sad goodbye to a close friend

 We recently had the really sad news that our great friend Glynn had suddenly and unexpectedly died at home. Many of you who visited our ringing demonstrations, especially at Belvide will recognise Glynn from the picture.

This is a very familiar sight from our trips to Portugal--on this pic he has not 1 but 2 of his carefully whittled walking sticks at hand!

I first met Glynn about 25 years ago, and after a quick chat he signed up to a Storm Petrel ringing trip to Eilean nan Ron off the Sutherland coast. It's safe to say that life for him--and us--would never be the same again! He became a regular on those trips, as well as to Lundy Island, Long Point in Canada, and Portugal. 

Things were never quiet when Glynn was around, and his sense of fun was infectious. Judging by the many heart-felt tributes from team members, it's clear that our ringing sessions won't be the same again. We all wish his family well, and of course RIP Glynn.

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.

A good day --at last!!

 For some reason we've been really struggling to ring decent numbers of birds so far this year--and it's not for the want of effort! Feeding stations, sewage works and lamping fields have all proved difficult, even when there's been a lot of birds about, they have been super difficult to catch. I's really pushed our lexicon of excuses about why this is happening to the absolute limits......

Anyway, yesterday dawned cloudy but mild after a night of showers, and pretty soon Pat over at Siskin Towers realised that something special was on. The previous day, Pete and Paul had dropped in to see Pat and had experienced yet another '' why can't we catch anything'' days. But suddenly the feeders were full of Siskin with loads feeding on the ground also. The intrepid Pat opened his net and those of us sitting here in South Staffs were treated to regular updates with pictures until around lunchtime when pat reported ringing around 50 Siskin--with the prize being this bird....

It's a pretty regular Siskin, until Pat realised it was already ringed ( not unusual), but on closer inspection he noticed the ring carried the address in Gdansk--the Polish ringing centre!! So not only had there been lots of birds around--who knows where there came from with this little gem amongst them? This is the first bird the group has controlled from Poland. Pat reports that just after lunchtime the main flock flew off never to be seen again. But by this time he had decided to leave the nets open just in case..... And sure enough another group appeared--but this time with lots of re-trapped birds which he had already ringed, so these seemed much more of a local flock. However there was to be one more twist...

This was a quite intriguing bird. It's a bit like a Siskin but not quite right--and it's a bit like a Redpoll but again, not quite right. So, is it a hybrid between the two-(-a 'Redskin' perhaps??), or is it a Redpoll carrying a genetic mutation producing strange coloured feathers--we'll never know I guess.

Pat eventually finished later in the afternoon, tired but buzzing after an exciting day with 85 Siskin, 3 Redpoll and 1 Robin ringed in the day--superb.

Later that evening an intrepid experimental group headed out to our estate in Teddesley to test out a theory for one aspect of our poor catching recently. It had been suggested that we were going out a bit too early to catch Woodcock, ( we had seen loads but couldn't get near them), and that if we went out later they tended to sit tight after they had had time to fill their bellies with worms.

Unfortunately that theory failed the test........!

However, there were lots of birds about and we ended on a very pleasing total of 18 Skylark, 6 Fieldfare and 1 Woodcock. Just a few years ago, catching 18 Skylarks would have been unheard of ( between 1979 and 2016 I had caught only 2!!) but such has been the game changing impact of thermal imaging. We need more ringers around the UK and Europe to get into this technique so that we can find out so much more abut the movements of this species. A few pics from last night to end with..... 

This is a Fieldfare--the lack of thick black streaks on the head shows this to be a female.

This Skylark shows the long hind claw, characteristic of many ground dwelling songbirds

This gorgeous Woodcock must have been a bit sleepy. They are really stunning birds. Will this one stay in UK to breed or is it one of the many individuals of this species which visit us for norther and eastern Europe....... 

Spreading the thermal word!!

 I need to apologise again for the lack of posts......in my defence it has been Christmas, but most of all we have been a bit consumed in putting together our annual report of ringing for 2022. It's in the final stages now and should be available very soon.

However, a couple of weeks ago, farm manager Tim had a visit from Georgina and Sophie, the farm manager and her assistant manager from the very well known, flagship RSPB Hope Farm in Cambridgeshire. They had come to find out more from Tim about his no-till farming strategy and how it could be adopted by them to further increase the wildlife friendly regime they run at Hope Farm.

During their talks Tim mentioned about the data we provide him from our thermal imaging sessions--things developed, and from that I was invited across earlier this week to demonstrate for them how thermal imagery can be used to monitor the night-time bird and mammal populations on Hope Farm. I was able to let Georgina and Sophie use my imager as we walked their fields--because our very generous supplier, Danel James of Shooting Sports UK, loaned me another imager to enable me to guide them to heat sources. It wasn't long before they got the hang of things and were finding Grey Partridges and Skylarks in the stubble fields, and roosting Reed Buntings, Blackbirds, Redwings and Yellowhammers in the small reedbed and well managed hedgerows. 

Here they are having a practice run before we set out.....

 They've already got smiles on their faces--and that's how a very enjoyable and eye-opening evening continued.

This picture of a Skylark, taken with a mobile phone, amply demonstrated to them how well camouflaged these birds are--and therefore how difficult they are to census without the aid of a thermal imager.

It's right in the middle of the frame--and still quite difficult to see!!

Although the evening went really well, we were all puzzled as to why we hadn't seen any of the woodcock that they had seen regularly coming out of the woodland areas. Until the last field we scanned! We had seen lots of rabbits during the evening, and the initial thought was that there were quite a lot of them in this field too. However, as we moved closer it became clear that although there were some rabbits, there were also 7 superb Woodcock feeding amongst them. As a final thought -provoking moment to end my trip this was perfect. We had been discussing the stark differences in how many and what species of birds we had seen depending on the crop and soil treatment--and this field being so attractive for Woodcock really emphasised the point.

I do hope Georgina and Sophie will decide to join the 'thermal family' -- we'll certainly keep in touch and provide whatever help we can to them and any of their RSPB colleagues.