Bumper weekend!!!

 Teams were out over the weekend catching lots of birds, carrying out training sessions and showing the people of Bilbrook some birds up close at a ringing demonstration.

Ben and Paul A were at Ben's Witches Oak site, and ringed just under 100 new birds--mainly migratory warblers such as...

Willow warblers and Chiffchaffs and....

Whitethroats......

 and a couple of Cetti's warblers.

Meanwhile, Gareth, Kev and Paul T were at the quarry site, which has really started t to produce the number and range of species we had hope for--and so looks like a tremendous proposition for the future as it continues to develop its range of plants and shrubs.

They ringed just over 100 birds, mostly of the same species as Ben, such as....

Blackcap

Reed Warbler

Sedge Warbler.

All together, the group managed to ring around 300 new birds over the weekend--lets see what next weekend brings.......

 

The first 'Tripit' of the year!

 Teams have been out again this week catching a good variety of birds, but pride of place goes to Gareth at his new quarry site for ringing the first Tree Pipit (aka Tripit) of the year. These birds breed in woodland with wide open spaces in them, Cannock Chase being the nearest area to with a breeding population. As you can see, they are not spectacularly coloured....

... and like many pipit species they can pose an interesting ID challenge. There are 2 common pipit species in the UK, this one and the much more numerous Meadow Pipit. Tree Pipits are long distance migrants and they migrate south during a relatively short time period from mid August to mid September ( Meadow Pipits move mostly from mid September onwards.

So the timing suggests Tree Pipit, but there are several other features which clinch it... The beak is heavier and pinker than Meadow, the underside is 'cleaner' with more clearly defined spots, the legs are clearly pink, and there is a difference in the lengths of the flight feathers which can't be seen on this picture. They are much less common than Meadow Pipits and we may not catch any more this season but it won't be for want of trying.

Most adult birds have had a tough time rearing their chicks--but there's no rest because their feathers will have taken a bashing since they grew them about a year ago. At this time of year they now divert their energies into moulting out their old feathers and growing in their new one--a very energy intensive process.

 Hereis a picture of an adult male Blackcap--and you can see how it is losing and replacing in sequence its main flight feathers.

You can clearly see the tatty old feathers on the outside of the wing-and the brand new ones on the inner part of the wing and a couple still growing.

More news soon.....

 

More about our Global Ambassador's Farm

 Last month I posted about how Tim the farm manager is extending his global reach in promoting his passion -no till farming as part of his, and the owners' approach to wildlife friendly farming. There is a range of wildlife outcomes, but clearly the one we are more interested in is the increase in the number and species of birds -especially red listed birds of conservation concern- attracted to the farm. Increasingly I will be reporting on these in this blog.

For now though, I thought I would show a couple of pictures of another dimension to the way in which wildlife is being encouraged on the farm......

This is the set aside area in a cereal crop field and as you can see there is a lot of flowers for pollinating insects and eventually seeds for birds and other wild animals.

This is a field especially devoted to a wide range of plants--as you can see from the riot of colour; all of which are plants producing lots of seeds for birds later on in the year.

As I've indicated in previous posts, the team at BPF are rightly very proud of what they are achieving, and they have introduced an enterprise which can showcase their work. If you visit the airbnb website and key in:-

                                   The Shepherd's Hut@ Brewood Park Farm

 You will get all the details of how to stay at the farm in this lovely accommodation,

                                                                           

There are facilities for birdwatching, and, weather and personnel permitting we put on bespoke ringing demonstrations to show visitors some of the great birds to be seen on the farm. Have a look now!!

Migration moving up a notch

Team members have been very active at several sites since my last post, and have ringed over 400 new birds--mostly migrant warblers--showing just how much warbler migration has increased in the last week or so.

Sticking with our theme of sharing interesting details of some of our birds, here is a small selection of the 400+

Many of you will be familiar with Pied Wagtails running around in car parks, shopping centres and school grounds--but they look much sharper black and white than this bird. It's a recently fledged juvenile Pied Wagtail in rather more drab, overall grey plumage until it moults into its much smarter garb. Gareth was quite lucky to get this bird because Pied Wagtails are notorious in the uncanny ability to see and avoid mist nets--well done Gareth.

I have already shown pictures of wings to show how we identify Willow Warblers from Chiffchaffs--but here are a couple of pictures to show how (even in the field) easy it is to separate juvenile Willow Warblers from adults at this time of year.

Essentially, juveniles are really bright yellow on the underside, compared to an adult.....

....which is much whiter with only a few ( variable) streaks of yellow underneath. This is easy to see in the field.

Finally for now, we do bang on a bit about juvenile plumage, but it is remarkable how different juvenile plumage is in certain species. Such as...

This is a recently fledged Robin--with overall blotchy plumage--and no red on the breast at all. This reduces aggression from the parents ; but it's short lived as the red breast soon moults in and the parents eventually drive the young away from their territory.

Not as dramatically different from adult plumage, that of juvenile Greenfinches is nevertheless quite distinctive.....

In general, the colours are muted--but the stripy breast and belly feathers are classic juvenile features of Greenfinch for a few weeks after fledging.

Team members will be out regularly over the coming week--so any interesting birds or plumage types will feature on here.......

  

Ups and downs

 Our last 2 sessions at Belvide were pretty good with 80 to 90 birds, so we were looking forward to today's session ( moved to Tuesday because of poor forecast for Wednesday)--especially since reports from around the country suggested that migration is well under way. Unfortunately, the vagaries of bird movements dictated that we ringed only 54 new birds today. As ever, we have a book of excuses to refer to, and we're pretty sure why the catch was lower than we hoped. The rain started early evening on Monday, stayed until dusk ( when birds are preparing to migrate), and was intermittent most of the night. Resulting in fewer migrants for us to catch.

However, fewer birds does give us more time to provide instruction to our trainees. Here's just a couple of the things we looked at this morning.

First, all juvenile Blackcaps leave the nest with brown caps. Over the few weeks after fledging, all these birds moult out their cap feathers. Females moult in brown feathers, and of course, males moult in black feathers.

This is clearly a young male with about half of the  black cap feathers moulted in.

Second, the STRUCTURE of primary flight feathers is instructive in a few species--but perhaps no more so than in our ability to separate Willow Warblers from Chiffchaffs. I hope the next 2 pics will illustrate this...

I have numbered the ( very short) first primary, and the sixth primary. If you look carefully at the outer web of the sixth primary, the arrow shows that is is the same width right to the tip of the feather. In contrast look at this Chiffchaff wing....

You can see that the outer web of primary 6 narrows down for the last quarter of the feather. This is called an ''emargination'' and if present on P6, it gives a cast iron ID that you have a Chiffchaff. Great in the hand--but not much use in the field!!

What will Saturday bring---apart from more rain!!??

  

In partnership with an Ambassador!!

We work with several farmers in the area, and we have forged really good relationships with them all. Our longest relationship has been with the farm manager, Tim at Brewood Park Farm, and we are delighted to announce that he has now become a Global Ambassador for his "no till" farming technique. Essentially this means maintaining the integrity of the soil structure and the biological mechanisms that promote plant growth. So he does not plough the fields, nor does he use pesticides or fertilizers. As a result he is able to make his arable farms both nature friendly and financially viable.

Tim's reputation is growing both here and worldwide. As a result he is regularly invited to speak to groups of farmers nationally including Ireland; but this has now progressed across the globe! 

During the early part of this year BPF was visited by farmers from Poland and Ukraine to learn more about the nature friendly technique. He was also was invited to give a talk at Westminster to Politicians, Bankers and Investors. He was then invited to Denmark where he provided farmers with advice on moving to a no till strategy. A few weeks ago he was in Australia having been invited by the Aussie Government to give numerous talks, radio interviews and newspaper articles across the country to convey his passion in making farms nature friendly.

 

Most recently, Tim has been invited by the Turkish Government to give talks to farmers and politicians in that country this autumn. 

We are so lucky to be on this journey with Tim, and it's really satisfying to know that he uses our ringing data to support and promote his nature friendly farming technique.

 

We would like to congratulate Tim on his success at convincing more and more farmers that farming can be profitable, while still benefitting nature which, in the end of course, is a benefit to us all.

WELL DONE TIM!!

Team members have been busy again this week. This morning Paul put on a training session for our newest trainees which was superb. Almost 100 birds meant there were plenty of birds to practice on, most of which were Blue and Great tits, providing excellent opportunities to learn how to extract these from mist nets.
Elsewhere, Kevin and Jenni, both caught our first and second Marsh Tits of the year. The ID of Marsh v Willow tits causes many headaches ( unless the bird calls -- which they don't often do in the hand). However, recent studies especially by ringer Richard Broughton have uncovered a really useful and simple ID feature.....

Kevin's bird was an adult female

Jen's was a juvenile. They both show a little white spot/smudge on the cutting edge of the upper mandible, near to the head. This is a cast iron feature, which Willow Tits don't have.

Kevin was operating a site for the first time this year and he had a good selection of mainly migrant warblers. I thought I would show this picture however, because seeing this bird in the field can sometimes cause a problem for the unwary....

It's the same size and shape as a Goldcrest, but there is no colour on the top of the head.......yet! It is a juvenile Goldcrest, which has a very bland head in the early days after fledging--the typical marks on the top of the head come through over the next few weeks. 

Lovely day lovely birds!

 This morning dawned still and bright--would have liked a bit of cloud--but after all this rain it was a delight to be out without constantly looking skywards for heavy clouds.

To be honest the first round was disappointing and we thought we were in for a short visit, but things picked up and by close of net time we had ringed 86 new birds and processed 18 birds we had previously ringed at Belvide.

We had a strong team out with 4 trainees at different stages--so there was always something interesting and useful for them to further their knowledge and skills,

Most of the catch was, as expected, migrant warblers after they have bred on or near Belvide. I thought I would show this next picture because it shows very clearly the difference between juveniles of two species which aren't always easy to separate:-

At this age Chiffchaff ( left) and Willow Warbler (right) are pretty easy to identify. Willow Warbler juveniles at this time of year tend to be bright yellow on the breast and belly--with a bright, long, yellow stripe above the eye ( called a supercilium). No real need to describe the Chiffchaff because it is so different. Unfortunately they are not as easy to separate, when they are a bit older.