Back after a break

 Sorry that I've been absent for a couple of weeks--family holiday followed by poor weather with little action to report on.

We had intended to round up the Belvide post breeding/migration season on Saturday or Sunday last week, but the weather was so atrocious we decided to abandon Plan A and move to Plan B. We will finish at the end of this week come what may; so when it looks like we've got some decent weather we will go for a session.

So it was that a team assembled for a session this morning--and quite successful it was!! Migrants are tailing off just now, but there is still enough going on to make it worthwhile. We ended the session with 59 new bird of a remarkable 17 species. The most numerous group were tits as can be expected at this time of year. However, 9 Blackcaps and 6 Chiffchaffs showed these are still passing through.  We also had a remarkable 6 Wrens, bring this years total to 79--a record total for yet another species. I'll round up all the numbers after this weekend.

We re-trapped a couple of rather late Reed Warblers--one of which looked newly fledged just a week or so ago-- and we hope they will be able to get themselves into top condition ready for a late flight south--they have a long journey in front of them if they are to get to South Africa!!.

Ageing birds is usually based on the appearance of some feathers--here are two clear examples.....

First a Coal Tit. The greater covert row of feathers has been marked travelling left from the tip of this pointer:-

You can see that the outer couple of feathers are longer than the rest and the shape of the white patch at the tip is different. These outer feathers are remnants of the feathers the bird had when it left the nest earlier this year--the other feathers are adult type which it has moulted in recently. This therefore a juvenile bird hatched in 2020.

Next a bit more tricky. This is the back of a Reed Bunting. You can see that all of the edges to the feathers are the same shade of chestnut brown, with no wearing away or lightening of the feathers. This is because it's an adult bird. Adults moult all of their feathers during the autumn and replace them with a uniform fresh set such as these......

The other adult feature is the broad and rounded shape of the tail feathers--juvenile tail feathers are typically worn and pointed.

Assigning a sex to Reed Buntings at this time of year is also a bit tricky. These are gregarious birds during the winter months and they don't want to waste energy squabbling --especially males--with each other. To avoid this the head feathers are brown so that they all look like females....

However, if we part the crown feathers, we can see that the majority of each feather is black with only the upper tip coloured brown. This brown gradually wears away during the Winter so that come the Spring, the black head is obvious, and the males become more territorial as Winter flocks disperse--clever or what!!

Kevin and son Gareth have been operating on several sites over the summer, and were pleased to hear of one of their birds had been re-trapped ( controlled as we call it) by some other ringers.

The bird in question was a Chiffchaff which they originally ringed as a juvenile at Patshull on 18th July this year. The bird was controlled on 13 September on Cannock Chase. Now Cannock Chase is only about 25km from Patshull and more interestingly it's NORTH of Patshull so what was this bird doing? Well we can only speculate but ringing recoveries such as this point to a phase in the life of many migrants between fledging and migrating--typified by them generally wandering. These wanderings can be long or short distance and are thought to be exploratory in nature with birds looking for prospective nesting areas for the future to ensure a mixing of the gene pool. Chances are that this bird will now be on it's way south to spend the winter in southern Europe or North Africa.