Apologies for this late post--it's been a very busy period one way and another.
The weather since my last post has been variable to say the least, with sun, rain, frost and fog really testing the resolve of team members--but they have come through with flying colours!!
Pete has been battling through with help from Paul and Sam and has managed to get out pretty well every morning on his Redwing project and has managed to ring over 140 this week in not brilliant conditions. One of those birds was potentially a bit more interesting than the others:-
The bird on the left is actually a tad bigger than normal and generally much darker on the breast which you can just make out. The general consensus is that such birds originate from Iceland--it would be great if someone in Iceland could pick up our bird next breeding season!
Pete usually catches a small number of other species, including Blackbirds--including one this week with a wing length exceeding 140 mm which points to it probably being of Scandinavian origin; showing again how important the UK is for supporting birds from far and wide especially during the winter.
Kevin burned the candle from both ends on Tuesday! Up before first light he was at our Patshull site catching 20 Redwing, 2 Fieldfare and 5 Yellowhammer as well as other birds. Just to demonstrate how unpredictable ( and exciting!!) our hobby can be; Kev turned his back to set a net and when he turned back this beauty had flown into a net:-
We've shown you Woodcock at night but it's pretty unusual to catch them in the daytime. One aspect I don't think we've mentioned is the tip of the bill. You can see that the upper mandible is slightly longer that the lower and so forms a sort of cap to help push the beak through the soil in search of food. The end of the bill is very sensitive ( pretty useful as the bird obviously can't see the worms !) and it is also flexible so that it can open the end few centimetres in order to get hold of food-- how cool is that!
Kev stayed on site all day in an attempt to catch Redwing going in to roost. It didn't work but he did catch a nice range of other birds including 12 Goldcrests giving an indication of just how many of these tiny birds must be wintering in the extensive woodland on the site. Son Gareth ventured out to one of his farm sites but was unlucky not to have a bigger catch --just one of those things --and I'm sure he will continue undaunted!
Also on Tuesday I gave a Zoom presentation to the annual ( virtual) BTO conference on the work we're doing on censusing Jack Snipe. The feedback has been positive and the talk can be found on You Tube under BTO Conference Session 2--the third talk of three in that session if you are completely devoid of anything better to do!
We had some good news last week in that two of our trainees have now qualified as 'C' ringers and can now operate on their own while still overseen by our trainers. We are still doing our best to give our other trainees opportunities and on Saturday we had sessions at two of our feeding stations. These provide lots of tits for them to practice their extraction skills, and currently lots of Goldfinch which provide interesting challenges to their ( and our!!) ageing and sexing skills.
On Sunday we again put on a session for trainees at a Starling roost. Unfortunately the best laid plans can go wrong--in this case the Starlings ( apart from 2) all landed a few metres from the nets... damn!! However, we did catch 13 Reed Buntings which always prove demanding in terms of getting their sex-but particularly their age correct.
Last night I took some of our birding team from Belvide out to show them the lamping/thermal imaging process. It was a bizarre evening with patchy dense fog but we managed a small but beautifully put together catch of only three birds. The guys really enjoyed a Skylark in the hand and I never cease to be amazed by these little beauties:-
Finding Jack Snipe feeding on stubble fields is one of the novel things thermal imaging has discovered.
The last bird was a Fieldfare:-
They are always really smart birds--the next picture shows how we sex them in the hand:-
The shape of the black centres to the crown feathers is key and the feather circled shows the black to be fatter at the base of the feather with a tapering black line up the feather shaft--making this a female. The males have a much fatter black centre to the crown feathers.
However more exciting was the fact that this bird was already carrying a ring!! It had been ringed in the UK in December 2019, but we will have to wait a while to get more details--it's the first 'control' Fieldfare I've ever had--just goes to show that even after 40+ years there's still new experiences to be had in this brilliant hobby!!
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