Looking back at last year, we find that March was a very good month when our feeding stations started to attract more finches than during the previous months of winter--undoubtedly because their natural food sources were becoming depleted. Will this happen again this year? Well the signs are positive. A message from Pat at Siskin City in mid Wales showed a video of a very active bird table with lots of Siskin, Greenfinch, Chaffinch and the prize species--Brambling. So we are all hoping that Pat will enjoy number to match his catch of over 600 Siskin last year--more of this in future blogs.
The first 5 days of March have been quite productive on several fronts. Interest in and activity by our team members remains high; more farmers are asking us about surveying their land; and we are still getting requests for help and advice about thermal imaging and Jack Snipe from as far away as Lancashire and Israel. We are also hopeful of resurrecting our ringing scheme in the very north of arctic Norway--fingers very much crossed on that one.
Ringing around here has taken a notch up also. Teams have been out most days and so far we've ringed a decent number of birds -150-given that the weather is still not brilliant. In short:-
Only small numbers of Jack Snipe are at my prime site-worrying-, but a couple of nights ago we managed to catch two birds at our BPF site in a wet field. There were more than a dozen Common Snipe in the same field but as soon as one flies off calling that tends to spook the rest so we rarely manage to catch any of this species. We manged to ring a Grey Partridge and 6 Skylarks--but this is probably going to be our last thermal imaging session of the winter as birds are beginning to pair up now so we leave them to get on with breeding.
I'm a sucker for these gorgeous Jack Snipe-so here's another picture of one.
Paul reports a gradual increase in the number of birds- especially Yellowhammer, feeding at our spinner feeder. In the last couple of days he's caught 11 Yellowhammer, of which 6 were birds he had ringed previously. This pleases especially Tim the farmer to know that the birds are staying around--and we hope will breed.
A stonking male Yellowhammer!
Meanwhile Jenni visited a new friend's garden after a discussion with with said friend suggested she may have as many as FIVE Blackcaps wintering in her garden. Slightly sceptical, Jen put a net up a couple of days ago in the garden. As well as 11 Greenfinch, and 3 Goldfinch, Hey Presto!! she caught 3 Blackcaps and saw another 2 unringed in the garden.
Here's one of the birds--clearly a male. I think she will be trying for the other two next week.......
Jen and Sam had a mega-bash at various sites around Patshull on Friday culminating with a thermal session in the evening--they had a modest catch but the main thing was they had a great time--that's what a hobby should be.
Yesterday we had two teams out. Paul ran onother great session at his BPF feeder for Tom who is making great progress towards his licence as a result of such opportunities.
Another team of six turned out for another super ringing demonstration for our good friends Keri and Annette who do so much for the community in running the Jubilee Wood project. There was a great turnout of people, and fortunately we managed to ring 44 new birds of a splendid range of species to keep everyone happy and interested. A couple of male Siskins wee the stars of the show--but they also served to show how male Siskins can be aged.
This first bird shows that all the greater covert feathers ( above the white mark) are edged green-showing this to be an adult bird....
By contrast this second bird is a juvenile as shown by the outer few greater coverts--again above the white line--are thinly edged white....
With a decent view it is possible to see this on birds feeding in your garden--giving you a chance to impress your friends and family with you knowledge!!!
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