It looks a bit cross!

 Birds sometimes show a variety of abnormalities--beak shape being one of the commoner issues we see. Top Belvide birder, Steve Nuttall, sent me a picture yesterday of a Great Tit on one of the feeders we have set up at the reserve.

As you can clearly see both the upper and lower mandibles have grown extra long and are curling very much in the manner of a Crossbill. Steve reports that the bird was feeding well on fat balls which it broke bits off before swallowing. It's remarkable how adaptable birds are in this way. We checked the number on the ring and this bird was ringed as a juvenile in autumn 2019-showing that it seems to be doing ok despite the deformity--let's hope it continues.

Meanwhile, we are continuing to ring at some of the many feeding stations we have access to. We visited our friends Dawn and Murray's feeder a couple of times in the last few days as they reported lots of feeding activity with at least two very interesting birds coming in regularly. Brambling are always a great birds to ring because apart from the fact they are beautiful, we also know that the nearest place they have come from is central northern Norway. Here is a juvenile male showing black areas on the head where the brown feather tips are wearing off to allow the black lower parts of the feathers to show through ready for the breeding season:-

The other bird was a canary yellow bird which had us a bit puzzled until we got a really good look at it. We didn't catch it so can't give you a better look-here it is on the feeder-

So we have identified it as a partially leucistic ( yellow) Greenfinch. You can also see a female Brambling on the other side of the feeder.

A bit of a Ticking off ??!!

 I'm using this title as a bit of a play on words.....

First of all-apologies for the lack of posts recently. It's a pathetic excuse but it has been a very busy period trying to get our annual report, our AGM, and a couple of scientific papers I'm working on--all sorted out. But most are done now so I hope blogs will follow more frequently. I must try harder so I don't get another 'ticking off' from a reader..........

Teams have been out quite regularly during January, and we have ringed over 500 new birds as a result. It's been hard going though with feeders being occupied inconsistently and those finches that are present being even more difficult than usual to catch. A similar story is coming from thermal imaging teams who are finding plenty of birds but equally are finding it difficult to catch them.

Here's a a picture which could be from the latest 'Alien' movie.....

It's a blood sucking tick which we took off a bird last week ( ticking off......). It;s only a few millimetres in length but by the size of this one's abdomen it's just had a good feed..

We've been asked to do some surveying work on a couple of new farms in the last week, and these are looking good with plenty of Skylarks and Woodcock in particular to ring. I've collected a few pictures of some of the species we've been ringing to get the blog rolling again:-

This is a Grey Partridge which are always a good sign for the farmer that good wildlife things are happening on the farm

This is a Brambling- a finch which breeds in northern latitudes visiting southern Europe during the winter months. Reporst from around the UK suggest that this year there are lots of Brambling around--and that is supported by the fact that we are catching a few much earlier than normal

This is a Lesser Redpoll--these are beginning to venture to feeding stations as their natural food runs out so we are hoping for more of these. They seem to wander far and wide in search of food so we can get some good recoveries

Here's a classic collection of birds from a garden feeder at this time of year. From the top

House Sparrow. Goldfinch and Nuthatch.

I hope to have more for you soon--must avoid another ticking off..........

End of Year Bash

 We've had a great year as a group and we decided that as a fitting end we would organise a bit of a celebratory session at one of our special farm sites. On Tuesday 8 team members gathered at 18.00 along with aour good friend Paul from the Shropshire RG.

Essentially we had four teams of thermal imagers and divided the whole farm up in order tocarry out a full survey of the farm and try to ring as many birds as possible.

The result was a little disappointing in terms of the number of birds ringed--although the quality was excellent:- 9 Skylark; 4 Woodcock, 2 Jack Snipe, 2 Grey Partridge, 2 Fieldfare and 1 Stock Dove.

In truth if we had caught these birds 4 or 5 years ago we would have been ecstatic, but it serves to illustrate how expectations have increased due to the success of thermal imaging.

What was much more successful--and useful in conservation terms for the farmer was the fielf by field analysis of the number and species of birds we saw. There will have been some double counting in the figures below, but even so, the totals are impressive:-

81 Skylark; 56 Grey Partridge; 34 Woodcock; 29 Common Snipe; 6 Jack Snipe; 5 Stock Dove; 2 Redwing and 69 Fieldfare !!!

Here are a few pics of the species we ringed:-

Woodcock

Jack Snipe

Stock Dove

Common Snipe

Redwing

Fieldfare

Grey Partridge

So, 2021 is almost done and a full report will be included here soon. In the meantime we are raring to go into 2022 and see if we can make it another record-breaking year. I hope to be publishing more information as the busy post Christmas/New Year period gets under way and our ringers' pliers get in shape. News coming soon---a Happy New Year to all our readers!! 

Bits and Pieces

 There's been so much activity in the group recently that it's been quite difficult keeping up! I've decided that the simplest thing is for me just to give you a flavour of our activities--with a few pictures which I hope will be both attractive and informative.

Paul has been running sessions for our trainees regularly on Saturday mornings at the feeding station at Brewood Park Farm. This gives lots of necessary practice at extracting Blue and Great tits--but as the winter wears on more and more interesting birds come in search of food as their naturally available food diminishes.

We were really pleased to ring our first Siskin for some time:-

You can see that this is a male because of the black cap--and that it's a first year bird by the white bar across the wing--in an adult bird this would have been yellow/green.

Here is a view of a male Chaffinch which you don't see every day:-

First look at the superb green colour at the rump area--a characteristic of male Chaffinches but not always seen. Now look at the tail feathers--all quite broad and rounded with the central two having black markings near the shaft. Both features of an adult male bird.

I have mentioned the work we are doing at the Patshull estate, and among quite a lot of activity recently, we managed to put up 4 new owl nestboxes with the help of a superb bit of kit driven by our friend John; here's an example:-

There's never any guarantee of success--but we are keeping fingers crossed. Also a big thanks to Murray who very kindly made these and other boxes for us with wood provided by the West Midland Bird Club.

It's always gratifying when newly qualified ringers get cracking with their new permits. Liz caught this smashing adult male Blackbird in her garden:-

And by the large size of it , it could well be a bird visiting us from the continent.

She is also gradually managing to ring several of the House Sparrows feeding in her garden like this stunning male:-

Jenni and Sam are getting their lamping act together at Church Farm and Patshull with their thermal imager. They didn't have a large catch last week but they did have three quality birds in the forms of:-

                                                  Common Snipe and a Woodcock, shown below:-

And a smashing Stock Dove which we are finding reasonably regularly roosting in fields

Kevin has been pressing on with his colour ringing scheme for buntings and has attached over 20 to Yellowhammers recently--here's a cracking male:-

And finally for now, Pete and Paul have been relentlessly depriving themselves of a lie in on most mornings in order to continue ringing large numbers of Redwing. Daily numbers fluctuate widely--but they have so far managed almost 700 in a year where there hasn't been the numbers that we sometimes see. Well done chaps!!

Just a quick reminder of how smart these small thrushes are!!

More news soon as we come to the end of the year--with some record breaking numbers to report....!

 

Just a brilliant group!!

 These last few weeks have really demonstrated that which I already knew--that we have a great group of people in our ringing group. So many of them have been out early mornings, late mornings, afternoon and evenings catching phenomenal numbers of great birds.

The most numerous has been the Redwing which have arrived in big numbers. Pete has been catching regularly in the twenties and thirties, Jennie in smaller but regular numbers while  Kevin and Gareth have had several catches in the 40's with one fabulous morning at Great Bridgeford where they caught 88!!

Gareth finally managed to catch a troublesome but tiny male Sparrowhawk:_

It may be small but a powerful and efficient predator nonetheless.

Liz is the latest of our trainees to get her ringing licence, and she enjoyed her first solo garden ringing session this morning. She ringed a few House Sparrows, all of which were males like this smart individual

Kevin has been ringing at his (almost) city centre site at the Racecourse which regularly turns up exciting and interesting birds. The latest is this rather plain but special Chiffchaff:-

'Normal' Chiffchaffs are variously greeny/grey/ brown with brown legs and yellow soles to the feet,  whereas this is very pale grey above, white below with black legs and feet. It's a Siberian Chiffchaff of which there have been quite a lot around the country over recent weeks. I wonder how it's feeling based in Wolverhampton?

Kev has also started catching Yellowhammers at Patshull ( so far) which is giving him the opportunity to start his colour ringing project to find out more about this farmland species. Here is a Yellowhammer with a normal metal ring on its right leg and a plastic colour ring on it's left leg with engraved letters and numbers on:-

The aim here is that birders -especially if they have a telescope-can read the colour ring in the field so we can collect data without having to recapture the bird.

Finches can be quite difficult to catch but Paul is persisting manfully against the weather gods and is steadily building up numbers of particularly Linnets

Jen, Col, Sam, Shaun and Tom have been out with the thermal imager on a few nights even though the moon is quite bright and they have started catching good numbers of Skylark--Jen and Sam were well pleased a couple of nights ago to also catch their first two Woodcock of this season, recently arrived from who knows where in north eastern Europe or Asia.

More news next week!

 

 

So much activity!!

 Team members are really stepping up to the plate to make the best of a settled period of weather, with sometimes up to 4 teams out and about on any given day. As a consequence we are ringing lots of birds --mainly Redwing as mentioned in the last post--but also a range of other special birds.

Here is yet another Sparrowhawk--this time showing the juvenile characteristics mentioned lately--which compare well with the adult type shown last time,

The eyes on this bird are turning orange--but the breast and belly have arrowhead type markings rather than bars--and the wing feathers are all edged buff--all juvenile features.

This is a male Blackcap which is a warbler--so why isn't it in southern Europe/North Africa given that it's November. Well over the last twenty or so years there have been increasing numbers of Blackcaps wintering in the UK. Ringing studies suggest that they are NOT 'our' birds but they come from eastern Europe to exploit the warmer temperatures here-along with good food provided by gardens in the form of berry bearing plants and things like fat balls.

This is a great portrait of a male Blackcap with a black cap. But more careful study shows it to be a juvenile bird because of the bits of brown plumage in the cap which are the remnants of the feathers it had when it left the nest.

Farmland birds are really under the microscope at the moment and one such species of concern is the Yellowhammer. Fortunately the farms we work with are doing lots to support this species and we ring quite good numbers. This was Kevin's first session at this farm and he ringed a pleasing 7 individuals.

Close examination of this bird shows that all the wing feathers are of the same generation, showing it to be an adult ( ie more than one year old)--and the relatively small amount of yellow is because it's a female. Juvenile females have virtually no bright yellow on them at all.

The weather looks reasonable for the coming few days so I hope to report lots of good birds next time!

Back in Action

 Apologies for the lack of posts recently but I've been away on a couple of holidays and playing catch-up ever since. Things are getting back to normal and November has got off to a belting start.

I posted a while ago that Redwings had started to reach us from breeding sites far to the north and east--and for a few days we managed to catch good numbers. Then it almost stopped----puzzling. As a guide, during the recent past few years, Pete would catch between 30 and 50 Redwing every morning. This year it's been 10-20! Until these last few days when it has been obvious that a second major wave of these--and the first Fieldfares, has arrived; and as a result the catch rate as increased considerably. We have ringed over 200 in the first few days of November. One of the issues we have when ringing Redwings is that they attract predators-mainly in the form of Sparrowhawks. I have previously shown pictures of very young Sparrowhawks with pale yellow eyes and arrowhead shaped brown splodges ( technical term!!??) on their breast and belly. But here are a couple of pictures of an almost adult male with orange eyes, orange breast and bars rather than splodges:-

We've also started our thermal imaging activities during the day for Jack Snipe, and at night mainly for Skylarks, Grey Partridge and Woodcock ( the latter of which have just arrived).

One very interesting aspect came out during our session a couple of days ago. For starters we ringed 7 new Patridges which is a really high number--but most intriguing were 3 birds which appeared to have only just left the nest. Here is the head of one showing the dappled crown pattern with the buffy cream coloured cheeks only just starting to appear:-

Lots of other activities going on--more later.......