Wild Places Blog :: Birding and Ringing

Just a few days in Shropshire as i wanted to see all the family before heading off to Greece on the 16th March.

Weather cold with frosty mornings - it will be so lovely to experience warmth, blue skies and sunshine - this winter seems to have gone on for so long!

Only ringed Monday am, Tuesday and Wednesday. Nothing has happened yet with the derelict houses next door though i believe there is now planning permission for 4 houses to be built there - it’s going to be very sad if the hawthorn hedge gets ripped out, there are birds in it all the time.

Not a bad selection of birds - 43 new of which 18 were Goldfinches! The Goldies seem to love the sunflower hearts that mum puts out for them. We re-trapped a Dunnock which we had originally ringed in October 2006 and we captured a Goldfinch and a Greenfinch with rings that weren’t ours, will have to wait and see where they were ringed. Also had a House Sparrow retrap, one i’d originally ringed in April 2007 - it would have hatched in 2006 or before - so a minimum of almost 4 years old.

Sparrowhawk is a frequent visitor to the garden here but was a new species to be captured - aged as a 7 (meaning it was hatched not last year but the year before, i.e. 2008).

Sparrowhawk

Just a few remaining juvenile (worn and brownish) feathers on the rump

Also had a chance to see my neice Kerrie and her son, Seth who was born 1st January - hadn’t seen him since he just came home from hospital so got some practice at being a Great Aunt in and had some cuddles.

Great Aunt Yvonne and Seth. I did wonder after if i should perhaps have taken off my rather minty BTO ringing smock. Ah well, good to test a child's immune system i suppose!

Birds ringed: Sparrowhawk, Dunnock, Robin, Blackbird, Great Tit, Starling, House Sparrow, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch. Retraps: Song Thrush, Dunnock, Robin, House Sparrow,

What, you may be asking is Sule Skerry?

Well, it’s a rocky outcrop 45 miles west of Stromness (Orkney) that has breeding Puffins, Guillemots, Gannets and Shags. The Sule Skerry Ringing Group have been visiting and monitoring and ringing birds there for the last 35 years - the expedition is every other year and i’d put my application in late last year. Today i was thrilled to receive an email to say that i’d been accepted to join the group for their next planned trip in July 2011

Link: World’s second oldest puffin still going strong

Now, where did i put my tent?….

As a contribution to the BTO’s Bird Atlas 2007-11 we volunteered in a rash moment to take on another TTV (Timed Tetrad Visist) for this season - we chose the tetrad (a 2km x 2km square) that was vacant and did the early winter visit on the 15th November 2009. Cold and grey day today.

Our chosen tetrad was TL32P which started in the very picturesque village of Aspenden. Lots of small bird activity in and around the village but as we got further out into the countryside - mostly a ploughed agricultural desert - there was scant pickings apart from Woodpigeons.

Surveying from the public footpath, a little bit of hedgerow but mostly agricultural desert, mostly devoid of any birdlife.

Here is a run-down of our sighting (a total of 39 spp) from last visit and this:-

We did almost start to get excited by a small spot just outside our tetrad when we spotted a stonking male Smew along with a couple of female/immatures. However, scanning through the ducks and discovering 3 Red-breasted Geese and 3 Snow Geese the word “collection” immediately sprang to mind!

One of the beautiful cottages in Aspenden

I must admit that when i got home from work last night and found our ringing gear in the front room i felt rather ambivalent about it - after a really busy week at work i’d spent all day telling everyone how i was looking forward to a long lie in.  Still, i can’t resist time outdoors and had soon sorted out my warmest of clothes and ringing pliers.

In the news this week had been a report that 700 (or more!) Corn Buntings have been feeding around a farm in Bedfordshire. RSPB conservation researcher Rosemary Setchfield is currently working with farmers in the area to help Corn Buntings and is planning to trial plots of suitable nesting habitat. The Corn Bunting has declined drastically over the last 20 years (see this RSPB article).

As it is thought that some of the birds in this huge flock could possibly breed on her study sites over the next two years she was hoping to catch and ring and colour ring some of them and needed ringers to help out. When birds are ringed using just a metal ring a lot of the recoveries are of birds, which are found dead. The great advantage of using colour-rings is that the birds don’t necessarily need to be recaptured to be reported - the general birder out in the field can file a report of where and when he/she has seen a colour-ringed bird and of course, it would be very useful to Rosemary to be able to identify whether birds ringed during the winter were then breeding in her study area.

It was dark when Ian, Gareth and i arrived and we headed out across the field to set our nets - 600 feet of double panels. Rosemary arrived shortly after and went to sort her nets near the area she’d been baiting.  Another 360 feet of net. More helpers (all RSPB staff who are ringers) arrived shortly after and we waited optimistically for the nets to fill up.

Doing what we do best - standing around, watching empty nets and freezing our various bits off!

I must say the sheer number of Corn Buntings in the fields was impressive, the sight being well worth hanging around in the cold for. A Merlin did a flyby but didn’t quite manage to spook any Corn Buntings into the nets. And boy was it cold! Rosemary very kindly supplied us with cake and coffee was passed around.

Does something tell you John is feeling the cold today?

We thought we couldn’t get any colder then it started to snow and we considered packing up. However, it didn’t last long so we carried on. There were quite a few Yellowhammers in the area too and when Rosemary’s husband Ian D turned up he and John went and put a net up further up the field. Before long it was catching Yellowhammers but none of the Corn Buntings that were there.

Katie and John ringing Yellowhammers with Ian D scribing and going through the ageing and sexing

As there were also quite a lot of Yellowhammers on the other side of the field Ian D persuaded Rosemary to relocate 3 of the Corn Bunting nets. They caught fairly well - all Yellowhammers apart from a single Reed Bunting.

Yellowhammer

So, at the end of the session, how many of the 700+ Corn Buntings did we catch? Yes, correct! None. A disappointing result, it would have been great to have been able to help Rosemary with her research. Maybe next time will be more successful.

Ah well, it was way more enjoyable than staying at home doing the hoovering, painting the fence or going shopping!

Well folks, i think we all know about the carnage that happens in Malta during the Spring and Autumn hunting seasons. For many years i’ve tried to discourage friends from holidaying there, passing on to them my reasons for boycotting the place. The Times of Malta is currently running an online poll to vote as to whether there should be a Spring hunting season this year. For goodness sake get over to the Times of Malta site and vote “NO”!!

Make sure you also sign the Birdlife Malta petition.

To quote the Birdlife Malta website:-

“…migratory birds are in peril as they fly over Malta, where they continue to be gunned down. Every year, protected species are killed; every spring and every autumn. Law enforcement is under resourced and unable to control the scale of illegal hunting.

There are nearly 12,000 hunters on the small island.

Whereas spring hunting is not permitted under the EU Birds Directive because this is the breeding season and a chance for birds to replenish their numbers, Malta has opened the spring hunting season every year since it joined the EU in 2004.

Over the last years, BirdLife Malta has been instrumental in ensuring that Malta strengthens its bird protection laws through its public and advocacy campaigns.

Spring hunting was not allowed in 2008 and 2009 thanks to an interim measure issued by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Last year, the ECJ found that Malta had been in breach of European law for allowing spring hunting (of turtle dove and quail) without meeting the conditions of a derogation since it became a member state.

In spite of this, the Maltese government is still considering opening what it calls a “limited spring hunting season” in 2010. The government also continues to undermine the true scale and seriousness of illegal hunting”

and here’s a gruesome pic i pinched from the Birdlife Malta web site

Heron, injured by Maltese hunters

A chance to see the family and do a little ringing in and around mum and dad’s Shropshire garden. We were there from New Years Day until the 7th January and it was fairly cold. We didn’t have any snow until the evening of Tuesday 5th January - being soppy old tarts we let the birds get on with the important job of feeding for the morning on the 6th and went for a walk down the country lanes instead  - good views of Yellowhammer, Fieldfare and plenty of Redwing around and just a few birds ringed that afternoon.

We ringed 80 new birds between the 2nd and the 6th. We captured 3 control birds (birds that weren’t originally ringed by us) all Greenfinches. Other unusual birds and all firsts for the garden were 2 male Bullfinches captured in the same net at the same time, 2 Pied Wagtails and a Redwing.

One of the two male Bullfinches captured and ringed

Pied Wagtail - the first time we'd ringed them in the garden

Plenty of Redwing around but only one in the net

Here’s wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and all best wishes for 2010 - i hope your birding and ringing will be all you wish for.

Thanks for following my blog this year - the first trip of the year is already planned out: we’ll be off to the small Greek island (population 45) of Antikythera to stay at the bird observatory there from mid March until mid to late May. the birding and ringing looks great!

Photo taken during our amazing trip to Churchill, Manitoba, Canada

Today our birding had focus! - we went out to bird with the intention of gathering some Roving Records for the BTO Atlas. And what a pleasant way to spend a few hours on a sunny Autumn day. We wandered along Back Lane Roman Road, typically English countryside. Back Lane is a bridleway so no traffic apart from walkers and horseriders (we only saw 4 people and 1 horse over the 5 hours we were out!). The pathway is bordered by open arable land, hedgerows but very little sign of human habitation.

Back Lane Roman Road

The most numerous bird of the day was Fieldfare - at nearly 400 birds they even outnumbered the Woodpigeons! Lots of Long-tailed Tits moving along the trees and the usual Blackbirds, Robins, Blue Tits and Great Tits. A single Marsh Tit was nice as was a small flock of Bullfinches. A Yellowhammer was spotted pecking about on a ploughed field. We only saw 1 Greenfinch and in the 3 tetrads (2km x 2km squares) we passed through we didn’t see a single Dunnock.

A few days in Shropshire, catching up with the family and of course we had some nets up in and around the garden. the house next door is STILL derelict and no sign of anything being done with that. The local authority had very kindly strimmed the grass in the back garden and trimmed the beautiful Hawthorn hedge.

We took the opportunity to do some net mending. Dad’s driveway is quite long so we were able to put a net up between two poles and work our way along, fixing any holes and mending where the netting had come away from the side or shelf strings. It is a fact of life that nets are expensive and, speaking as one who is eternally skint, i like to lengthen their lifespan for as long as possible. Mending is a simple enough task but fairly time-consuming.

Net mending

A nice selection of birds were captured and ringed over the weekend. Also captured were two birds that already had rings, but hadn’t originally been ringed by me - a Greenfinch and a Goldfinch. We’ll have to wait a while to find out where they have come from.

Coal Tit

Well, here i am back in the UK! Said goodbye to all those lovely North American birds - the two days before leaving Delta there were so many birds around, we could have caught literally hundreds and hundreds of sparrows and juncoes but had to pack up the nets and clear everything away for the winter then finalise the data and paperwork.

So, this weekend found us heading to Lincolnshire for the opportunity of ringing with our friend James at his site on the Lincs coast. The weather forecast was looking fairly good and there is always the lure of that rarity in the net.  Saturday dawned grey, blustery and distinctly chilly. We put nets up in the coastal scrub although we weren’t able to open them all at first because the wind was initially too strong.

Next we put nets up in the garden of local resident and birder, Phil - he lives in an amazing position, right on the coast - just the sea defence bank separating his house from the beach. Phil has a good feeding station with a great variety of birds visiting.

First bird out of the garden net was a Yellowhammer - a bird i haven’t seen in the hand for a couple of years.

Yellowhammer

Phil keeps a couple of pigs in his garden, a rare breed called the British Lop. I love pigs and couldn’t resist photographing them.

Phil's two British Lop pigs. I'll try and refrain from saying "mmm bacon" under my breath when i'm there.

Plenty of Tree Sparrows visiting the feeders and it wasn’t long before we had some in the net.

Tree Sparrow

The wind dropped down a little and the other 2 nets in the coastal scrub were able to be opened but not much was caught down there. The garden had a steady stream of Blue Tits and Great Tits. It was rather galling to hear the news that Spurn Bird Obs had caught and ringed Red-flanked Bluetail and Radde’s Warbler - we can see Spurn from here!

Sunday morning was much improved wind-wise although the direction was now north-westerly. First bird out of the coastal scrub nets was a Redwing - my first one of the Autumn!

Redwing

Redwing wing showing juvenile-type tertials and some retained greater coverts.

And what ringing session in the UK would be complete with these two “bread and butter” birds…

Robin

Blue Tit - it seemed much more interested in pecking lumps out of my finger than in having it's photo taken!

A very enjoyable weekend and 14 species ringed - Blackbird, Yellowhammer, Robin, Dunnock, Wren, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Goldcrest, Redwing, Tree Sparrow and House Sparrow. We also caught two birds which had already been ringed - a Blue Tit and a Goldfinch - the ring numbers weren’t James’ and didn’t belong to another local ringer so we will wait with anticipation to find out where they came from.

My first Whooper Swans of the winter were seen and there were Golden Plover and Lapwings on the fields. As we were concentrating on the ringing rather than birding our weekend list isn’t very impressive: Mute Swan, Whooper Swan, Teal, Pheasant, Cormorant, Grey Heron, Marsh Harrier, Sparrowhawk, Moorhen, Golden Plover, Lapwing, Redshank, Wood Pigeon, Stock Dove, Collared Dove, Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Pied Wagtail, Wren, Dunnock, Robin, Blackbird, Redwing, Fieldfare, Goldcrest, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Magpie, Rook, Carrion Crow, Starling, House Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Linnet, Yellowhammer.