Photo Mike Malpass
With the onset of the cold weather we have finished our ringing of Bearded Tits for this year. The cold weather with snow also appeared to cut short the gritting season.
It has been a very successful year for our long term study of this isolated population which we have been studying since they colonised in 1973. We estimate that 30 pairs of bearded tits have nested on the reserve this year, four upon 2009. In total though we have caught or identified by colour rings a total of 49 adult males and 28 adult females. The surplus of males appears genuine for of 41 adult males caught during the breeding season 27% had not developed brood patches so were probably not paired.
A total of 104 free flying young were ringed just one up on 2009. Survival has been very good for of 67 young birds ringed before they moulted in late July no fewer than 65 were caught or identified in late September/October.
The grit trays were well used this year a total of 726 sightings were made. This involved 122 different birds. Of these 62 were adults and 60 birds of the year. Many birds (47%) visited on only one to three days but a sizable proportion visited more often including one record breaker which visited on at least 22 days. Adults visited from the start of the season in late September and birds of the year only started visiting in numbers in mid October.
John
No comments:
Post a Comment