Welcome to North Lancs Ringing Group

Blue Tits recover

2012-01-16T22:26:00.002Z

Two visits to the woods at Roeburndale this weekend saw a welcome increase in the number of Blue Tits after worries about their low numbers earlier in the winter. 80 birds caught, of which 6 were Coal Tit (a very low number for this site), 41 Blue Tit and 20 Great Tit. Of these birds, the breakdown of new and retrapped birds broken down by age class is as follows:

Coal Tit no new birds, retrap - 1 juv, 5 adult
Blue Tit new birds - 12 juv, 5 adult; retrap - 15 juv, 9 adult
Great Tit new birds - 2 juv, 2 adult; retrap - 9 juv, 7 adult

This suggests that juvenile birds did survive until winter in good numbers. Low numbers earlier in the autumn and winter were possibly related to a very good food supply in the woods (we were still being bitten by insects well into November) meaning that Blue Tits stayed in the canopy feeding on natural food until late on in the season.

Rather oddly, very few nestlings from the many boxes in this valley are ever caught in winter in these woods - we still don't know where they all end up!

Paul

A Record Year

2012-01-06T14:02:00.006Z

The Group has had a most successful year with 14,214 birds of 65 species ringed in 2011. This is made up of 11,890 full grown birds and 234 nestlings. We also recorded 3987 retraps or recoveries making a total of 18,201 handlings. This is 1259 up on 2010 which was also a record year. Below I list some of the years achievements.

The most ringed bird was Sand Martin as part of our RAS study of the Lune colonies. Breeding pairs increased quite dramatically this year and we ringed 2140 new birds made up of 1131 adults and 1018 juveniles and we had 648 retraps mainly of birds from previous years. The survival rate from 2010 was one of the highest yet recorded. We were rewarded with five French and one Spanish controls and 16 from elsewhere in Britain. To date we have had seven recoveries on their southward migration, But the highlight was the re-trapping of two birds at our colonies of birds that had been ringed originally on the Lune, re-trapped in winter in Senegal West Africa then back again at our colonies.

Blue tits at 1961 (1053 adults and 903 nestlings) was our second commonest bird. The nestlings were ringed as part of the monitoring of our 15 nest box schemes. Most of these are in the higher oak woods of the Lune valley and so far this year we have had six retraps at our feeding stations showing a marked movement from this upland woods to the more hospitable winter quarters in towns and villages.

Another RAS study, that of Reed Warblers at Leighton Moss accounted for 980 ringed and 337 retraps.. Yearly survival rates were also good and we established a group record for our longest lived Reed Warbler at nine years and 314 days beating the previous record by just 21 days.

Yet another of the Groups RAS studies that of Pied Flycatchers in the Lune valley produced record numbers with 507 nestlings and 51 new adults ringed. Survival from 2010 was also good. we caught 62 birds from previous years.

Other species ringed in good numbers included Sedge Warbler (576), Willow Warbler (618), Greenfinch (763), Goldfinch (489), Lesser Redpoll (430) and Siskin (483). Of the rarer birds in our area the ringing of 46 Grasshopper Warblers and 54 Lesser Whitethroats should not be overlooked. The latter produced our most outstanding control, one ringed on spring migration at Eliat in Israel and caught breeding at Middleton NR. Running it a close second was a Cetti's Warbler ringed in March 2010 at Leighton Moss and found breeding just over a year later near Portsmouth 389 km SSE . The second longest movement by a British ringed Cetti's Warbler.

John

How Long Do Birds Live?

2011-12-29T16:09:00.005Z

One of the most fascinating things about ringing over a long period is that you assemble data on how long birds live. I have always kept a file detailing the longevity records of the group. This time of year I search our data base to see if any of the birds we have re-trapped or have been recovered, have improved on the records we have.

I always check out Reed Warbler first for not only do we ring large numbers each year (980 this year), so improving the chances of getting a new record but also because among small passerines Reed Warblers are well known for being long lived. I was not disappointed for we re trapped one this year nine years and 314 days after ringing. This extends the groups record of the oldest Reed Warbler by just 21 days.

I then turn to another frequently ringed species Blue Tit (1910). The oldest this year was one re-trapped seven years and 326 days after ringing. Another record, 120 days longer than our previous oldest bird.

Great Tits are ringed in smaller numbers (920) but our previous record was 13 years and 339 days not only a record for the group but also for the whole BTO ringing scheme. This year's oldest was four years and 74 days so something of a come down.

Coal Tits (380) have been present in good numbers this year and the oldest at 6 Years and 314 days, beat our previous record by 24 days.

Paul in our last posting highlighted a Dunnock at five years 57 days. Very good, but well short of our oldest record of six years and 205 days.

The species we have ringed most of this year is Sand Martin at 2140 with 648 re traps. Our oldest bird was four years and 216 days but our all time record is five years and 355 days.

These are this year's high lights, remember though that except for the Dunnock which was found dead, all the others were re trapped so hopefully are still going strong. One final thought with our data base it took me ca 35 mins to check through all our re traps. In the days before computers with all paper records it would probably have taken me at least 35 hours to check and then I would probably not have been as accurate.

But the last word should go to the birds, think of that Reed Warbler making at least nine journeys back and forth between Leighton Moss and West Africa. Quite a feat for such a small bird weighing just 12 grams or so!
John

Dunno what you been up to?

2011-12-18T21:07:00.002Z

We are told the prime value in ringing comes from the data that can be used in population modelling and much of the significant information that the BTO produce falls under the Integrated Population Modelling programme and thus retrap and recovery data are much appreciated by ringers, even if sometimes, such records lack the glamour of records of oddities - but at this season, most of us know that not all that glitters is gold.

Fitting this is a record of a Dunnock, caught as a juvenile in September 2006 in Hala and caught by a cat five years later in November 2011 in a garden less than 100 metres away. Interestingly, this bird had never been recaught in numerous ringing sessions since then. Short scale movement is the norm for this species (95% of recoveries are within 5km of the ringing site) but this does not mean that records ssuch as this are dull - as Ian Hartley writes in the Migration Atlas, "there are still unanswered questions about the species' local movements"!

Paul

Bearded Tit End of Term Report

2011-12-16T16:50:00.003Z

With the water level at Leighton Moss now extremely high precluding any further ringing, its a good time to take stock of this years study.

Following the harsh 2010/11 winter and very extensive trashing of the reed beds by roosting Starlings the breeding population declined from 30 to 12 pairs, Productivity has been quite reasonable and we have ringed 32 juveniles.

Crude survival figures from last year explains the population decline. Adults had a 22 % survival but young birds only 4%. This compares with an average of ca 60% for adults and 40% for juveniles since our study started in 1992

Grit tray sightings have been good thanks to the dedicated work of Keith Kellet and Alan Gallagher and family.Between September 14th and December 8th a total of 382 sightings of colour ringed birds were logged. All the 21 adults recorded this year were sighted on the trays.

Two adult birds equalled the record of visiting the trays on at least 22 days. But a bird of the year set a new record by being recorded on 24 days.

Many thanks to Tim Munsey for the photograph.
John

What's Happening to Blue Tits ?

2011-12-07T17:21:00.003Z

There appears to be a marked scarcity of Blue Tits this autumn and early winter. i have looked at two sites we work regularly.

At our woodland feeding station, of Teddy Heights near Arnside we have caught only 63 so far compared to 164 in the same period last year. Of these 46% are adults compared to 17% last year.

At Leighton Moss in the reed beds and willow scrub this years total to date is 323 compared with 594 last year. Adult percentage has gone from just 4.7 in 2010 to 25% this year.

These low numbers and high percentage of adult birds suggest that survival of young birds has been poor. Almost all our nest box sites had good productivity up to the fledging stage so any high mortality must have been after fledging.

Talking to other ringers from Nottingham, South Lancs, and Yorkshire at the BTO conference last weekend I got a similar story of low Numbers and high adult percentages. Also talking to other members of the Group and local garden bird feeders they are experiencing similar low numbers.
John

North West Ringers' Conference update

2011-12-06T19:11:00.002Z

The programme and booking form is now available for download.

The conference is being sponsored by Vine House Farm.

North West Ringers' Conference

2011-11-30T15:51:00.002Z

On the 18th February 2012 North Lancashire Ringing Group will be hosting the North West Ringers' Conference at Arkholme Village Hall.

The booking forms should be sent out in the next week or so, the cost will be £17 which includes teas/coffees and a hot lunch. The programme is more or less finalised and currently looks like this:

0915 - 0945 Coffee and Registration

0945 - 1000 Introduction and Welcome - Paul Cammack
1000 - 1025 Biometrics - Why should I bother? - Chris du Feu
1025 - 1050 Bearded Tits and Leighton Moss - John Wilson
1050 - 1110 Sand Martins RAS on the River Lune - Richard du Feu

1100 - 1145 Coffee

1145 - 1215 Ringing in the wider countryside - HLS and farm monitoring - David Morris
1215 - 1245 Getting more out of ringing - Rob Robinson

1245 - 1400 Lunch

1400 - 1430 Black magic: Secret movements of North-West Coot - Steve Christmas
1430 - 1500 Bird Ringing - the next 100 years? - Ken Smith

1500 - 1545 Coffee

1545 - 1645 Ringers' Meeting
1645 - 1700 Raffle draw, competition results and close of conference

For more information please contact richard.dufeu@gmail.com

A Tufty with a Difference

2011-11-26T08:54:00.003Z

Bird Watchers visiting Leighton Moss have been surprised to find a male Tufted Duck with a bright blue upper bill. Closer inspection revealed that it was a nasal saddle with the letters ZH.

We have traced this bird and it was ringed as an adult at Saint Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu in France. this is a large lake in western France just south of the Brest peninsular. it was marked on 15/02/06 as part of a study of this species.. Further sightings showed it is quite a wanderer. In September 07 it was still in France but by March 08 it was found in Lincolnshire and in January 09 in Bedfordshire. December 10 found it back in France not far from its marking locality then finally to Leighton Moss this month.

I've been asked wether the nasal saddle in any way affected its survival. Obviously not for this bird is at least six years old . Will be interesting to see if it stops long at Leighton Moss.
Thanks to Brian Howson for the photo

John

Swinging Ringing

2011-11-23T15:47:00.003Z

Dawn Monday 21st calm cloudy excellent ringing weather. We worked a site in the middle of Leighton Moss reed bed in the hope of catching Bearded Tits. We were not expecting a great catch as the Bearded Tit population is low this year after last winters severe weather. First round of our three nets produced nothing. Second round a Wren and a Penduline Tit. A ringing tick for the group and only the second record for the Moss and North Lancashire. Out came Svenssoon and on the data there it was a male on the amount of black around the eye and a first winter bird on the colour of the greater coverts. Duly ringed processed and photographed. Unfortunately the images from my mobile phone camera were not so good so I include one that I prepared earlier from my friend Janusz Stepniewski with whom I ringed Penduline Tits in Poland in 2009. Our session ended with the only Bearded Tits of the morning - a pair with consecutive ring numbers, ringed together in mid October re-trapped together 10 days later and together again today. Very typical of Bearded Tits . From our ringing they form pairs shortly after fledging and remain together, if they both survive of course, right through the winter ad breed together in spring.

At home entering the data for the last two days ringing on the IPMR programme found that we had retrapped a Marsh Tit at our woodland feeding station that was ringed five years and 35 days ago. The Group's oldest Marsh Tit by far.

John
John

Sand Martin recoveries

2011-11-20T11:25:00.004Z

We've had another batch of Sand Martin recoveries and leaves just one bird we caught this year as having an unknown origin (well unknown beyond Spain or possibly Senegal anyway).

Once again France have excelled themselves and sent us details of two birds we caught:

Paris 6243026
Ringed 14/08/2009 Lentilles, Aube, France
Retrapped 11/07/2011 Arkholme, Lancashire 806km NW

Paris 6452590
Ringed 17/08/2010 Lentilles, Aube, France
Retrapped 26/07/2011 Alston Reservoir, 777km NW

While both of these are nice they are very unsurprising given the number of Sand Martins ringed in France and it is the only viable route to Africa for British Sand Martins. The bird caught at Alston is out of our normal area however was caught as part of a mission to see where the Alston colony had been populated from. The answer is clear - not the Lune valley!

Details of two birds we ringed as Juveniles at Whittington have also been sent through:
Y150440
Ringed 29/06/2011 Whittington
Retrapped 01/07/2011 Weather Hills Pond, North Yorkshire 74km E

Y150149
Ringed 14/06/2011 Whittington
Retrapped 26/06/2011 Whittington
Retrapped 01/07/2011 Weather Hills Pond, North Yorkshire 74km E

These movements once again show that Juvenile Sand Martins move very quickly. Y150440 moved 74km in 2 days while Y150149 did it in 5 days having stayed around for two weeks from ringing.

I have no doubt there are many more Sand Martin details to come through from 2011s ringing, hopefully with several in Senegal.

Richard

Which Way Africa?

2011-11-18T08:29:00.004Z

A recent batch of recoveries from the BTO included details of three Sedge Warblers. Two juveniles ringed at Leighton Moss took the expected southerly direction. One ringed on 23 August was caught just 12 days later at Orfordness in Suffolk a distance of 372 km SE. The other ringed 1st September turned up 15 days later in a net at Titchfield Haven Hampshire 387 SSE. Nothing unusual in these two for we have had 69 previous recoveries of Sedge Warbler from late July to early September in Southern England. The recovery locations, almost all of them controlled by ringers, ranging from Cornwall to Suffolk and all counties in between.

But Y223110 was different . It was ringed on 23 July 2011 at Belvide in Staffordshire and caught at Middleton NR just 26 days later on 18th August, 154 kms NNW. Its our first example of reverse migration in this species. This regularly occurs in a number of species, ringing has shown that some at least retun to the usual migration route.

John

Goose alert

2011-11-17T18:38:00.002Z

http://beadnell-birding.blogspot.com/

Please check this site out for neck-collared Greylags and speculation as to their origin. As we are also receiving reasonable numbers of displaced Scandinavian/north Russian Geese, this may include a Greylag or two of extremely interesting origin

Please check the flocks carefully for neck collars. The Greylags seem to be mainly on the Lune estuary saltmarshes or further up river at the moment with none/hardly any around Carnforth Marsh/Leighton. Or are there also loads on the Kent/Foulshaw areas?

Thanks

Pete

Blue Tit movement

2011-11-13T15:45:00.003Z

Over the last week I've had a couple more ringing sessions in my garden. The large number of Coal Tits has continued, Blue and Great Tit numbers have also gone up with other species caught include Chaffinch and Bullfinch. There have been a couple of near misses with Sparrowhawk and Jay. Not at all bad for a small urban garden.

The most interesting capture was a Blue Tit ringed at Heysham Nature Reserve on the 15th October arrived in my garden on the 8th November with a movement of 10km. This movement although relatively small is in the 20% of recorded movements of Blue Tits and given recapture movements of less than 5km are not reported in national reports this is quite a good one.

North Harbour Wall Twite

2011-11-12T14:44:00.002Z

The first birds of the Autumn turned up in the harbour area on around 9th October this year. Since then numbers have built up, but are quite mobile and perhaps more unsettled compared with earlier years. Larger numbers seem to be frequenting Ocean Edge foreshore than the harbour feeding area, although much movement back and forth occurs throughout the day. Increasing vegetation on the north harbour wall mounds may be leading to more natural seed for the birds, less dependency on the nyger and hence less certainty of finding the birds on the seed.

Today, 63 were counted on OE and then in early afternoon, after the nyger seed was replenished (the morning supply having been eaten by rabbits and feral pigeons - and probably Twite too!), 14 were on the food (of which 5 were unringed).

So far, 41 new birds have been ringed during October and November and two controls caught, both of which had been ringed in early autumn at Machrihanish Bird Observatory.

A catch at Askham-in-Furness today included a Heysham bird ringed only 14 days ago at Heysham. This would suggest movement across the bay occurs in both directions at this time of year. Similar movements were recorded from Heysham to Askham and to Walney at this time last year.

ajd 11/11/2011

Gritting Continues

2011-11-08T17:48:00.005Z

The Bearded Tit gritting season is in full swing at Leighton Moss RSPB Reserve. Birds have been visiting the grit trays since 14th of September and up to 14 different birds have been recorded visiting the trays recently on one day. We know how many, because almost all our birds are individually colour ringed and are logged almost daily by dedicated local birders especially Keith Kellet. To date we have identified 12 adult males and nine adult females. We estimate that the breeding population this year was 12 pairs so almost all the adults have visited the trays. This season we have ringed 33 young birds , of these 24 have visited the trays. To date one bird, an adult female, has been recorded on the tray on 20 days . Last years record was 22 days but there is time yet, for gritting can go on until mid December.

Birds regularly visit the trays in pairs including the young birds, for Bearded Tits appear to form pairs soon after fledging and remain together ,if they survive of course, to the breeding season.

John

More on Coal Tits

2011-11-06T14:14:00.003Z

John posted yesterday about the large number of Coal Tits being seen locally. I have also seen this in Lancaster and so decided to do a bit of ringing in the garden today to see how many birds were using the feeders. After 3 hours the wind picked up to be enough to drop leaves into net rather than either side of it so I gave up at that point. Anyway 32 birds in 3 hours made up of:

Coal Tit - 12 New
Long Tailed Tit - 10 New, 1 Control (Probably from the University via Paul's garden)
Bullfinch - 3 New
Great Tit - 2 New, 1 Retrap from November 2010
Blue Tit - 1 New, 1 Retrap from November 2010
Chaffinch - 1 New

Since taking down the net very few of the Coal Tits coming to the feeders are ringed so I only ringed a small proportion of them. The biggest surprise were the Bullfinch which, until today, were not on my garden list.

Perhaps the huge number of Coal Tits explains why the sunflower seed feeder needed refilling 3 times yesterday. I've since upgraded to a bigger model so hopefully they will last at least a day between refills.

Are the large Coal Tit numbers a North West thing or is this being seen nationally?

Richard

A Coal Tit Winter?

2011-11-05T19:26:00.002Z

Had quite a few comments this past month from garden bird enthusiasts that there are many more Coal Tits around this autumn. Typical was today where one lady had seen six together on her feeders in a site some distance from woodland, she added that they were more numerous than Blue Tits.

This sent me scurrying to check out our ringing stats for this autumn. The best data was from one of our woodland feeding stations. So far this autumn we have had 124 handlings of Coal Tits this compares with only 32 in the same period last year although we have had one more visit this year during the period late September to early November. During the same period this year we had only 45 Blue tit handlings. So it looks like a good winter for Coal Tit numbers, Will be interesting to see what happens through the winter.

One of the Coal Tits caught this year had been ringed at the same site six years and 314 days previously. Certainly our record for a ringed Coal Tit. This autumn we have had two Blue Tits which were ringed as nestlings in the high altitude Oak woods in the Lune Valley as nestlings in our nest box schemes, caught in lowland areas, one at a garden feeding station the other in the Leighton Moss reed bed the later showed a movement of 16 km.

John

More sand martin recoveries

2011-10-26T19:58:00.004+01:00

Every blog post I make covers one of two things - Oystercatchers or Sand Martins. Tonight is, once again, Sand Martin recoveries. Today's batch from the BTO contained details of 3 birds ringed or controlled by North Lancs Ringing Group.

Paris 6478949 - Juvenile
Ringed Loire-Atlantique, France 18-Aug-2010
Retrapped Whittington, Kirkby Lonsdale, Lancashire 05-Jun-2011

Y150466 - Juvenile
Ringed Whittington, Kirkby Lonsdale, Lancashire 29-Jun-2011
Retrapped Loire-Atlantique, France 09-Aug-2011

These two are pretty unsurprising really given that 60% of the Sand Martins ringed in the UK recaught in Europe are caught in France with a further 30% in Spain.

Perhaps the most surprising bird we had details of today is:

L597913 - Juvenile
Ringed Wintersett Reservoir, West Yorkshire 24-Jun-2011
Retrapped Whittington, Kirkby Lonsdale, Lancashire 29-Jun-2011
99km North West 5km

This is the 5th Sand Martin to be caught on the Lune this year from Wintersett although the only one ringed in 2011. Such a rapid movement in completely the wrong direction for Africa shows that, just like juvenile Swallows, Sand Martins have a wandering phase looking for suitable breed areas before heading south for the winter. With a wing length of 102mm this bird was in the largest 20% of juveniles we caught this year and is currently the best guide we have as to whether the bird is a 'local' bird or a wanderer. Shorter winged birds are more likely to be local as they are yet to be fully grown.

I would also like to congratulate the French ringing scheme for getting the details back of these birds so quickly. Not so many years ago the wait for details of bird ringed in France was several years.

Cetti's Warbler The Next Installment

2011-10-26T16:46:00.005+01:00

Cetti's Warbler are certainly a potential colonist in our area but to date there is no definite proof of breeding. The first bird was caught at Leighton Moss as long ago as 1995. This was followed by singles in 2007 & 2008, three in 2009 and seven in 2010. To date this autumn we have caught four, two each of males and females. One of the females had been ringed in October 2010. In the 2010 autumn we also retrapped two birds from previous autumn's one from two autumn's previously. Are these birds returning to a prefered wintering area or have they bred undetected close by?

That they are capable of quite long movements was shown by a male which we ringed on 13/03/10 which was caught on 25/04/11 near Portsmouth 389 km SSE. This is the second longest movement of any British ringed Cetti's Warbler.

The group also ringed another Cetti's at Heysham earlier in the month making five for the areas so far this autumn

John

True Grit

2011-10-14T17:23:00.004+01:00

Despite a marked decline in the Bearded Tit population at Leighton Moss following last winter's hard weather and trashing of the reed bed by roosting starlings, Numbers of birds visiting our grit trays has been good. Our best day to date is 18 different individuals (identified by their colour rings).

To date eight adult males and seven adult females have visited the tray along with 20 different this years juveniles. This is out of a total of 26 juveniles ringed to date. There has also been at least three un-ringed birds two of which are still in partial juvenile plumage. Our ringing activities have been rather curtailed by the extremely high water levels and the recent rather wet windy weather.
John

Another African Sand Martin

2011-09-29T18:39:00.004+01:00

The best of a large batch of recoveries received from the BTO is our second Sand Martin from last winter from Senegal in West Africa. Both birds were caught and released in mid December just two days apart. This one was caught in Djoudi National Park. The first reported bird has been caught back at its natal colony on the River Lune this June, This is the groups sixth Sand Martin recovery from this area in mid winter. Another Sand Martin caught on the Lune in June had been ringed on the French coast last September.

Other recoveries included a juvenile Reed Warbler ringed at Leighton Moss this late June and caught and released in Portugal 48 days later. Another recovery in Portugal was of a Redwing ringed on passage at Heysham in early October and found wintering in Portugal in January. Probably escaping last winters cold weather only to be shot in Portugal.

Two Siskin recoveries show the wintering and the breeding areas of Siskins using our area. One ringed at Brandon in Suffolk in January was caught at Thrushgill in July, probably one of our increasing breeding birds. The other was ringed in March in our area and caught near Lairg during the breeding season. This is our fourteenth Siskin to be found in Northern Scotland during the breeding season

Finally a Twte ringed at Heyham in early November last winter was caught at Blaen-Y-Nant in Gwynedd on April 17th. This is our first recovery of a Twite in Wales and suggests onward movement in early winter from our feeding station at Heysham
John

The Gritting Season Has Started

2011-09-20T14:37:00.009+01:00

The Bearded Tit gritting season has started earlier than usual this year. The first bird reported to me was on September 14th compared to the 20th in 2010. As usual the first birds to come to the trays are adults. One interesting feature as shown in Mike Killelea' s photographs taken on the 18th some of these birds are still moulting, the head is not fully feathered and the black beard has not fully formed. I can't remenber birds in this state of moult being recorded on the trays before.

From the colour rings we know this bird was ringed in September 2009 . It was recorded on the grit trays on six days in autumn 2009 and on ten occasions in 2010. Then this May it was found feeding a brood in one of our nest boxes ca 150 metres away from the grit trays.

By the 20th four birds were seen together on the trays. however the breeding population is down this year following the cold winter so fewer birds are expected to visit the trays this year.
John

Little Egrets Move North

2011-09-16T16:26:00.004+01:00

We have just received details of two colour ringed sightings of young Little Egrets which were seen together on the Eric Complex Leighton Moss RSPB Reserve Silverdale. Both were seen there on 21st of July this year and for several other days around that period. They had both been ringed as nestlings near Bangor in North Wales on June 5th this year although they were from different broods.

This now brings to at least nine different birds from the Bangor colony which have been seen in our area over the last three years. All nine were reported at least at first in either July or August after ringing, establishing that there is a marked movement north fairly soon after fledging. A search of the BTO Online Ringing Reports reveals that young birds from this colony move even further north at this time of year with three reports from the Clyde estuary in Scotland, two from Norhern Ireland and one from the Isle of Man. Some of the colour ringed birds have remained in our area in winter and at least two birds were sighted the following spring but the Online Reports show that one of the Bangor birds rather sensibly, given last years cold weather moved to the Canary Islands in December.

John

Reed Warblers Have a Good but late Season

2011-09-04T16:55:00.006+01:00

With ca 95% of the Leighton Moss reed-bed trashed by roosting starlings last winter, we were rather concerned that Reed Warblers might have a poor season. They arrived in late April to find almost all the reed bed under a metre high and our impression was that the few good reed areas were colonised first.

However this has turned out to be a good season . To date we have caught 246 adult birds and 806 juveniles making it the best year since 2003. However breeding does seem to have been later than usual. By the second half of August almost all the adults have usually left. Over the past 11 years we have averaged just seven adult birds in the second half of August but this year we have caught 23. A few were fattening up ready for the off but a female(ringed as a juvenile in 2010) we caught this morning( September 4th) was typical, it still had a marked brood patch.- no fat and weighed 10.3 grams. We are also catching a number of young birds still in post juvenile moult.

Did the poor condition of the reed delay the start of the breeding season so making second broods later than usual.?

John

The Data Builds Up

2011-08-21T18:01:00.004+01:00

A recent batch of recoveries added a little more to our knowledge of the movements of birds in our area.

A Sedge Warbler originally ringed in Oxfordshire in July 2010 was found breeding at Leighton Moss. This is our first Sedge Warbler recovery from Oxfordshire. By contrast a Reed Warbler also found breeding at Leighton Moss and ringed at Icklesham in Sussex in late August was our 34th Reed Warbler in Sussex.

Sand Martins have been our most ringed species this year with 2101 new birds ringed. We received details of some of the 648 ringed birds we caught while breeding in the sandy banks of the River Lune. These added to the data we already have brings the total recoveries from Sussex to 117, 13 in Kent, 18 in Yorkshire seven in Cheshire but only our second from Wiltshire. Most have been caught at reed bed roosts but a good number have been caught roosting in established colonies as they make their way south,

John

Bearded Tits Suffer While Reed Warblers Prosper

2011-08-10T08:44:00.004+01:00

Following the really cold winter and the trashing of 95% of the Leighton Moss reed bed by roosting Starlings we were rather fearful of the effect on these two reed bed breeding species. Both species are the subject of RAS studies

The bad news is that the Bearded Tit population has declined from at least 30 pairs last year to under 10 this year. To date we have only ringed 16 juveniles compared to 104 last year and although we will probably catch more in the September/October period they are obviously well down. To date we have caught/ re-sighted five adult males and only two adult females we usually catch or sight more adult birds in autumn and on the grit trays but the population has obviously suffered. Last year we caught/sighted 49 males and 28 females.

By contrast Reed Warblers are doing well. To date we have caught 222 adult birds (124 new and 96 re traps from previous years) compared to 224 in 2010 and we have a few more weeks to go although adult Reed Warblers start to migrate in August. To date we have ringed 477 juveniles compared to 515 in the whole season of 2010 and we have what is usually the most productive period of August to early September to come- if only the weather cooperates!

The Starling trashing though seems to have had some effect on the distribution of Reed Warblers, with sites that have at least some standing reed producing the bulk of the adult birds.
Another possible effect is that there has been a re-distribution of the breeding population with a number of old adult birds re trapped this year but not in the intervening years. A extreme example of this was P503386 originally ringed in August 01 as a juvenile- re trapped in 07 and twice this year but not in the intervening years. Two birds first ringed in 05 were also re trapped for the first time this year.

John

A Visitor From Lithuania

2011-08-04T11:43:00.004+01:00

We have just received details of a ringed bird reported to us by a visitor to Leighton Moss. All he found on January 1st this year was a leg and ring on the path behind the Public Hide. But he realised it was a bit different for it was a Lithuanian ring, number KV76449.

We now know it was a Starling ringed at Ventes Regas Silute Lithuania as a young bird on 16/07/2010. The bird had flown 1546 km, only to end up as a meal for a Sparrowhawk.

This is the third Starling that the group have had reported from Lithuania and gives a clue as to where the 100's of thousands of Starlings which roost at Leighton Moss in the winter come from.

From ringing of Starlings in past winters we have had reports in the breeding season from Russia (11) , Finland (3) Estonia (6) Latvia (3) Lithuania (3) Poland(1) Norway (7) Germany (9) and Denmark (10).

John

Pied Flycatchers on the Up

2011-07-26T17:37:00.008+01:00

Have finally got together all the data on our Pied Flycatcher Retrapping Adults for Survival study in 13 woods in the Lune valley.

This year we had 92 nest boxes occupied. This compares with only 63 in 2010 and 54 in 2009. Most of the increase has come from the peripheral woods which have had nest boxes for several years. In two of these woods the population increased from just four pairs in 2009/10 to 11 this year. Of the 92 occupied boxes 76 were successful. In total we ringed 455 nestlings.

A total of 71 females and 19 males were caught. Three of these males were proved to be polygamous with the two boxes serviced being approximately 50, 75 and 100 metres apart.

Birds ringed as adults mainly returned to nest in the same wood in successive years. Out of 21 only 2 changed woods. But of 31 birds breeding for the first time only seven nested in the wood in which they were hatched the others moved to other woods. Birds ringed as nestlings in Durham and Derbyshire were found nesting in our boxes.

John

Sand Martins (again)

2011-07-26T06:07:00.002+01:00

A very brief update on Sand Martins. It looks like the first brood or two of Juveniles are well on the way south as we had no retrap juveniles from previous sessions last night although about 70 retrap adults. The highlights from the last couple of nights have been:

L333188
N 3J New Bird 21/06/10 R Lune, Whittington (NOR), Lancashire
C 3 Recaptured 03/08/10 Tour aux Moutons, Loire-Atlantique, France (764 km, S, 43 days)
C 4M Recaptured 25/07/11 Nether Burrow, Lancashire (2 km, S, 1 yr 34days)

X836637 - appears to be the 5th Control from Wintersett Reservoir this year, following on from 3 last year.

This series of 8 movements is very interesting. Wintersett is in effect on the other side of the Pennines and for most summer migrants not an obvious route south. The Pennine rivers do provide excellent breeding habitat for Sand Martin so I would guess these birds are in their wandering phase in June/July when caught in West Yorkshire.

Richard

Preparing to Leave

2011-07-23T17:56:00.003+01:00

Our ringing of Reed and Sedge Warblers over the past two days produced the first signs that adults of both species are preparing to leave on migration by putting on fat prior to their departure.

Three adult Reed Warblers showed this very well .They normally average around 11.5 grams but these three weighed in at 13.8, 14.2 and 14.6 grams and had significant signs of fat accumulation with fat scores of between 3 and 5. In total we caught 17 adult Reed Warblers but only these three showed any signs of fat accumulation.

We caught smaller numbers of Sedge Warblers but one had a fat score of 3 and a weight of 12.6

Past recoveries of both species have shown how early these birds move with several recoveries of adults along the south coast of England from late July on and even in Northern France as early as August 8th

John

Cetti's Warbler-The Mystery Deepens

2011-07-16T07:53:00.004+01:00

Cetti's Warbler has been moving north in Britain over recent years . This is reflected in the numbers ringed at Leighton Moss- singles in 1995, 2007 and 2008, then 4 in 2009 and 7 in 2010. Males have stopped and sung until early spring in the last two years but then apparently disappeared.

Of the seven caught in 2010 two were retraps from previous years, one each from 08 and 09. But male X945739 produced a totally unexpected recovery . It was ringed at Leighton on 13th March 2010 and caught at Farlington Marsh near Portsmouth presumably on territory on 25 April this year a distance of 390 km to the south. This appears to be one of the few long distance movements recorded for this species, which according to The Migration Atlas are highly sedentary after establishing a territory. Did this bird fail to find a mate in spring 2010 and so moved on? We await this autumn to see how many arrive.

Other recoveries reported recently included three more Sand Martins in France on autumn passage including one in Loire Atlantique on 29th July our earliest on autumn passage in France and just 18 days after ringing. Another was found in southern Spain in mid September.

Female Pied Flycatchers nesting in our nest boxes had been ringed as nestlings in Derbyshire and Durham. Showing good mixing of the population.

Four Twite ringed while wintering at Heysham were caught at Machrihanish Seabird Observatory Argyll bringing the total to nine from this site.

Lesser Redpoll caught on passage in April had been ringed in winter in Suffolk, Hampshire and Nottingham.

A Reed Warbler ringed as a juvenile at Leighton in August 206 was caught at Chew Valley Lake in mid April.

Most satisfying of all was that all the above recoveries were of birds caught by other ringers and so may go on to produce other recoveries.

John

Sand martin update

2011-07-09T15:11:00.002+01:00

I could put a load of mindless trivia in this blog posting like retrapping 9 birds with successive ring numbers or controlling a bird where a reversal of two digits of the ring number would have made it one of ours, or even taking L333271 and L334271 out of successive bags when neither had been ringed at that colony (one moved 2km and the other 4km) however all these are just fairly uninteresting chance events. Of much more significance is the overall pattern of captures.

In 2011 we have caught a total of 1372 individuals so far, of which 1191 are new birds and the remainder are retraps or controls. These 181 birds are of most interest to the project. The tables below show where the birds were ringed in 2010 and where we have recaught them in 2011, with NOR and SOU being two colonies near Whittington, ARK being near Arkholme, NETB being near Tunstall and CDB being deep inside the Bowland fells.

82 were ringed as juveniles in 2010:

NOR SOU ARK CDB Total
NOR 28 9 7 44
SOU 2 2
ARK 1 4 5
CDB 2 2 2 6
NETB 13 4 8 25

Total 44 15 21 2 82
9% of Juveniles ringed in 2010 have been recaught this year.

Adults ringed in 2010:

NOR SOU ARK CDB Total
NOR 45 4 2 51
SOU 1 1
ARK 7 7
CDB 5 5
NETB 1 5 3 9

Total 46 10 12 5 73
10% of adults ringed in 2010 have been recaught this year.

A further bird ringed in 2010 by the group at Gressingham swallow roost has been caught at Tunstall. We have also retrapped 13 birds from 2009 and one from 2007.

Note the adults have been highly site faithful with the exception of those at site SOU. This colony is largely abandoned probably due to predation by rats and stoats last season with only a small part active this year. The adults could have moved 200 metres along the river to the northern colony however it appears like more have gone to Tunstall around 2km away. Last year we did not ring at the Tunstall colony so made two visits this year to find out how many of the birds at our existing RAS sites use it. The answer is clearly a lot (around 10% of adult birds caught were retraps from last year) and as a result we plan to extent our RAS scheme to include this colony.

The totals for 2011 for each site are as follows with the retrap figure excluding within year retraps and controls:

New Adult New Juvenile Retrap Adult % (adult) retraps
NOR 260 318 95 27
SOU 17 6 3 15
ARK 41 0 12 22
CDB 50 39 11 18
NETB 320 140 34 10

Of the 11 controls the most interesting is likely to be L597913 which we caught on 29th June and is a Juvenile. My guess is it is from Scotland however we will have to wait for the ringing unit to get back to us. Juveniles do make rapid movements in late June and July often visiting active colonies in search of sites to breed. Will this one return next year?

A Record at Last

2011-07-03T14:57:00.002+01:00

The further re-trapping of Reed Warbler P503386 this morning means it establishes a new Group longetivity record for this species. When it was first re-trapped this year on 27th of June it was just 2 days short of beating the previous record. ( See my posting Almost a Record) But to days re-trap extends its time since ringing to nine years and 314 days and its still going strong.

It is not the oldest small passerine recorded by the group, this is a Great Tit ringed as a nestling and found dead 11 years and 97 days later.

John

Chiffchaffs on the Up

2011-06-30T16:10:00.002+01:00

Many people have commented on the good numbers of Chiffchaff singing this spring. The first returns from our ringing sessions at Leighton Moss support this view. Looking back over the period 2000 to 2010, in these 11 years we only ringed a grand total of 23 Chiffchaffs in June. This June we have ringed 20 all juvenile birds suggesting good productivity.

These early returns from a difficult month weather wise also suggest that it has been a good breeding season for Willow and Reed Warbler and also Blackcap. However for our main study species -Bearded Tit the population has obviously suffered during the past cold winter. We have only caught 13 this June compared to 77 in June 2010.

John

Poor Season in Aughton Woods

2011-06-22T18:36:00.005+01:00

The breeding season got off to a promising start but soon went downhill and ended up being, sadly, rather a disaster.

The current total of nestboxes is now 33. These consisted of 29 boxes existing (odd ones have been added over the past couple of years), together with 7 new boxes erected early this spring. These new boxes are part of a batch of 12 made this year and kindly financed by the North Lancs. Naturalists’ Group. Of these 12, there are 3remaining as spares for failing boxes, 2 were used to replace rotted boxes and 7 new boxes were erected.

There is an unofficial view that Pied Flycatchers like to use new boxes, and indeed, one of the new ones (which had only been erected a couple of weeks earlier) did attract a Pied Flycatcher this year - the first in these woods since 1 in 2008. A part clutch of eggs was laid but unfortunately was predated. Another clutch of eggs, possibly of a Redstart, was predated plus 5 clutches of Blue Tit eggs.

In each case there remained only many small pieces of eggshell in the nests – this suggests that the culprits may have been Wood Mice. These nests were spread throughout the area, rather than in one particular group.

The takeup of boxes was:

Blue Tit 13 3 successful, 5 predated eggs, 4 failed eggs(reason unknown).
Great Tit 3 2 predated eggs, 1 failed eggs(reason unknown).
Pied Flycatcher 1 1 predated eggs.
Redstart?? 1 1 predated eggs.
Other nests were begun in 5 boxes but did not progress.
10 boxes unused.

As can be seen, only three broods of young were successfully fledged from the 33 boxes.
The weather during the breeding period was generally rather cool, windy and wet at times. However, the Aughton Woods complex is not especially exposed and faces approximately south-east. The woods are fairly dense and boxes around 1.5metre above ground level would be somewhat protected from the elements.

A disappointing outcome from four monitoring trips of 3-4 hours each undertaken from the Crook O’ Lune!

ajd
22/06/2011

The Long Lived and the Quick Mover

2011-06-18T17:19:00.010+01:00

A further batch of recoveries included two outstanding records.

The first was an Oystercatcher ringed by the Devon and Cornwall Wader Group while wintering at Dawlish Warren on the Exe Estuary in Devon. Nothing outstanding about that as we have had several Oystercatchers from Devon but this bird was ringed in 1989 and was killed by a raptor at Arkholme 21 years and 158 days after ringing. Making it the Groups oldest recovered bird. However it had a long way to go to reach the British record of 36 years and eight months!

The other outstanding recovery was of an adult Sedge Warbler ringed at Middleton NR on 18th July 2009 and controlled 15 days later in Loire-Atlantique France a distance of 745 km. this shows just how early some of our breeding Segde Warblers start to migrate.We also had another adult Sedge Warbler which was ringed on 16the June 2010 and controlled at the same site in Loire-Atlantique 64 days afrer ringing.

Other recoveries included two Siskin ringed in winter and both controlled at the same site in Dumfries in early March. A Lesser Redpoll ringed in February was on the Isle of Mull in late April showing the breeding area of some of our wintering birds. The ring number was read through a telescope.
John

Sand Martins - an update of the first 700 captures

2011-06-17T20:01:00.003+01:00

2011 has started with sand martins where we left off. We've been catching large numbers of birds at regular colonies on the lune. We still have some new colonies to try and see how many of our birds from last year are using them.

The highlight of the year so far is L334091 which we ringed at Whittington in 2010, was controlled in December in Senegal and then retrapped on Wednesday back at the same colony in Whittington.

Out of the 737 birds caught so far this year 560 have been new birds (256 juveniles, 304 adults), two have been ringed in France, 2 have been controls from the UK. The retraps have been very interesting, the break down of years are below:

2007 - 1, ringed as a juvenile and not seen since ringing
2009 - 10, 8 ringed as adults, 2 as juveniles
2010 - 107, 56 ringed as adults, 51 as juveniles

The 2010 retraps show that the juveniles have so far had a 5% return rate and the adults a 8% return rate. This is significantly lower than last year however the season is yet young and we have more sub colonies to ring at when the wind finally drops.

We have been eagler waiting for details of two French ringed sand martins we caught last year. Sadly the details are yet to arrive from the BTO however in the latest batch of recoveries we have 7 Sand Martins we ringed in 2010 that have been recaught in autumn in France and a further sand martin caught in Shropshire on spring passage. More details of these to follow soon.

Israeli-ringed Lesser Whitethroat updated

2011-06-12T10:08:00.004+01:00

What was thought to be a 2CY male Israeli-ringed (Tel Aviv University Y60214) Lesser Whitethroat was caught during the Middleton Nature Reserve CES this morning. It was 'loosely' associating with some independent but recently fledged juveniles and, as also suggested by the date, is a local breeding bird

Provisional information relayed to eilatbirding.blogspot.com suggest that it was ringed at Eilat on 10/3/09 - this was a surprise given the seemingly brand new ring, muddy iris and tail feather features. Thanks to Pete Kinsella for alerting me to this site & posting

Richard has informed that this is the 7th Israel-ringed bird to be found in the British Isles with 9 British-ringed birds found in Israel. These are all caught during spring passage in Israel which is a more easterly route than the autumn passage. Ringing recoveries suggest that autumn passage involves a stop-over in north Italy before a more direct route to the presumed Kenyan (and surrounding countries?) wintering area (per Migration Atlas)

Rather overshadowed by this, but perhaps equally unlikely, was the fact that the first Swallow capture of the year on the nearby Heysham NR CES was also a (British) 'control' (contrast with one 'control' out of 1000+ in last autumn's roost ringing!)

ALMOST A RECORD

2011-06-11T16:22:00.005+01:00

The catching yesterday of an adult reed Warbler with ring number P503386 sent me racing to my computer when back home. I knew that P rings were used about 10 years ago so this bird was obviously quite old but would it be a record age for our study at Leighton Moss? I quickly discovered that it was ringed as a young bird on 23/08/01 so it was 9 years and 261 days since it was first ringed. But it was obviously 10 years old, Would this be our record for longevity in this species? A quick look at another file and I discovered that our previous oldest bird was 9 years and 263 days after ringing! So it had missed the record by just two days.

Nationally the oldest British ringed Reed Warbler was 11 days short of 13 years so our bird has a bit to go yet. Reed Warblers are well known for their longevity, in the same catch we had one bird 6 years old and 2 each at 5 and 4 years old.

Visiting bto.org/ring I found that the oldest British ringed Sedge Warbler was only 8 years and 8 months. Blackcap and Willow Warbler both 10 years and 8 months. Why Reed Warblers should be so long lived compared with these other warblers is interesting .But most amazing of all is the thought that this little gem has navigated to West Africa and back on 10 occasions!
Thanks to David Mower for the photo.
John

Pied Flycatcher on autopilot?

2011-06-11T11:30:00.002+01:00

Whilst checking nest boxes/utilising the energy provided by a piece of Bakewell tart/walking off the fat-store remnants of a triple-headed cone from Mr Whirl at Hartlepool headland, I approached Box 56 along the stream below Thrushgill clearfell

This seemed to be a clear cut case of empty box, flattened heavily soiled nest, no sign of any birds in the vicinity - typical of a Pied Flycatcher brood which would have left about 5 days ago. The nest was thrown out and the box cleaned. As soon as this was done, a/the male Pied Flycatcher suddenly appeared, making a racket and wing-flicking - the usual anxiety behaviour around an occupied nest

Furthermore it then followed me for a good 70m to Box 57 where an ex-Great Tit nest was similarly removed. During this process, the PF "defended" this box as though it was its own, calling,wing-flicking and approaching within about 2 metres

I moved on further up the river and it immediately lost interest. All previous alarm-calling had been limited to examination of/proximity to Box 56 with no prior example of being followed so far upstream to the vicinity of Box 57

Two pristine boxes if it wants to commandeer the/a female for a second brood!
Or is this just 'autopilot' behaviour?

Pete

Another Nest Box Scheme has a good year

2011-06-08T11:50:00.002+01:00

Following on from my previous report showing good productivity from my nest box scheme near Kirkby Lonsdale and also Paul's report on Roeburndale my Leighton Moss scheme has also had a successful season. Results as follows-

Of 13 Great Tit nests 11 were successful.
Eleven Blue tits had only one failure.
Single nests of Coal Tit, Nuthatch and Tawny Owl were all successful.

Yesterday I visited the boxes of a small scheme in Barbondale. Here six Pied Flycatchers have nested, just one failed but the other five were all feeding young.
Many thanks to Tony and June Moriarty for checking the bulk of the Leighton Moss boxes.
John

Osprey passes through our area

2011-06-05T23:04:00.004+01:00

http://www.roydennis.org/osprey/index.asp?id=241&sid=169#thumb

This link is to Rothiemurchus, a two-year-old Osprey on its first northbound migration. It roosted overnight either Wenning or Greta Foot area, having flown from the Blackpool direction in late evening. Unlike 2010, all the satellite tagged adults, with their much earlier migration being mainly during a period of westerlies, chose routes to the east of our area in 2011.

Keep checking - part 2

2011-06-05T12:03:00.002+01:00

.... and in Roeburndale, a Redstart pair have just laid their second brood but not in the same box as the first. This time, they are using an adjacent box that had a Blue Tit nest in when they staarted their first nest. Pied Flies still singing in some areas of the woods sso there maay be more to come.

Provisional totals from the boxes I've checked - 174 Fied Fly pulli and 29 adults (best ever year for me), 24 Redstart pulli, 177 Great Tit pulli and a wopping 330 Blue Tit pulli. Total so far (of all species) 730 pulli!

Ouch!

paul

Early sand martin ringing

2011-06-05T11:42:00.003+01:00

We've made the first visit to a couple of sand martin colonies that have been well watched over the last few weeks. We time our first visit to be a few days after the first juveniles have fledged. This ensures the colony is very well established and gives us a good chance of catching locally grown juveniles and catching a good number of adults.

Our first visit to the Burrow colony was a quiet affair with just 3 of us there so only covered a small proportion of it however in return we caught 82 new birds of which 11 were juveniles. Of far more interest were the 30 retraps and two controls.

17 of the retraps were ringed as juveniles (16 from 2010 and 1 from 2009) at colonies along the Lune. Most of these were early season birds (up to mid June) suggesting that juveniles at colonies early in the season will return there. Later in the season a lot of the juveniles are wandering between sites so have a much lower return rate.

13 of the retraps were ringed as adults, mostly at Burrow in 2010 with a couple from Arkholme (6km away) with 3 from 2009.

The two remaining birds were controls (ie not ringed locally). One was carrying a French ring which has a very similar ring number to one ringed in September 2007 in Charente-Maritime (Thanks to the on line reports on the BTO website). The other is a complete mystery - L088327.

At the same time Pete made a visit to a small colony in the Bowland fells and caught a total of 32 birds including 4 retraps from previous years (all ringed as adults), and 3 controls (in this case moved more than 10km) which were from Arkholme (2) and Burrow. One ringed as an adult female in 2009 and the other two as juveniles in 2010.

We hope to make visits to more smaller colonies this year to try and find out where more of our 918 juveniles from 2010 have gone.

Permutations - see update 12th June

2011-06-04T21:02:00.003+01:00

Box 51 in upper Hindburndale seemed to have ended its 2011 season rather sadly with a clutch of dead Pied Flycatcher young which had "seemed only to be being fed by the male", backed up by the growth being much slower than the nearby Box 56 PFs. Their deaths seemed to be a case of female predation and the male not being able to cope...........plus the weather didnt help. Indeed I had phoned Mark Breaks earlier this evening to say that the female was probably dead (ringed as a nestling in 2009 at Marks home at New Laithe Farm, Newton in Bowland, nested in 2010 in Sykes, Slaidburn before moving further north in 2011)

The nest and contents were removed. Following reports of late PF nests and knowing that two seemingly unmated males were holding territory nearby, I checked all the empties this evening.

All remained empty except Box 51 which contained a new PF nest with two eggs

Is this the original pair re-laying, the original male (which was ringed on the left leg) with a new female, one of the nearby unmated birds pairing with a late migrant female or some other convolution. Examination of the female if/when the clutch of 7 is reached will help solve this as will views of the male to see if it is or isnt ringed on the left leg

Haven't had a decent view of the male to see if it is the left-leg-ringed original, but can confirm that the female is an unringed 2CY - ringed today (12th June) sitting on a small apparently full clutch of 5 eggs

Keep checking you 'empty' boxes!

Pete

A Successful Season

2011-06-03T17:33:00.004+01:00

Have been getting reports that some nest box schemes have been experiencing a poor season. Have just returned from one of my schemes in a private wood near Kirkby Lonsdale. Here it has been a very successful season. Of the 36 boxes a record number of 32 were occupied. Of these five are Pied Flycatchers ( Compared to only one last year) All five have young and the first brood are ready to fledge. Two of the adult birds have been ringed as nestlings last year in one of the Groups nest boxes on the other side of the Lune Valley

Blue tits had 13 nests of which 10 were successful. The three lost were all due to predation by Great Spotted Woodpeckers. Great Tits had 14 boxes of which 13 were successful.

The wood has many mature mainly Oak trees but also a variety of other trees, it is also south facing so has been reasonably well protected from the recent cold NW winds.

John

Redpolls on the Move

2011-05-27T15:47:00.002+01:00

A recent batch of recoveries included details of most of the Lesser Redpolls that we controlled in March/early April. They show that the birds are moving through at this time of year from wintering areas in the south of England up to the Cheshire area. One had wintered in Surrey. Another had been ringed at Shooters Hill Greater London on March 21 and caught at our feeders 11 day later.

The breeding areas of these birds also featured with a control of a bird ringed in Southern Norway in late April 2009 and controlled here on March 21st. We have also had news of a bird we ringed in mid February and the ring was photographed in Mull this May, full details to follow. The Redpolls appear to be quite mobile at this time of year with several movements between three of our feeding stations.

Other recoveries included a Leighton Reed Warbler controlled in France in August 2009. A Coal Tit ringed in Swinton Gt. Manchester in January moving 44 km to our area in March. A Chaffinch ringed in November at Heysham and controlled 86 km north in North Yorkshire in mid March.

A Nuthatch ended its days almost five years after ringing flying into glass having moved just 8 km,

John

Bumper year for nestboxes

2011-05-19T16:24:00.003+01:00

This appears to be the best year for a long time, possibly even the best year ever for Pied Flycatchers.
Provisional results from four woods in Roeburndale are that there are 29 nesting attempts by Pied Flycatchers (some of which have just hatched) with 5 Redstart - all in one wood (the best I can remember). Also 2 nuthatch (uncommon in my boxes) .... oh, and 47 Blue Tit and 21 Great Tit attempts!

paul

an update - another wood checked yesterday - and 5 more pairs of Pied Flies, 4 more Blue Tit and 2 more Great Tit

Upper Hindburndale, updated on 19/5/11

2011-05-14T12:49:00.005+01:00

Hello
Up here the most noticeable feature has been the number of Blue Tits, usually relatively scarce this far up the valley. Out of 67 boxes:

4 x tit spp (part-clutches at last check, updated details not to hand (19/5))
9 x Great Tit
17 x Blue Tit
17 x Pied Flycatcher (one seemingly deserted, rest active)
1 x Redstart (unfortunately predated (in 'open'-front box))
1 x Nuthatch
& a few boxes with bits of moss and grass stems, now presumed abandoned

The deserted Pied Flycatcher (5 eggs) is c6 metres from a nest with 9 eggs! Only one male seen in this area. All the female Pied Flycatchers bar two with incomplete clutches have been examined (by 18/5). 9 were already ringed and 5 were fitted with rings. Of the 9 already ringed, most were from the nearby Roeburndale catchment (full details not in yet for birds caught on 18/5), one seemingly from elsewhere and one ringed as a nestling at New Laithe Farm (Newton-in-Bowland) in 2009, caught as a nesting female at Sykes (Slaidburn) in 2010 and now moving even further north and nesting near Botton Mill, upper Hindburn in 2011 (16km from original ringing site).

Thanks to Colin Middleton, Jenny Batty, Kate and Mick Lewis and Liz Whitfield for permission to put up the boxes and access the land for monitoring. Also the monitoring team of Jean Roberts, Louise North, Kate Lewis, Paul and Tess Adams

Pete Marsh

Pied Flycatchers Have a Record Year

2011-05-13T20:12:00.002+01:00

To add to other comments about the abundance of Pied Flycatchers. Two woods in the Kirkby Lonsdale area, always considered rather marginal for this species and usually holding only one or two pairs over the last few years, this year have seven and three pairs respectively.

One can only assume that following last years good productivity they have survived well in their African Wintering Quarters
John

Pott Yeats, Littledale

2011-05-11T17:00:00.000+01:00

As others have reported, it seems there are good numbers of Pied Flycatcher and Redstart about this spring. My nestboxes in Littledale have not been too successful for these species over the last 2 to 3 years, with only 1-2 broods being successful. With my tongue firmly in my cheek, I have blamed this on other members of our group for putting up too many new boxes in prime habitat and stealing all the birds!

However, this year (with even more new boxes in other woods) mine are better occupied.

There are 39 boxes which so far contain 15 Blue Tit, 9 Great Tit, 5 Pied Flycatcher, 1 Redstart and 1 Nuthatch. 7 Boxes are unoccupied thus far (some of which have been seriously "squirrelled"), although there could still be the odd late starting Pied Flycatcher. It is unusual here to see more Blue than Great Tits. 2 of the Pied Flycatchers are only at the nest building stage and so may not progress.

Last year only 2 broods successfully fledged from the whole wood so let's hope that this year is better.

Alan D

Recent sand martin movements

2011-05-08T16:52:00.002+01:00

In 2010 North Lancs RG ringed 1,659 and retrapped 449 Sand Martins. This was 100% of the Lancashire total and just 5 birds shy of 10% of the UK total. With this kind of number ringed I hoped for two things, firstly a lot returning this year and secondly some nice recoveries. Given we are yet to have our first sand martin session of the year I will have to wait a bit longer. In the latest batch of recoveries we did have a Sand Martin recovery to Senegal which is the fifth we've had to Senegal from North Lancs RG.

Shortly afterwards we had another recovery of a Sand Martin ringed in 2009 which was controlled in Somerset at a spring roost.

We are still waiting on two French ringed birds that we caught last year. Hopefully we'll hear about these soon and with luck catch some of the Sand Martins ringed in Africa over winter and further south during their migration.

Latish Redstarts and Pied Flycatchers

2011-05-07T20:48:00.004+01:00

Despite a load of birds arriving in record early time, notably Pied Flys, male Willow Warblers, Redstarts and the two Whitethroats, the last two weeks have not been plain sailing by any means for migrants arriving via west Africa/Iberian peninsula/France. Quite a lot have filtered through in recent days, however, including an influx of female Willow warblers in last week's easterlies (see e.g. Hilbre blogsite)

A box was checked today, which was one of an "out of the way" cluster of four previously unused boxes. This check was inspired by a 'new' singing male Redstart in the area. In five days, the box had gone from empty to Redstart with single egg! The last five days has also, in the same area, seen the arrival of at least two male and one female Cuckoo and at least one, probably two further additional singing male Redstart (one near an empty box). A similar incident last week at a nearby site involved removing a queen wasp from of a box which had been only fitted with a blue tit-size hole. This hole was then enlarged by Paul Adams and the box was immediately commandeered by a newly-arrived Pied Flycatcher with a nest already completed!

So keep checking your 'empties', even if they are a bit out of the way!

A couple of local movements as determined by female Pied Flys caught on the nest today by Jean R. at Botton Mill, upper Hindburndale: V470146 ringed as a pullus at Wray in 2007, also nested at Botton Mill last year. X578116 ringed as a pullus at Outhwaite, Roeburndale in 2009

Pete

Threes a Crowd

2011-05-07T17:04:00.004+01:00

Kevin Briggs had an interesting nest box visit today. Looked in a box to find two Blue Tits sitting on top of one another. One bird flew out and joined another on a nearby branch. The third bird then left the nest box to reveal 19 eggs. Obviously two females mated to the same male. Will be interesting to see how many young they rear.

John

Good year for Redstart and Pied Flycatchers

2011-05-06T09:01:00.004+01:00

This is the best year so far for Redstart with 5 clutches in one of the woods in Roeburndale, including one with a female that had been ringed as a breeding female in 2008. It is also a good year so far for Pied Flycatchers with 13 clutches (six up from last week), including this one with the smallest egg I have ever seen. One female was ringed in a nearby wood in 2006 - amazing that a bird this small can make it to Africa and back five times

Lets hope the cool, wet weather next week doesn't knock these birds back

paul

Ringed Arctic Terns

2011-05-04T21:33:00.002+01:00

During the easterlies this last few days it has seemed like the whole northern European population of Arctic terns has been dropping in to feed on Heysham Power Station outfalls before heading off north-east!

Yesterdays phenomenal minimum of 8,153 birds included a group of about 80 resting on the beach within ring"examining" range

They included 5 with what were presumed to be British C2 rings and these obviously contrasted with 3 birds bearing bulkier rings. Potentially the most interesting was one which initially appeared to have metal rings on both legs. On 50 x, this appeared to be a "long white ring" with some inscription on the right leg and a 'bulky' (c/p C2) metal ring on the left leg. The only possibility on the Dirk Raes site is one from a Dutch RAS scheme. Odd? - until you note the 50 Black Terns accompanying these birds

Are a proportion of these Arctics also overshooting? We will never know - if only they had been 50 metres on so closer!

An Excellent Nest Box Season

2011-05-02T19:56:00.004+01:00

This looks like being one of the best nest box seasons ever. Have visited my six schemes and all have record numbers of occupied boxes in two schemes this is almost 95%. A little early to give a full breakdown by species as some especially Pied Flycatchers are still at the building stage but already I have four Tawny Owls compared to only two last year. There is a good spread of start dates over these four, the first is pictured - a brood of three that I ringed today. Two others still have eggs although close to hatching and the other has chicks which will be ready to ring in ca a weeks time. Nuthatch's are doing well with five nests compared to only three last year, again quite a spread with three incubating and two completing laying.
There was a general expectation that tits might has suffered in the cold winter but they have apparently survived well and numbers are well up. Marsh Tits are not regular nest box users but located one today also have my first Coal Tit using a nest box.

John

Nests underway!

2011-04-28T09:28:00.002+01:00

100 boxes checked yesterday and 32 definite nesting attempts (in addition to the 20-odd in my other wood), including this Nuthatch and one Redstart in the same box as for two previous years. Seven Pied Flycatcher clutches so far with other possible nests on the go. As Pete suggests, there may be many more birds coming ... it is still April (just!) and yes, Redstart are very inconspicuous when at the egg stage.

paul

Hindburndale nestboxes

2011-04-27T22:24:00.004+01:00

Big difference between the upper and lower valleys. Haw Wood revealed 11/11 boxes occupied with 9 of these being tits, including a full clutches of 12 + 9 being incubated with the rest containing 3, 4, 7, 8, 8, with 2 incomplete nests. Pied Flys comprised one completed nest and one just started

At the other end of the valley, a set of newly-erected boxes alongside Mill Stream by the northern fringe of Thrushgill clearfell comprised: one presumed inexperienced tit spp with 3 eggs in a barely completed nest, another tit with just one egg, a very rapidly completed Pied Flycatcher nest with noisy male in attendance, two nests presumed to be completed Redstart and another 3 containing bits and bobs of material, hardly deserving the term "nest", which suggested Redstart or Pied Fly. Are Redstarts always elusive during pre/early egg-laying stage - no birds anywhere near the completed nests? 6 boxes were completely empty

Not sure about the ones in between the lower and upper extremes as I am not involved in the monitoring, but at least 5 Pied Fly nests reportedly involved

By no means certain all the females are in yet for either Pied Fly or Redstart as, despite an early mass arrival e.g. 9th-10th April, the recent weather has really blocked stuff - e.g. Swallow numbers are still very low.

Second nest box visit

2011-04-26T16:10:00.002+01:00

A week later, a different wood ... still no Pied Flycatcher clutches (though a couple of nests look ready for eggs) but over 20 Tit clutches (out of about 75 boxes!) One clutch unusually lined completely with badger hair - must be a baldish one out there somewhere!

Looks like it'll be a bumper (and expensive) year for the committed pulli ringers out there. Maybe I should join the Half-way Harries and not ring tit pulli?

:)

paul

First nest-box check

2011-04-18T10:52:00.002+01:00

The first of the season's visits to the Roeburndale Woods yesterday. 100 boxes checked and lots of signs of early activity but only one clutch started so far - and that was a tit rather than a flycatcher so there is no need to panic if you have boxes to put up but haven't started yet, but a sign of how quickly birds take to new boxes was shown by many birds building in boxes that were put up six days previously - and that in an area where there are already plenty of boxes. If you would like to join me when I check my boxes, please let me know (see address at the side) - it will usually take 2-4 hours and entail a bit of a scramble in places, usually in the evening or at weekends Paul

An exceptional Twite

2011-04-13T14:05:00.003+01:00

The above male was at Swales Moor, between Queensbury and Halifax from at least 28th November 2010 until 2nd March 2011, associating loosely with a Linnet flock. It was ringed on Heysham north harbour wall sometime between 15th October 2010 and 22nd November 2010. This is the first definite evidence of a Heysham-ringed bird spending the winter at a Pennine or near-Pennine site. What would be really valuable would be to narrow it down to an individual which is then seen on the breeding grounds, which might be 'Pennine' (caught at Heysham on "reverse dispersal", perhaps early in the autumn ringing period), might be the far north-west of Scotland......or somewhere between the two. At the moment, we havn't a clue where it came from or why it chose to separate itself from the north Lancs coastal population! Thanks to Dave Sutcliffe for the observation and (I think) the photo, taken from the excellent Calderdale Birds blogsite http://calderbirds.blogspot.com

Pete Marsh

Paired for Life

2011-04-11T16:41:00.005+01:00

Always a thrill to see your first adult bird of the spring carrying food to its nest especially when its a species which you study intensively. This morning I saw a pair of Bearded Tits with beaks full of insects going into one of my reed wigwam nest boxes. I managed to get the colour ring combinations of both birds, then armed with my disturbance licence visited the nest box briefly to find six young ca 5 days old. Back home I searched my data base for details of these two birds.
They were ringed together on 6th August 2009 ca 150 metres from where they are nesting. Both were in juvenile plumage. Later in 2009 they were seen or re trapped together on three occasions. During 2010 they were recorded together on no less than 16 occasions mainly visiting the grit trays and today they were still together rearing a brood.
Bearded Tits are well known for forming pairs while still in juvenile plumage but this sighting along with several similar ones over the years show that these early liaisons can form lasting bonds. I had one pair that bred together and remained together throughout the seasons for three consecutive years.

John Wilson

Pied Flies return

2011-04-11T09:01:00.002+01:00

They're back!

A small ringing session at Wray yesterday produced two Chiffchaff and two male Pied Flycatchers, including one ringed as a pulli in the valley two years ago. Few Tits at the feeding station as most seem to have dispersed into breeding territories.

It will soon be time to start checking nestboxes!

paul

2011 - lots of controls so far

2011-04-04T21:04:00.002+01:00

So far in 2011 NLRG has caught 24 controls. (a control is generally a ringed bird that has moved more than 5km). This is unusually high for so early the in year. These 24 are made up of:

Grey Wagtail - 1 (sight record in Cumbria)
Coal Tit - 1
Blue Tit - 1
Greenfinch - 1
Goldfinch - 2
Siskin - 4
Common Redpoll - 1
Lesser Redpoll - 14

In previous years by this time we have had rather fewer:
2010 - 2 (Great Tit and Blackbird)
2009 - 4 (Chaffinch, Twite, Blue Tit, Siskin)
2008 - 4 (Great Tit, Blackbird, Blue Tit and Oystercatcher)
2007 - 4 (3x Blue Tit, Blackbird)
2006 - 0
2005 - 3 (2x Great Tit, Chaffinch)
2004 - 2 (Tree Sparrow, Chaffinch)
2003 - 3 (Greenfinch, Great Tit, Blackbird)
2002 - 2 (Long Tailed Tit, Greenfinch)
2001 - 0

I've excluded Wader and Gull sight records as they are largely down to effort rather than a true reflection of how many ringed birds are about.

If we excluded the small finches (Goldfinch, Siskin and Redpoll) we would be at about normal levels. Judging by other ringing group blogs I'm fairly certain we're not the only group catching many more control finches than normal this winter. I look forward to hearing about where all these birds are from.

Richard

Mealy Redpoll in the garden

2011-04-02T21:34:00.003+01:00

Is this on your wish list? Well this must be the best winter if you have ever wanted to attract one of these chaps to your garden and it’s not too late! In our upland Bowland garden we have had a good passage of finches through March as they start heading north for breeding. The vast majority have been Siskins but we have also had a few Lesser Redpolls and now two Mealy (Common) Redpolls!

The latest bird was spotted by my mother (as was the first!) late on 30th March when she noticed it was ringed! Thankfully the bird was still present the following day visiting the feeders frequently throughout the day. I positioned myself in the kitchen with my telescope and amazingly it didn’t take long until I had read all the number (L704752). Mealy Redpolls are much easier to read rings on than Lesser Redpolls as they seem to have longer legs and don’t cover their rings with feathers!

This individual was originally ringed on 12th March at Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire some 250km to the Southeast.

Mark Breaks

Feeders in conifer plantations

2011-03-31T21:07:00.002+01:00

We have been rather puzzled by the erratic nature of the finches in Thrushgill spruce/larch plantation with respect to targeting the nyger and sunflower hearts. I think we have solved the problem! The trouble is that perfect ringing conditions of warmth, stillness plus a bit of sun have prompted the opening up of the larch and spruce cones and hordes of noisy redpolls, siskins and bramblings have been gorging themselves on the accessible food. No amount of seductive taping would bring the birds down to the feeders, they were not interested However, as soon as some wet cloudy weather appeared, down the birds descended on to the feeders. This has been an 'all or nothing' process as presumably has been the situation between either closed or open cones, with no 'half-open' ones to retain a proportion of birds in the treetops Therefore, after a full dry & warm week with the nyger seed untouched, a visit yesterday afternoon, following 24 hours of unsettled weather, saw the nyger seed almost all eaten (48 hours since previous check). Then the following 23 hours saw ALL yesterdays 4 x nyger feeder top-up eaten by 1500hrs this afternoon! Trouble is that you cannot catch birds in a F6-7 wind! Hopefully there will be a small weather window whilst the birds are still around. Pete Marsh

Very Red Crossbill

2011-03-26T22:18:00.003Z

John and Richard 'borrowed' my ringing site at Thrushgill this morning and they came up with this beastie, probably a 2CY

Pete Marsh

Meadow Pipit

2011-03-24T11:10:00.003Z

Following discussion last year on ageing spring Meadow Pipit (& pics), 5 out of 6 ringed this morning were clearly 2CY on the basis of retained juvenile greater coverts. The other was an adult (all coverts, tail shape etc), but cautiously left as a '4' The 8 caught this morning exhibited a wide variety of spring plumage options 1) 2 x all feathers fresh adult-type, including all coverts and perceived adult-type tail 2) one with e.g. a mixture of old adult-type and new (adult-type) median coverts and perceived adult-type tail 3) one with e.g. a full set of 2CY median coverts and 1CY/2CY tail 4) 4 with a mixture of old 2CY and new adult-type median coverts and 1CY/2CY tail Obviously 3) & 4) are '5's. However, can 2) be definitely assigned as a '6'? Especially as the older feathers look too worn to be a result of a two-stage replacement of juvenile median coverts during late autumn/winter. Am I too cautious ageing 1) & 2) as 'probable adult' but safer to call '4's?

Redpolls and Siskins on the Move

2011-03-23T19:43:00.002Z

Following on from the recent posts about Redpolls I thought it was time for an over=view of the group's activities with these species so far this year. We have been catching at four feeding stations, ringing over 250 Siskin and ca 200 Redpoll since January. To date we have caught eight Redpoll and four Siskin that have been ringed elsewhere.

Pride of place goes to the Stavanger (Norway)ringed Redpoll caught at Thrushgill. But the local movements recorded suggest quite a mobile population with four Lesser Redpolls moving between our feeding stations. Of these two moved 34 kms, one within just three days,

We await with interest receiving the ringing details of the other birds. That is four each of Redpoll and Siskin along with two Goldfinch caught at the same time.

John

Ring more Great Tits!

2011-03-22T20:42:00.003Z

A Great Tit ringed in Winder Wood, Roeburndale as a pulli last year was retrapped near Wray (also Roeburndale) at the weekend.

It might not sound too earth-shattering a question, but where do the Great Tits all go in winter? Winter observations suggest the aren't present in the upland woods, but they aren't retrapped elsewhere in the same way as Blue Tits (which can show surprising movements from the Lune Valley woods to lowland urban areas.)

So if they don't move, and if they don't stay in the upland woods ....... what do they do?

perhaps its time to question the old assumptions ... or to return to the hibernation hypothesis!

maybe we might learn something by ringing all the pulli we can find!

paul

More redpolls

2011-03-22T20:20:00.002Z

Today's catch reinforced yesterdays data, which showed that, after a period of late winter random age/sex selection (or at least equal numbers of males and unsexed 2CY), the start of the (northbound?) migration has seen virtually all the captures being males, with adults in the majority. This is logical with a lot of species and spring migration, territory staking etc etc, so why should Lesser Redpolls be any different?

Another 'proper' Mealy this morning - wing 79mm and a great bird for showing interested local residents the difference between Mealy and Lesser - it even allowed prolonged views in the field. The less said about the mobile phone pics, taken in blindingly bright sunlight, the better!

Need some help this week, please, as I'm very conscious of the fact a good migration morning was missed at Heysham today & I cant take the whole week off work ..........might as well keep going with this study as its pretty interesting, with new birds every morning (except last Saturday) and will hopefully 'dovetail' with the later coastal mig passage at Heysham (and Knott End) in April/early May

Thanks

Pete Marsh

Redpolls are on the move

2011-03-21T12:36:00.002Z

A bit of a disaster on Saturday morning (19th), with no birds visiting the feeder (which is on private land) in the first 3.5 hours of the day in clear, sunny conditions. Howerver, a visit in the drizzle to 'top-up' yesterday afternoon (20th) saw a 'white ball' on the feeder - a fluffy, feathery Arctic Redpoll - at the 'white' end of the spectrum, but size-wise fitting Coues, along with at least 17 other redpolls including 2 Mealy.

The ringing session this morning - a little too windy to be ideal - was quite productive, but no sign of the Arctic. A flock of 30 redpolls, including at least one Mealy (but apparently not the Arctic) circled up high and headed north as soon as the weather cleared at 0800hrs. Others remained and a visit to the net saw what appeared to be a couple of retraps amongst a small catch. The 'retraps' were a Norwegian-ringed Lesser and a Lesser ringed by Mark Breaks at Rishton, near Blackburn, three days ago.........with an unringed Mealy sandwiched between them!

Out of a catch of 17 redpoll spp, only two were retraps, both from the 'early days' and possibly birds intending to remain locally. I am absolutely certain we would have seen the Arctic Redpoll, in at least the treetops, had it still been present

So, even thought the often very pronounced coastal Lancashire spring Lesser Redpoll passage hasn't started yet, they are certainly on the move inland.

Pete Marsh

Tweet(ish)?

2011-03-18T00:22:00.000Z

We've been requested to keep it short and sweet following research on (lack of) concentration spans

I wonder what the odds are on extracting three consecutive small passerines from a mist net and all being 'controls' (i.e. ringed elsewhere). That momentous event happened today (= 17/3) at Thrushgill

L444030 & L713637 Lesser Redpolls, the latter was ringed at Rishton, near Blackburn in January

X441292 Goldfinch - preliminary research suggests this may have come from 'down south'!

Waxwings Move Out and Return

2011-03-12T19:46:00.003Z

From late October through to early January there was an unprecedented influx of Waxwings into North Lancashire. Colour ringing returns from birds ringed near Aberdeen by the Grampian RG suggested a fairly rapid movement through. The best example of this relating to our area was a bird colour ringed at Aberdeen on 31/10 sighted at Leighton Moss on 14/12 and re-sighted ten days later at Ely in Cambridgeshire. We have just received details of a bird the group ringed on 30/10 at the start of the invasion it was killed by a cat at Chelmsford Essex 358 km SE on 18/01.

However birds are starting to return there was a flock of 42 in Morecambe today. If more turn up it will be well worth while searching for colour rined birds.
John

Thrushgill feeding station

2011-03-05T00:16:00.012Z

Please note that there is no general access to this site in what is a peaceful cul-de-sac. If you do visit, please can you reduce the number of vehicles accessing beyond the turning at Botton Mill to an absolute minimum e.g. park & share at e.g. Wray tearooms

Average to reasonable mobile phone pics of Crossbill (thanks Louise)

Terrible mobile phone pics of Mealy redpoll

A feeding station was set up at Thrushgill, following permission from Scottish Forests (thanks Simon). There are masses of feeding stations in the upper Hindburn with nearby Lower Thrushgill surely having one of the highest densities of wild bird food in relation to human population. Therefore the aim was certainly not to catch huge numbers of hungry waifs at a remote location.

A redpoll flock had been seen intermittently and tantalising views in the tree-tops suggested at least two Mealy Redpolls were present, one a very frosty and grey bird. Therefore the aim of the feeding station was simply to try and bring to ground level as many redpolls as possible with the hope that some would be frosty and possibly even whiter!

A sheltered mist-met ride was constructed amongst wind-affected larches in various stages of falling over. This included the stunning discovery that sawing through fallen tree-trunks can give you a nasty uppercut as the roots decide to return to their upright position! The food initially concentrated on "obvious" wild bird seed mix in both feeders and scattered around. The aim was to create a 'flow' of birds which would be noticed by the redpolls and in turn they would locate the less ostentatious nyger feeders

The rapid 'flow' of birds certainly did happen! The start of the operation on 20th February saw the last stages of the flock/feeding station winter routine of the local Coal Tits. 40 were caught on the first visit and the subsequent two visits saw a mixture of a few new birds, a few retraps and a lot of net-wise visitors to the feeders. Then they disappeared! Wanderings along the access track saw many of them singing and starting to hold territory and showing little interest in lengthy journeys to a feeder

The distribution and behaviour of the small finches saw mixed flocks of up to about 80 (usually about 35), mainly Siskin with a few redpolls, remaining in the larch canopy and feeding on the seeds. Small numbers did visit the nyger and sunflower heart feeders, but most of them stayed feeding on the larches, despite use of a redpoll tape. Indeed, the tape was forgotten on one day and this made no difference to the numbers visiting the feeder or the catch on that day. Therefore, given this alternative, indeed preferred, food source, lengthy netting sessions were unlikely to pay dividends and the routine became a short visit to top the feeders up along with a couple of mist net rounds

Nine short visits have been made to date, taking advantage of some friendly weather before things become much more unsettled from Wednesday 9th March. There remains a possibility that more of the significant crossbill population might be tempted in the region of the nets and a dustbin lid full of water has been "constructed"

One very obvious Mealy Redpoll has been caught (3rd March) and a few grotty 'mobile in one hand, bird in the other' pics were taken (see above). The age ratios of the Siskins were interesting with far more adults than I was expecting or you tend to get at urban feeders on passage - are these local breeding adults? The redpolls were as expected with the usual degree of caution over sexing probable long-winged females:

Lesser Redpoll age/sex ratios:
3 x adult male, 2 x adult female, 12 x 2CY* male, 7 x 2CY female, 7 x unspecified 2CY, probably longer-winged females. Therefore the sex ratio is probably about 50:50 and the age ratio very much biased towards 2CY at 26:5

Siskin age/sex ratios:
7 x adult female, 13 x adult male, 8 x 2CY male, 13 x 2CY female, single unaged male and female. Therefore a far higher proportion of adults than lesser redpoll with almost equal numbers of adult & 2CY

Controls comprised a Lesser Redpoll ringed at nearby Wray in December 2010 and a Siskin with someone else's rings. Just four Siskin and four Lesser Redpoll retrapped. One Lesser Redpoll was unfortunately terminated by a window in Lower Thrushgill a few days after ringing

Other species ringed comprised: 1 Common Crossbill, 8 Chaffinch (all males), 5 Great Tit, 1 Nuthatch, 2 Blackbird, 57 Coal Tit (8 of these retrapped), 7 Robin, 17 Blue Tit, 2 Wren, 2 Dunnock and a single Mealy or Common Redpoll

*2CY = aged as second calender year = born in its first calender year = 2010 [formerly known as 'first winter', 'first year' etc]. Euring code '5' (from '3' prior to 31/12/10).

Pete Marsh

Siskins Pass Through

2011-03-02T19:06:00.003Z

We are starting to catch good numbers of Siskins at three of our feeding stations. This movement is quite typical of this time of year and we have already caught two birds carrying rings from elsewhere.

From past ringing we know that many of these birds have wintered further south with birds ringed in Somerset and Cheshire in winter caught here in March.

The destination of our birds is mainly Scotland, with eight recoveries mainly in the breeding season, one of them only nine days after ringing, so the movement can be quite fast.

That birds from further afield also pass through is proved by a recovery in south Sweden. This bird was killed by a cat 58 days after ringing on 27th February. Another bird ringed in March was found in Belgium in November.

With the Siskins are smaller numbers of Lesser Redpolls,

John

Recent Recoveries

2011-02-16T13:40:00.007Z

A further batch of recoveries from the BTO included some interesting returns.

A Chiffchaff caught at Leighton on October 1st /09 was re-caught on its breeding area near Edinburgh in May proving that some at least of our passage birds are of Scottish origin.

A Brambling, caught wintering in Northumberland last winter had moved to the west coast this winter and was caught at a feeding station during this winter's severe cold spell.

The now familiar movement to the south coast by our migrating summer visitors with reports of two Reed Warbler and a Sand Martin caught at south coast ringing stations this late summer. This makes a total of 140 Sand Martins reported along the south coast on autumn migration and 56 Reed Warblers, ringed or re-trapped by the Group.

Our study of Twite wintering on our feeding station at Heysham has been one of the most successful of the Groups activities. Further confirmation of their breeding area came with three further reports from Machrihanish Seabird Observatory in Argyll. One was ringed there as late as October 2nd and caught 13 days later at Heysham. That local movements take place in winter in this species was proved by the catching of one of our birds at Askham on the Duddon 25 days after ringing at Heysham.

Last month we received details of a October ringed Goldcrest moving 140km in 29 days to Doncaster. this month we had a similar report with an October ringed bird falling victim to a cat in Wakefield 27 days later and 94 km to the SSE'

The colour ringing of Coot by Kane Brides in south Lancashire established a link to our area, with two birds from Southport and one from Blackpool seen at Glasson Dock during the cold spell.

Finally an Oystercatcher was found dead at Arkholme 10 year after it was ringed there as a nestling.

John

How Many Birds Visit Your Garden ?

2011-02-04T15:48:00.008Z

In the wake of Big Garden Bird Watch many people will be totting up the numbers they saw over the watch period. However a snapshot like this can give a very limited view of the birds visiting your garden. Ringing data can help reveal both the numbers and the diversity of birds visiting a garden. One of our members Andrew Cadman regularly rings in his small (10mX 10m) well provisioned back garden towards the edge of a small estate in Over Kellet village.

He rings on average about once a week with one 30' mist net. The numbers he catches are revealing. This account covers 2010 and gives the totals for each species with new birds and re-traps from previous year making up the totals.

Tits of course feature highly in the totals with Blue Tits totalling 236. Quite a number are returning birds, one caught this year on several occasions is just over seven years old. Great tits numbered 66 and Coal Tits 31.Two Blue Tits and a Coal Tit were ringed as nestlings in the Lune valley upland woods and had moved to gardens for the winter.

Finches though predominate with Chaffinch at 106, Greenfinch at 180 but perhaps surprisingly Goldfinch comes out as the most abundant species with an amazing 333 caught during the year. Andrew rarely sees more than 10 at once on his feeders. Vey few are re-trapped suggesting a movement through the area.

Bullfinches(17) and Lesser Redpolls (24) have only recently taken to visiting garden feeders but look like fllowing Goldfinch as regular garden visitors. In some previous year Siskins have been regular visitors in late winter. The record year was 2006 with 306 ringed. This year only two were caught suggesting that there was plenty of natural food available.

John

Recent Recoveries

2011-01-28T11:38:00.003Z

A new batch of recoveries from the BTO included some interesting records.
The longest distance travelled was a Lesser Redpoll ringed at Heysham on April 13th on spring passage and caught by a ringer 334 km to the south east in Surry on 23/11/10. Was this its wintering location or was it still on passage?

Perhaps the most bizarre record was of a Goldcrest ringed at Leighton Moss on October 20th and found dead 27 days and 94 km to the ESE at Wakefield in Yorkshire Just shows how random some bird movements can be.

A twite ringed at Heysham on March 8th 2010 was caught on Sanda Island off the Mull of Kintyre in July 2010, This is the seventh Twite we have had from,
the ringing site on Sanda along with three others from the same general area, showing it to be one of the main breeding areas of our wintering flock.

In the same batch of recoveries we had four Blue Tits, all ringed as neslings in the nest box sschemes we run in the upland woods on the south of the Lune valley. They showed movements to towns and villages of up to 16 km. Two birds ringed on the same day in late May (but from different broods) were caught together in mid October at a feeding station. A coal Tit nestling ringed in the same wood had also moved out of the upland woods travelling 16 km to a feeding station.

Twite - New versus Unringed

2011-01-26T16:31:00.003Z

A whoosh net catch of twite taken this morning at Heysham Harbour consisted of what at first seemed a high proportion of unringed birds, compared to that observed over recent weeks. The catch, of 37 birds, comprised 21 unringed and 16 retraps. Recent counts have suggested only 16 unringed birds out of various flocks totalling close to 80.

This is actually not so surprising, when the circumstances are revealed. Time was short this morning so I only wanted to deal with one catch. In addition, the wind was gusty and becoming stronger all the time. Whilst setting the net, groups of Twite were flying about above me and when finished I walked towards the car to fetch some fresh seed. Immediately, birds began to line up on the fence and even drop onto the seed already there.

A large group of birds quickly gathered on the seed - after waiting for a safe gap in the arriving birds the net was fired, with many more still on the fence. This is not usually a good idea if further catches are intended.

However, it does clearly show that unringed birds (that have not encountered a whoosh net before) are less wary of the net paraphernalia and the "old hands" take their time before dropping in. The retrapped birds had all been ringed in 2010 - no older birds were recaught.

This is not surprising really, but does show that care might be required when undertaking analyses of retrap information.

ajd

Heysham Oystercatchers

2011-01-24T07:35:00.005Z

On Saturday we had a catch of Oystercatchers at Heysham Helipad. A total of 217 were caught and ringed. This is a lower total than on the previous two Oystercatcher catches (see here and here) however gave us significant amounts of biometric data.

Last year I commented on the lack of juvenile birds in the catch (just 1 out of 569) suggesting a complete wipe out of juveniles in the bay last winter. In the catch over the weekend we caught 10 birds that hatched in 2009 suggesting that rather than being wiped out in the bay the juveniles were actually feeding in land while the birds in better condition roosted. This year we caught 19 juvenile birds which is higher than I expected given the recent cold weather.

With over 1,000 Oystercatchers ringed at Heysham over the last 2 winters I had hoped for some more retraps to help create a reasonable survival estimate. With just 9 retraps this is difficult. Perhaps it is more an indication of the number of birds roosting at Heysham and the surrounding area (a simple lincoln index gives us a figure of 20,000 birds using the site). Last winter we noted ingress of east coast Oystercatchers so it is possible many of last winters birds have moved back to their traditional wintering grounds.

One bird retrapped at Heysham was ringed on 27/3/2010 near Tarland, Grampian at a spring inland roost site. This gives me a great deal of encouragement as our ringing of inland Oystercatchers at spring roosts have so far generated no movements away from ringing sites!

Most recent recoveries from Heysham of Oystercatchers show the birds roosting at Heysham breed on the west coast of Scotland, Orkney, Shetland, Faeroes and Iceland.

Finally I have managed to do a quick bit of analysis of the data and produced a graph which is below. It shows the cumulative distribution of weights for adult Oystercatchers caught on 12/12/2008, 01/02/2010 and 22/01/2011 at Heysham. The 2008 weights are lowest which is no surprise as the birds will have just completed their moult. The 2010 weights are on average about 15 grams less than the 2011 weights for catches essentially at the same part of the winter. In both 2010 and 2011 the catches were made after severe weather, in 2010 about a week after the cold spell ended, in 2011 about 2 weeks after.

Thanks to:
Raymond Duncan (Grampian Waxwing Group) and everyone who helped with this catch. If you want to see some photos visit Fleetwood birder's blog

Richard

Mobile Black-tailed Godwits

2011-01-22T08:15:00.004Z

Two recent colour ringed sightings of Black-tailed Godwits throw further light on their movements between estuaries. Both were ringed during the breeding season in Iceland making a total of 19 to date from the breeding grounds.

YN-RX shows just how mobile they can be on the wintering area. It was ringed as an adult male on 11th July 2009 in Iceland and first seen on the Dee estuary on 20th September and seen almost daily there for the next eight days. It then appeared on the Eric Morecambe Complex near Leighton Moss on October 5th, was back on the Dee on October 8th then on the Eric Morecambe Complex again on 11th October.

This is not the first bird to show similar movements. Another adult male was seen on the Eric Morecambe Complex on September 26th was on the Dee on October 9th and back on the Eric Morecambe Complex on 17 October.

These birds were probably on migration and although good numbers winter on the estuaries of North West England. Colour ringing has shown that many move on and winter in Ireland France and Portugal.

John

2010 a Record Year

2011-01-03T19:27:00.012Z

With just over 12,600 new birds ringed in 2010 making it the highest total since the group was established and over 5,500 up on 2009.
In total with re-traps and controls we handled nearly 16500 birds of 78 species. This good total partly reflects more effort helped by better weather but it also reflects an excellent breeding season for many species.
Much of our effort during the spring and summer goes into our four Re-trapping Adults for Survival (RAS) projects.
Sand Martins on the River Lune with 1659 new birds and 446 re-traps heads the list.
Our Reed Warbler study at Leighton Moss with 897 caught of which 249 were re-traps is in its tenth year. This year saw the third highest number of adults caught.
Pied Flycatchers are ringed in the nest boxes in the Lune valley Oak Woods. This year we had 63 occupied nest boxes and ringed 308 nestlings and caught 67 adults of which 40 had been ringed in previous years
Bearded Tits at Leighton Moss had a successful season with 104 young birds ringed and an amazing 1062 re-traps or sightings of our colour ringed birds . In total 761 were sightings mainly on the grit trays.

In other projects we ringed 1422 Swallows mainly in a maize field roost. Wintering Twite at Heysham . have been studied for several years this year we caught 238, But the bird heading the list of most ringed bird was Blue Tit with 2013 ringed many of them in our nest boxes. It was obviously an excellent breeding season for this species and is all part of the BTO's population monitoring. During the recent cold spell we have had several examples of Blue Tits moving from the upland breeding woodlands to the well stocked feeders in towns. We also re-trapped one which was in its eighth year.
A successful breeding season resulted in peak catches for Willow Warbler (605), Chiffchaff(238), Grasshopper Warbler(32),Long-tailed Tit (399) Goldfinch (532), and Coal Tit (564)
So all told an excellent season, we look forward with interest to 2011, will the severe December weather have cut the numbers of our resident birds? Will the three species of summer visitors that we study return from their African wintering grounds in good numbers? Watch this space!
John

Waxwings Move On

2010-12-26T17:41:00.006Z

Photo David Talbot
The 200+ Waxwing frequenting Leighton Moss in early December have now declined to 30-40. One of the birds (shown above) photographed at Leighton Moss had been colour ringed in Dyce Aberdeen on 31/10. It was an adult male. It was seen at Leighton Moss on 14/12 334 km SSW. This bird has now been sighted at Ely near Cambridge on 24/12 a further 284 kms further south.

Raymond Duncan who is organising the ringing in Aberdeen reports that many colour ringed birds have reached the south coast with 4 in Kent, 2 in Dorset, 2 in Hampshire and 1 each in Somerset and Isle of Wight.

John

Record Breaking Bittern

2010-12-19T17:52:00.005Z

The photographing of a ringed Bittern from Lilian's Hide Leighton Moss on December 15th by Stan Parrot established 1291702 as the longest lived ringed Bittern in Britain. It is ten years and 221 days since it was ringed

This bird was ringed as a nestling at Leighton Moss by the RSPB Research Department on May 5th 2000, and on DNA evidence was sexed a female. The improvement in camera and telescope technology in recent years has allowed the reading of the rings of ringed birds in the field. Using these methods this bird has been identified on one occasion in 2007 and twice in both 2008 and 2009 and now twice in 2010. Prior to the recent sighting it was last recorded on 31 January 2010.

All the certain sightings of this bird have been in the period October to January. However ringed birds have been seen at Leighton Moss during spring and summer but not identified with certainty. It is much more difficult to get photographs showing the ringed leg during the spring and summer when the legs are often hidden in the vegetation. The best time is during cold spells when they often walk on the ice,

The Wardens at Leighton Moss are putting out sprats to help tide the bitterns over the present cold spell. This bird was seen to disappear into the area where the sprats are being provided. Excellent views of at least three Bitterns from Lilians hide have been obtained recently.

John

Recent recoveries

2010-12-18T14:09:00.002Z

Over the last few weeks we have received some recoveries from the BTO and some foreign colour ringing schemes. The highlights are below:

Canada Goose 5252529
02/07/2006 Llangorse Lake (Powys)
25/08/2010 Arkholme 250km North. Dead
Historically Canada Geese used to migrate in late summer to do their main moult. Recently this migration has lessened so a movement of 250km is rather exceptional. Of the 2300 movements of more than 100km of Canada geese ringed in the UK only 13 occurred in 2009.

Little Egret:
2 ringed as chicks near Bangor were seen and identified from their colour rings near Cockersands. Both were ringed this summer and brings the total from that colony to the area to 5 individuals.

Black-tailed Godwit R8-OG
07/07/2010 Lambadalar NW Iceland
26/09/2010 - 17/10/2010 Eric Morecambe complex
09/10/2010 Dee Estuary
Another Icelandic Black-tailed Godwit to the area from Iceland. Of more interest is the rapid within winter movement to the Dee. This is becoming a regular event with well over 50% of the birds seen at Leighton also being seen on the Dee showing that Morecambe Bay and the Dee estuaries are heavily both important for the same individual birds.

Bar-tailed Godwit Y1WYBR
18/10/2001 Schiermonnikoog, Netherlands
14/11/2010 Glasson
The is the first foreign ringed barwit to the area. The only other record of Bar-tailed Godwit in the area was ringed on the Dee.

Waxwing NW50006
31/10/2010 Aberdeen
14/12/2010 Leighton
A rapid movement of this charismatic winter visitor. More sightings of these (and any other species) are always welcome.

Sand Martin L334998
25/08/2010 Gressingham
31/08/2010 Northamptonshire
A very rapid movement of a juvenile. Lets hope it returns to the Lune valley to breed in 2011.

Reed Warbler Z49451
19/08/2009 Handarribia Spain
12/07/2010 Middleton
Our third Reed Warbler from Spain. A very nice movement showing how early Reed Warblers leave the UK as juveniles if they possibly can.

Goldcrest CDR913
12/10/2010 Heysham
20/11/2010 Finningley, Doncaster
Another rapid movement of this tiny species. Rather unusual for one to move east during autumn. A movement in the opposite direction with these dates would be considered 'normal'!

Twite R687685
01/11/2008 Heysham
04/02/2009 Heysham
24/09/2010 Clachtoll Lochinver (485 km)
31/10/2010 Heysham
Birds returning to the same winter site is always good. Even better is that we know that this one spent some time in autumn in the Highland region.

Chiffchaff BXC640
21/09/2008 Middleton
06/05/2010 Batschuns Vorarlberg (Austria) 1158 km SE
A lot can be said about this however it is purely guesswork so I'll stick with saying it is the first BTO ringed Chiffchaff to be recovered in Austria!

Thanks to Tony Cross, Pete Potts (and the Icelandic Godwit project), NIOZ, Richard Smith and Grampian Ringing Group of the details of resightings.

Richard

Bearded Tit End fof Term Report

2010-12-17T19:31:00.005Z

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

Blue Tits don't move?

2010-12-13T09:39:00.002Z

a Blue Tit ringed as a nestling in a box in Roeburndale near Wray this year has been caught twice in my garden in Lancaster. If it moved through Littledale, this will have moved about 14Km (a crossing directly over Clougha seems unlikely). One of the old papers on Blue Tits said that they would not cross open ground the size of a football pitch - this one clearly hasn't read the script!

This isn't the first of our Blue Tits to make this type of journey, but it does show that urban gardens hold birds (even sedentary ones) from a surprisingly wide radius

paul

warming up in the woods

2010-12-11T18:59:00.003Z

15 degrees warmer at Wray than it was on Thursday. A pleasant morning's ringing saw plenty of retraps, as expected, but also plenty of new birds. This poses the question: where do they come from as there are a number of us ringing pulli in the Roeburn Valley, yet I seldom catch anyone else's birds and hardly ever catch birds from my boxes a mile upstream.

Today was one of the better days for variety of species with Great, Blue, Coal, Marsh, Long-tailed Tits, Chaffinch, Dunnock, Nuthatch, Lesser Redpoll oh, and one of these .....

Feeding Station Turns up Trumps!

2010-12-09T16:39:00.003Z

The promise of milder weather initiated a visit to our Woodland Feeding Station near Storth. Two short nets cover the feeders and our second net round produced only the second Brambling for the site. But this adult male was different- it was already ringed! In 50 years of ringing our group has only ringed a total of 308 Brambling and just 12 over the past ten years- and this is our first control. So we wait with interest the ringing details of this British ringed bird.

It was a good morning with 57 birds caught, many from previous visits to the site including both Coal and Blue Tits in their fifth year.

So far we have made Seven visits to the site this autumn and early winter and some interesting statistics are coming out. Blue Tit is as usual the commonest bird with 79caught. But Coal Tit with 68 runs it very close. Chaffinch is next with 50 followed by Great Tit with 48.

These four species appear to have had a successful breeding season - all four are well up on the same period in previous years with roughly similar effort. The numbers of Coal Tits is quite exceptional 20 - 30 is the usual catch.

John

freezing the nuts off!

2010-11-27T21:10:00.002Z

Far fewer birds in my trip to the woods this morning than last week (only 29, of which only ten were new birds) but surprisingly, FOUR Great Spotted Woodpeckers - more than I usually catch in a year.

Gosh, my figers don't half hurt now - they can peck like mad and one of my fingers would have been bleeding faster than it did - if it hadn't been freezing cold this morning!

Paul

Autumn Osprey update

2010-11-26T20:46:00.000Z

Earlier this year, I mentioned all the satellite-tracked Ospreys which had passed over this area on the 2010 spring migration. I have just had a look on the Highland Wildlife site to see what happened on the autumn migration and most of the same birds took a more easterly route with just the one (Red HT) in ‘our’ area: “following the M6 down to Tebay services, then cutting across towards Ingleborough before heading for east Lancs”. A look at the weather maps at the time showed a lot of strong westerly winds, so sheltered migration routes to the east of the Pennines were the order of the day. Let’s see what happens next spring.

Busy morning in the woods

2010-11-20T20:08:00.003Z

Work has got in the way recently and I haven't been able to get to the woods as often as I would have wished, so it was good to get there this morning. A lovely, peaceful morning which produced 73 birds, 70 of them tits. Very heartening to catch birds from previous years and the number of young tits, especially Blue tits, backs up suggestions of a very good breeding season followed by good post-fledging survival.

Hopefully, there will be some more mornings to come between now and the end of the year

paul

Cetti's Warbler - The Mystery Deepens!

2010-11-20T17:48:00.004Z

Cetti's Warbler have not as yet been proved to breed in North Lancashire. The first record was one ringed at Leighton Moss in October 1995. Singles were also caught there in the autumns of 2007 and 2008. This increased to four in the autumn/winter of 2009/2010.

At least two males were singing throughout March 2010 but the last one was heard on April 3rd. However this autumn has been outstanding for between September 18th and mid October we have caught six birds. Of these four were newly ringed and two were re-traps from previous autumns. One from September 2008 and the other from October 2009.

So are these two birds returning winter visitors? Or did they breed undetected and the four newly ringed birds are locally bred. Certainly there are many suitable areas difficult of access on the Moss where they could have bred undetected. However one would perhaps have expected us to catch young birds earlier in the season.
John

Twite Season in Full Swing

2010-11-15T20:02:00.005Z

Arrivals of Twite on their way to wintering grounds on the Lune Estuary marshes and further southwards in North Lancs is in progress. Last autumn/winter, although many Twite arrived in the Heysham area, there was a tendency to remain hereabouts, resulting in a high proportion of retraps later in the period. The pattern is beginning to look a little different this year with more birds moving through. This should result in more new birds being trapped, with fewer retraps (as seems to be the case so far).

During the Autumn, a large number of Twite were trapped and ringed at Macrihanish Bird Obs on the west coast of Scotland. Since some of our birds have previously been controlled there in the summertime, we hoped that some of their ringed birds would pass through Heysham. That has indeed occurred, with 2 birds (1CY Males) being controlled here already.

ajd

Which Way Africa?

2010-11-13T19:36:00.004Z

A recent batch of recoveries included the first two from our ringing of 1440 Swallows this year mainly at a roost in a maize field.

The first one from Hampshire, 389 km to the SSE just 19 days after ringing in early September, was obviously heading in the right direction. The other though was ringed as a nestling on June 12th this year near Hoylake on the Wirral. It was caught in our roost 79 days later and 88 km to the NNE. This is not the first Swallow we have had to show a northerly movement at a time you would expect them to be heading south. A nestling ringed in Staffordshire on 10th June 2005 was controlled in our roost on 30 August the same year and 191 km to the north. Perhaps even more surprising was a juvenile ringed in Lincolnshire on 26th August 2004 and caught four days later in our roost 186 km NW.

This type of movement has been recorded in a variety of species. Members of our Group who take part in vis.mig. watches tell me that N and especially NW movements of Swallows in some numbers have been recorded in most recent years and is often linked to unfavourable migration weather.

John

Speedy Waxwing giving first recovery in this area

2010-11-08T21:21:00.003Z

Thanks Rob for this excellent sighting/documentation!

NW50005
31/10/10
Wellheads Ind. Estate, Dyce, Aberdeen
1CY male

Read in field
07/11/10
Levens, just north of Milnthorpe, SE Cumbria

This fits in with the impression that this autumn's irruption has so far involved a lot of birds whizzing through/over sites without settling. This seems to have been changing in the last few days with some birds discovering good rowan crops

Bearded Tits And Grit

2010-11-08T10:30:00.004Z

The grit trays just off the Causeway at Leighton Moss have been very popular this year with both bearded tits and bird watchers. At times there has been even more of the latter than the former! The record for bearded Tits is ca 12 birds at once but for bird watchers at times up to 40!

Our individual colour ringing has really paid off this year and thanks to the efforts especially of Keith Kellet but also Andrew Cadman Alan Gallagherand Pat Bowskill we have logged 580 sightings up to the present To date a total of 112 different birds have used the trays these are made up of 50 adult birds out of a known ringed population of 76 birds and 62 juveniles out of 104 ringed this year.

Like previous years there has been a marked difference in the makeup of birds visiting. The season started on September 20th with two adults. Of the 108 records to the end of September only 18 were of birds ringed this year. Slowly the numbers of young birds increased through October with birds from the early broods coming first, and second and latter broods not gritting until early November. Of the 60 birds recorded over the first week of November 32 were birds of the year.
The number of days that birds visited the tray is also very variable. The record this year is held by female Green over white Red over BTO. This bird has been recorded on 18 different days. Like others she started early in the season missed five days in the middle of October then visited almost daily in late October and early November.

One interesting finding is that pairs regularly visit together.Male X579210 and female X579211 ringed together as juveniles on 6/8/09 are typical. Probably second brood youngsters in 2009 they were only recorded on three days in early November at the trays but in each other’s company. This year they have been recorded- always together on 13 days between early October and early November.

John