NLRG 2013 Ringing Report

The following link is to the 2013 North Lancs Ringing Group report.  This report summarises the work of the group over 2013.

Med Gull Update & Recent Recoveries

Perhaps the most interesting of  the latest batch of recoveries was the ringing information of three of the German ringed Med Gulls that were sighted off the Heysham Power Station outfalls in July. Interestingly two had been ringed as nestlings on the same date(16/6/12) in the roof top colony at Pionierinsel Luhe Grunendeich Germany and seen just seven days apart at Heysham. The third bird was also from the same colony but had been ringed as a nestling in 2009 and sighted at Heysham in August 2011 and again this July.Would be interesting to know where these three birds are now.

Other recoveries included four of our juvenile Reed warblers caught in August and early September at Icklesham Ringing Station in Sussux, one was caught there just four days after ringing at Leighton Moss. This brings the total of Reed Warblers from our ringing to  45 from Sussex almost all at Icklesham. But perhaps the most interesting Reed Warbler was an adult male ringed at Leighton on 19th June and caught 17 days later  38km south. We know from many other recoveries that adult Reed Warblers move south at the end of the breeding season. But this one is very early. The 2013 breeding season had a very late start due to the cold spring and few if any Reed Warblers had second broods so this bird was presumably starting its migration in early July.

Another Sand Martin in West France brings our total  of Sand Martins Recoveries from France to 44, while one from Icklesham brings our total  to a staggering 149. Three more Twite from Argyll and caught wintering at Heysham brings our total from this Scottish locality to 30.
John

A Question of Survival

With the weather  halting any ringing activities I spent some time up dating the Group's  longevity records from our database of 217,000 records. Not only did I look for our oldest bird by species but I logged  every bird over 5 years old for our most ringed species. As might be  expected some of the larger species live the longest- Oystercatcher 23 years, Black-headed gull   16 years and Knot 15 years.

However it  was the smaller species which proved most interesting especially when it came to comparing  closely related species or birds occupying the same habitats. Almost all the records I quote are from retrapped birds which are still going strong so  life spans quoted are minimal.

Reed Warblers are outstanding. We have ringed 15148 new birds which have produced 4322 retraps. Our oldest  is 9 years and 293 days, but we have another 1 at 9 years, 2 at 8, 8 at 7, 8 at 6 and 19 at five years. By contrast our oldest Sedge Warbler is just 5 years and 22 days and is the only bird over 5 years from 9889 new birds and 1037 retraps. Part of the reason for the differences between these two wetland warblers is that the majority of the Sedge Warblers we catch are migrants, which from recoveries are mainly Scottish birds whereas  almost all the Reed warblers we catch breed at our ringing sites so are much more likely to be re-trapped.

Turning to the tits. Our oldest Great tit is a staggering 13 years and 345 days, a national record but we have only   5 other birds over 5 years. Our oldest Blue Tit is 8 years and 15 days and we have 16 others over 5 years. We have ringed over twice as many Blue tits as Great Tits 22899 compared with 9526  but retraps rates are similar. The oldest Coal Tit was 6 years and 314 days, Marsh Tit  7 years and 349 days and Bearded Tit 7 years and 42days another national record.

Another long lived species is Chaffinch 9 years 246 days is the oldest with another 16 over 5 years. This compares with Greenfinch with  the longest lived exactly 9 years but only 4 others over 5 years.
We have ringed 7139 Greenfinch  1546 more than Chaffinch and retrap rates are about the same as are numbers ringed at our main sites. Possibly the disease trichomonosis which mainly affected Greenfinch in  our area is part of the reason. 

The final pair are Dunnock and Robin.The oldest Dunnock was 9 years and 285 days and we had 6 others over 5 years. The oldest Robin was 7 years 95 days but only 1 other was over 5 years. We have ringed 4102 Robins, 1675 more than Dunnocks and retrap rates are similar, so why should these two birds which occupy similar habitat apparently differ in their survival rates?

So why should Reed Warblers which make the hazardous journey  every year to the African wintering grounds and back, (in the case of our almost  10 year old Reed warbler flying ca 40,000  kms on its migrations  alone) apparently survive much longer than  Robins and Greenfinches  which we feed regularly in our gardens?

John

Greenfinch and Twite on the Move

Our latest batch of recoveries  had some interesting  ones for these two species. The highlight was a Greenfinch ringed at Abbotsbury Swannery Dorset  last January and caught at Heysham on November 6th 2013, a movement north of 377 km. We have ringed nearly 11,000 Greenfinch and this is the second longest movement only being beaten by a movement of 392km to the Scottish Highlands. Previous recoveries have shown a similar movement S to SE in winter with recoveries in Shropshire, Nottingham, Hereford, Suffolk and Norfolk.  The  other recent Greenfinch recovery was  109 km NE to Cleveland in August being ringed in our area in February. Again we have  11 other similar recoveries suggesting a winter movement from the NE to our milder west coast area.

Our Twite are ringed at a feeding station at Heysham where we have ringed 1187 in recent years. Three birds caught this winter had been ringed at Machrihanish BO(2) and Sanda Island, both in Argyll and Bute  a movement of 239 km.These recoveries bring the total Twite showing the movement between this breeding area and our wintering site to 27. Obviously this is an important breeding area for our wintering Twite but other recoveries  extend the known breeding area further north to the Highlands and Strathclyde.

Other recoveries reported recently included three Sand Martins  ringed in the River Lune colonies and caught in the same roost at Aube in Western France, bringing our total of Sand Martins recovered in France to 43. A Lesser Redpoll ringed in our area in May was caught at Sandwich Bay Kent  on 16th November 394 km SE. Eleven previous recoveries have shown a similar S to SE movement for the winter.
John

A Review of 2013

I have now got all the  details of our 2013 ringing. The group ringed 12,515 new birds in 2013 made up of 10,625 fully grown and 1,890 nestlings.  Add to this the 3,059 re-traps  and 136 controls we handled 15,710 birds of 71 species making  it the second best year in the group's history.

The Group's four RAS projects went well. With lower water levels and despite a decline in the numbers of occupied holes we handled 979 Sand Martins at the Lune colonies compared with 580 in 2012 when many colonies were washed out. We had 11 controls including three from France. The Leighton Moss Bearded Tit RAS also did better with 21 nestlings ringed of which 16 were retrapped as juveniles. In total 49 juveniles were caught compared with only 17 in  2012. Survival from previous years was excellent with a crude survival rate of  64%.

The Reed Warbler RAS run at the same time as the Bearded Tit RAS suggested a lower adult breeding population (146 compared to 2001 in 2012). However productivity was good with 743 juveniles ringed compared to 504 in 2012. Nestbox breeding pairs of Pied Flycatchers in the Lune valley  were down from 75 to 59 mainly due to logging disturbance in two woods. We recorded 55 retraps/controls but males appeared to be more difficult to catch this year. Productivity was good with 294 nestlings ringed in the RAS woods. Our two CES projects were completed successfully with 127 birds caught at Heysham and 206 at Middleton.

Our most ringed species was Blue Tit with 2118 ringed, closely followed by Swallow with 2046 ringed at two roosts . This generated four controls and only 4 retraps. However the prize for the lowest number of retraps went to  Meadow Pipit with no retraps or controls from 779 ringed! This compares with Lesser Redpoll  with 150 retraps and 31 controls and Siskin with 142 retraps and 23 controls from 451 ringed. Of species ringed infrequently 8 Skylarks and 7 Hawfinch are noteworthy.All in all a very satisfactory years for the Group.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

John

A 29 Year Old Oystercatcher

Just received news of our oldest Oystercatcher. It was ringed by Kevin Briggs as a nestling at Arkholme on the shingle beds of the River Lune in June 1984 and was found dead just 24 km. to the south on the shores of the Lune  estuary. this is our oldest Oystercatcher to date but is well short of the national record which stands at 40 years.

Ringing by the Morecambe Bay Wader Group of large numbers of Oystercatchers has shown how our locally bred birds winter mainly within Morecambe Bay. Here they mix with birds from Iceland(7), Norway (16), Denmark (1), Faroes (9), Shetland (5), Orkney (7) and Northern  Scotland (24). The  figures refer to the number of recoveries from ringing on the east of Morecambe Bay.
John

Med Gull Bonanza at Heysham

The Heysham Power Station outfalls attracted a lot of  attention from gull watchers this summer with the presence of a Bonaparte’s Gull. One remarkable spin off was the sightings of large numbers of Mediterranean Gull many of which were Darvic ringed. All told a minimum of 46 Med Gulls were present during this period made up of  16 juvenile, 12 2CY, 4 3CY and 14 adult.

Full details of the colour ringed birds are now to hand. They comprised the following, all ringed as nestlings and seen at Heysham during the period mid-July to September.

Germany 4, Poland 1, France 1,  Netherlands 4, Belgium 4, Czech Republic 1

There was some fascinating differences in the numbers of ringed birds present. In late July almost 50% of the birds were ringed, but in August only 10% were ringed suggesting a marked turnover of birds. Indeed it appears that this movement is part of  post breeding dispersal, for other recoveries in previous years has shown some of the late summer birds at Heysham, winter further south in Britain, France and Spain.

R13E is the best example of this movement. It was born, and is presumably now breeding  in northern France,  yet it has included Heysham in post-breeding movements in at least two years, remaining for a very short time before returning to winter on the Atlantic coast of France. One assumes that this bird does not have a "residential moult location" but just wanders dropping/re-growing the odd feather, gradually  heading for the wintering grounds, but certainly going "round  the houses" in doing so. 

Many thanks to all the observers who reported details of ringed birds. Keep up the good work|

Pete Marsh