Nestbox Carnage

The first visit to our nestboxes in Pott Yeats Wood this season augered well - 7 boxes with Pied Flycatcher nests out of the total of 43 boxes, a good proportion for this relatively low altitude valley woodland.

However, today's visit told a very different story.  All 7 nests contained many fragments of eggshell, the result of predation probably by a mammal species (possibly Woodmouse).

It was a depressing day, lifting one lid after another to find yet more predation.  In all, 10 clutches had been destroyed (7 Pied Flycatcher, 3 Blue Tit) out of a total of 18 nests (7 Blue Tit, 4 Great Tit, 7 Pied Flycatcher).  The predated nests were spread evenly throughout the wood.  A further visit in a couple of weeks will be made to check for second attempts, although there will be little chance of this unless the weather warms up somewhat - it seems so sad that that the birds have made the long journey from south of the Sahara only to have their eggs eaten and then to return with no young produced.

Perhaps the anti-midge net ordered last weekend will not see any use this year after all!


ajd

Pied Flycatchers Arrive in Force

A careful count on a morning visit  yesterday to one of our main Pied Flycatcher RAS woods, gave  a total of 19 males but only 1 female. The wood resounded to Pied Fly song and many were visiting nest  boxes although we found only two nests in the early stages. Last year we had 14 pairs using the nest boxes in this wood so the omens look good for this year. We also had a pair of Redstarts around the  box they used last year and for the first time in four years a singing Wood Warbler, while a Cuckoo called at the edge of the wood. A great morning!

Tits though were rather sparse. we had only four nests with eggs, on the same date last year we had nine but this years cold spring appears to have delayed laying both here and at our other nest box schemes.

Richard has done a great job searching for colour ringed Black-tailed Godwits in a flock of around 1750 which frequent the Leighton Moss RSPB reserve area on spring passage. He has sighted at least eight originally ringed on their breeding area in Iceland, and one from the wintering area in France. The information amassed is amazing, one of the colour ringed birds has ben sighted 111 times over six years and has visited four of the major estuaries in Britain. This year  most departed in late  April /early May. Two birds have already been reported from Iceland, both were last sighted at Leighton on 29 April and seen on the breeding areas in Iceland 4 and 6 days later.

John

The Movement Continues

A further batch of recoveries and controls of Lesser Redpoll, Siskin and Goldfinch adds more information to my last post on these three species.

Pride of place goes to a Goldfinch recaptured at Nigg Ferry on the Cromarty Firth NE Scotland on 21 April just 13 days after ringing in our area. This is our first Goldfinch from NE Scotland.  A Lesser Redpoll caught on passage at Heysham on April 19th had been  ringed 20 days previously in Staffordshire. Other birds  caught while wintering  in Cambridge and Notts. were also caught in  our  area on spring passage.

Two Siskin ringed in past years in our  area were caught in NE Scotland in mid and late April bringing our  total  of Siskin from this area to 25.

Finally a juvenile  Sand Martin  ringed in mid July on the River Lune was caught 17 days later in Western France bringing the total of our Sand Martins reported from France  to 52.

John

Finches on the Move

The spring move north of Goldfinch, Siskin and Lesser Redpoll is well underway,although it may be delayed somewhat by the unseasonably cold spring weather. Certainly all three have been coming to garden bird feeders, especially Mark's and Dave's in the south east of our area. In total we have caught around 3-400 of each species so  far this year.

This has produced a nice flush of recoveries adding further to our knowledge of these species wintering and breeding areas and their time of movement.The quickest mover was a Lesser Redpoll ringed in Powys on April10th and caught 6 days later by Mark. It is only our second Redpoll from Wales. Birds which had wintered in Surrey and Berkshire brings our total from   SE England  and the South Midlands to 36 showing this to be the main wintering  area for our passage birds.

A Siskin recaptured at Shebster (Highland) on the April 8th had been ringed by Dave  41 days previously and brings our total of Siskin from NE Scotland to 22 showing this to be the main breeding area of our birds for this early breeder.

We have much less information about Goldfinch which have been especially abundant at garden feeders this late winter/spring. Recoveries in spring in Argyll and Galloway bring our reports from these areas to the second and third only. The one recaptured in Galloway on April 2nd had been ringed by Dave just 10 days previously. But Marks retrap of a French ringed Goldfinch in late April breaks new ground as our first foreign report of this species.

John

2015 Annual report

The North Lancs Ringing Group annual report is now available for download here.

Many thanks to all who contributed.

A Bullfinch Morning

The highlight of a morning visit to Jerry and Barbara's woodland edge garden at Silverdale was the catching of 12 Bullfinch. This compares with just 10 over the winter in 13 ringing visits. The down side was that we couldn't ring two of them because of warty growths on the legs, the first time we have recorded this in Bullfinch. We have had several Chaffinch with the same problem but on this visit we caught seven all with no problems.One further Bullfinch had been ringed by Andrew in his Over Kellet garden in January 2012 so  it had moved 8 km the longest Bullfinch movement we have recorded. This also was showing slight signs of  leg warts.

The catching of two more Great Spotted Woodpeckers brings the total since August to 22 and reflects the large amount of woodland in the Silverdale area. Nuthatch stand at 19 for the same period. Blue Tits at 152, Coal Tits 115 and Great Tit 83.   These figures refer to the total number of individuals caught with retraps from previous years only counted once.

The Lesser Redpoll spring passage is underway, on the day after the above catch we caught 17 of which two were controls. Of 170  caught to date so far this year by the Group seven have been controls, averaging ca 1 in 25.
John

Garden Ringing Update

Been an interesting winter at Jerry and Barbara's woodland edge garden at Silverdale .  Highlights of our 13 visits  have been the catching of  20 Great Spotted Woodpeckers compared with  only 8 last winter with 8 visits. Nuthatch  were 19 this winter compared to only 5 last winter. We have colour ringed all the Nuthatch and have had 524 sightings logged to the end of February. In total 13 individuals were visiting the well stocked feeders in February. will be interesting to see how many continue to visit as the breeding season approaches.

Following poor productivity last breeding season Blue Tits  at 150  compared to 244 last year are well down,  but Coal Tits are up, 111 compared to 47 last year. Only one Siskin has been caught. Its interesting to compare  the catch at Mark's and Dave's gardens inland in NE Lancashire and close to the Bowland Fells. Up to mid March they had caught 288 Siskins and 185 Lesser Redpolls, but only 5 Nuthatch, 8 Great Spotted Woodpeckers and 54 Coal Tits.

John