A Pied Flycatcher First

Over the years our Group has ringed 11,557 Pied Flycatchers mainly as part of our RAS in the Lune Valley. We have had many recoveries and controls but a recent recovery was our first on spring migration in Britain. It had been ringed as a nestling in June last year and was caught on 21st April this year at Eccles -on-Sea Norfolk 315 km.ESE.It was a male.

Our only other spring report away from the breeding area was one caught in the Netherlands on May 5th 1991. Amazingly this bird was found nesting in Denmark the following June. I suppose the reason for so few spring recoveries is that   the spring movement is so quick. It  will be interesting to see if the bird caught in Norfolk turns up in our nest boxes in the RAS study. We are just starting to to ring nestlings and catch males. To date they have done well with good sized broods but the recent cold wet weather may not have helped.

A Cetti's Warbler we ringed as a juvenile in September was caught in May in Merseyside . This is the third Cetti's to move south after ringing, the most amazing one was ringed in March 2010 and caught just over a year later in Farlington Marsh Hampshire 389 km SSE.

Another interesting movement was  a colour ringed Grey Wagtail from our study at Heysham and Middleton. It was breeding in East Lancashire to the 51 km SE  of our autumn  ringing site. The third record  we have had of birds to the SE of our passage ringing site. Thanks to Craig Bell for the photo.

John

Pied Flycatchers in Potts Wood

Following on from John's post, I paid my first trip to the nest boxes in Pott Yeats, Littledale today.  There are 43 boxes there that have held small numbers of Pied Flycatchers in recent years, 2018 was typical with 5 pairs all successful.  Today nine nests were found with eggs in all and females incubating in three of them (One nest contained 10 warm eggs).

Two further Redstart nests were found with incubating females in place.  Interestingly, both nests were in boxes with ‘normal’ circular entrance holes.  The small number of boxes with ‘shuttlecock’ shaped holes intended for Redstarts have never attracted any of that species over the last few years but one of this year’s Pied Flycatchers has occupied  a ‘shuttlecock’ box.

Blue Tit and Great Tit numbers this year so far are about average. 

Alan

Pied Flycatcher Study gets Underway

With a couple of visits to most of our woodland sites in the Lune valley we are getting first impressions of this years Pied Flycatcher population. Last year we had 108 pairs in nest boxes in our 16 woods providing a RAS study. First impressions are that population are similar or in  5 cases slightly up on last year and it is still early days. The one exception has been our 12 nest boxes in a mainly alder wood. There has been clear felling of larch right next to the site and two boxes right next to the conifers in Oak which have always been occupied by Pied Flycatchers were empty this week but a male was singing close by. In some other years we have had a second later arrival, so lets hope. Similar on a visit today to the site with the smallest population there were two females incubating and a male singing round empty nest boxes.

First impression for other nest box species is that Great Tits are about normal but Blue Tits are well down. Both species have broods hatching and appear to be doing well but the next two weeks will reveal all.
John

Birds on the Move

It appears to be an early spring with both Reed Warbler and Pied Flycatcher  for example arriving very early. Our ringing has shown some quick  movement in Lesser Redpolls. One ringed in a Cheshire garden on March 24th was caught at a feeder five days later on the edge of Bowland , 51 km north. Another ringed at the same feeder on March 30 was in southern Scotland ten days later a distance of 218 km north west.

Waders are massing along the edge of Morecambe Bay waiting for good weather to make the journey to Iceland. Careful searching of the 3000+ Black-tailed Godwits on the Eric Morecambe Pools at Leighton Moss has revealed at least seven birds originally colour ringed  in the breeding season in Iceland.

Searching of the large numbers of Knot roosting at high tide on the Lune  Estuary has produced at at least six Knot originally colour ringed in Iceland.Today's cold ESE wind means they will probably wait for a change in the weather before setting off on their epic journey.

Other interesting recoveries have included a Chiffchaff  caught on Alderney on the Channel Islands on March 21st from our September ringing and a juvenile Cetti's Warbler ringed in South Yorkshire in early July and caught in late March at Leighton Moss, 134 km north west.
John

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Black-tailed Godwit Update

Today there was at least 2300 Godwits on the Eric Morecambe Complex on the edge  of Morecambe Bay. But with high spring tides most were on the flooded salt marsh. During the first half of March we have sighted  five colour ringed birds.  One from the Montrose Basin, two from the Humber, one from Kent and one from Iceland.  

The Icelandic one is the oldest and the most interesting with 102 sightings since it was ringed  as an adult male in Iceland in July 2011 . It has wintered on the Dee estuary every year since. In April 2013 it was sighted in North Holland. From  2014 it has established  a pattern of calling in at Morecambe Bay on the Eric Morecambe Complex in late March and April. This year though it was seen on 23rd February its earliest record and is still there gradually getting its summer plumage. Surprisingly it has never been seen again in Iceland.

Over the years we have recorded ca 70 Icelandic ringed Godwits in Morecambe Bay mainly in spring but at least 17 have been recorded in autumn. Some have  wintered as far south as SW France, others in Hampshire and Se Ireland, but the bulk winter on the Dee

John

                                                                                                                          

Godwit arrival dates

Black-tailed Godwit have started arriving in reasonable numbers at Leighton Moss in recent days.  Several of these have long histories of spring sightings at Leighton and other very local sites having spent the winter further south on the Dee.  Two are of note with several years of good arrival data for Leighton Moss.  The first seen date is listed below for each year they have been seen at Leighton:

R8-WO:

31/03/2012
21/03/2015
07/04/2016
01/04/2017
30/03/2018
27/02/2019

WR-WX:

13/04/2014
29/03/2015
05/04/2017
24/03/2018

23/02/2019

It would be very easy to say 'global warming' or 'unseasonably hot weather' is driving the early arrival date however I think it's more complex.  This winter has been fairly dry and many of the sites used early in spring by these birds (Lytham Hall, fields on the field) are only good feeding in wet conditions so maybe the early arrival is more a case of lack of good feeding throughout the tidal cycle rather than an early migration north.

Thanks to all the observers at Leighton Moss for seeing and reporting these birds to the ringers (in this case in Iceland).  The arrival and departure dates are really useful so even if the bird was seen yesterday reporting it again is important to understand how the Godwit use different landscapes in a changing world.

Our Nuthatch Study

We have continued our colour ringed study of Nuthatch visiting Jerry and Barbara's woodland edge garden at Silverdale. They usually see no more than two birds visiting their feeders at once but since late summer 2018 we have seen or caught 19 birds. In January at least 11 different birds have visited the feeders. They basically fall into three categories based on our sightings.

There is obviously a resident pair which have each been seen 14 days,very often together. Three other birds have been seen less often but still regularly  probably from adjoining territories close by. But the remaining six are only infrequent visitors only being recorded once or twice a month but obviously attracted by the abundance of bird food on offer. One assumes that they have territories some distance away in the surrounding woodland.
John