Meadow Pipits and Skylark Ringing

Meadow Pipits  are one of our commonest passage migrants at this time of year. Their abundance is well shown by the counts at the three regularly manned Vis. Mig. stations in our area with over 12,000 being recorded in autumn last year, and as they move on a broad front, the numbers passing are obviously very large. By contrast Skylarks pass in much smaller numbers. Heysham  observations in the autumn passage period show this well with 3342 Meadow Pipits counted but just 84 Skylarks.


The Group has had our best year to date for ringing Meadow Pipits with just over 800 so far, mainly at three sites. Meadow Pipits respond well to a tape lure playing the spring song. At Heysham they are mist netted  in an open area with a background of bushes. Richard's team have caught them as a by-product of Swallow roost ringing in a maize field.  While whoosh netting on the Morecambe Bay coast by the Keer estuary is only undertaken on days when it is not suitable for mist netting at our reed bed sites.

This year  while whoosh netting we also played Skylark song as an experiment and in three morning  sessions we have caught seven birds. Doesn't sound a lot but these are the first Skylarks that the Group has ringed since 1995 and in the whole of Britain in 2012 only 79 fully grown birds were ringed! You don't often ring ca 9% of the national total in three mornings! We could have at least doubled the catch if we had set two whoosh nets as birds regularly dropped and stopped behind the net.

Would be interested to know if other ringers using whoosh nets have tried  to ring Skylarks.

John

Birds on the Move

This is the time of the great movement southward of our summer migrants- obvious to anyone who birds or especially rings on a regular basis. Recent recoveries shows how early some of our summer visitors start to leave. A juvenile Sand Martin caught in Spain on 28th July just 39 days after ringing  had flown 1300 km south. A juvenile Sedge Warbler was on the south coast in Sussex on 13 August just 5 days after ringing at Leighton Moss, a movement of 426 km SSE.

But not all summer visitors set off  south at first, a juvenile Garden Warbler ringed on 24 July sadly killed itself against a window in Kirkby Thore Cumbria 53 km NNE 9 days later. While a Reed Warbler ringed as a short tailed juvenile and obviously close to its birth place at Middleton NR was caught at Leighton Moss 38 days later, 18 km to the  north.  Most probably these are just part of a random dispersal that takes place before the on set of the southerly movement.

Other recoveries included 4 Sand Martins ringed in Sussex on migration and found breeding in   the River Lune colonies. The brings the total of Sand Martins we have had reported in Sussex to a staggering 124 with the bulk  occurring there in August.

Two Siskin caught while breeding in Dumfries and Galloway brings to nine the Siskin we have had reported from this area.
John

10,000th Swallow at maize field roost

Since 2004 North Lancs Ringing Group have ringed swallows every autumn in a maize field near Hornby.  Initially we started ringing there as part of the swallow roost project and more recently to continue marking some birds passing through the North West of England.  The numbers of birds ringed each years varies massively due to productivity and autumnal weather conditions.  This year we have caught just over 800 with a few weeks of swallow ringing left before the maize is harvested.  When entering the last visits data I noticed we had passed the milestone of 10,000 swallows ringed. 

Below are the totals for all years since 2004:



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Year	Total new	New Juvs	New Adult	% adult	Controls	Recovered
2004	1585	1556	29	2%	6	8
2005	1811	1742	69	4%	7	5
2006	1409	1335	74	5%	2	3
2007	1247	1180	67	5%	1	3
2008	533	507	26	5%	1	1
2009	371	337	34	9%		2
2010	1213	1186	27	2%	1	2
2011	440	362	78	18%		1
2012	612	551	61	10%	1
2013	873	860	13	1%	1
	10094	9616	478	5%	20	25

Ringing swallows at a roost is always going to produce low numbers of retraps as 95% of the birds ringed are juveniles.  Likewise as Hornby is a fair way north we are less likely to catch birds that have been ringed previously compared to sites further south on the Swallow migration route.

The map below shows the origin of all the birds previously ringed that have been caught at Hornby.  Markers with a green P have been ringed in the nest, red J have been ringed as juveniles with the same year and finally purple As are birds that have been ringed as juveniles but we have caught in a subsequent year as an adult.

The second and third maps show where birds that have been ringed at Hornby have been recovered or recaught. The green J markers are the sites where birds have been caught in the same year and the red As are where birds have been recaught in subsequent years.  One map shows the longer distance recoveries and the other is more local.

These maps tell a story which is a not too surprising one.  Most of the birds we catch are locally bred typically from the Lakes, North East England and Southern Scotland.  These are birds that are yet to find a coastline and are probably following rivers on their autumnal amble to the South coast. If we looked at the recoveries from a coastal roost such as Heysham or Fleetwood I wonder if we would find a different pattern of recoveries.

While Swallows are the target at Hornby we have also had some other interesting captures such as the group's only adult Merlin, 3 Yellow Wagtails, 175 Pied Wagtails and 20 House Martins.

Many thanks to the farmer and everyone who has lent a hand over the last 10 years at Hornby.

Reedbed Birds Do Well This Year

Bearded Tits, our main study at Leighton Moss have had a good season with 38 juveniles caught to date well up on the 17 of 2012. To date we have identified 8 adult males and 11 adult females but we usually pick up several more, once the birds start using the grit trays which is usually during the second week in September. Young birds are still moulting as is shown in the photo taken yesterday of a young bird still in body moult and in the late stages of primary moult. Its pale iris  shows it is a second brood young probably hatched in mid July.

Reed Warblers despite an  apparent drop in the breeding population have had excellent productivity. Our average catch of new birds over the past five years has been 711 with 629 in 2012. This year with about two weeks to go we have caught 775 new birds the bulk of which are juveniles. Sedge Warblers have also done well, our 5 year average catch has been 236 with just 198 in 2012. This year to date we have caught 308. That the move south is well under way is shown by the small numbers of re-traps in both species. A few Sedge Warblers have been putting on fat to prepare for the journey south. The heaviest was  one at 14.8 grams- almost 4 grams heavier than normal and with a fat score of 5.

John

Where Have All the Blue Tits Gone?

Blue Tits appear to be very scarce this season. At Leighton  Moss our average August catch for the past five years has been 69, this August with a week to go we have caught only 14. Other ringers in our area report a similar scarcity even those with feeders such as Heysham. Garden bird feeders also report low numbers. The breeding population in our nest boxes declined from  160 nests in 2012 to 135 this year but productivity, at least to fledging was good. Possibly they are still in the woods, will be interesting to see what September/October brings. Tit flocks usually have a good number of warblers with them at this time of year  especially Willow Warblers so with no tit flocks to bring them in our catch to date is just 164 compared with 251 last year.

By contrast  Reed and Sedge Warblers are well up. In the whole of the  2012 season we caught 671 Reed Warblers and 186 Sedge Warblers. With three or so weeks to go we have already caught 798 Reed and 252 Sedge Warblers.

August is  always a quiet time for our main study species, Bearded Tits as they all moult and  keep low down in the reeds. One new departure  though was the sighting of two birds on the grit trays on August 24th. From their colour rings we identified them as two adult females. The previous earliest date was September 11th. Adults usually visit the grit trays in the early part of the gritting season, possibly because they know the location of the trays.
John

Pied Flycatchers End of Term Report

Managed at last to get full details of our Pied Flycatcher RAS in the Lune Valley. The total population was down from 72 occupied nest boxes in 2012 to 59 this year.  The largest decline occurred in one wood where 5 pairs bred in 2012 but none this year, mainly we think because of tree felling and other work within the wood. Peak population was 76 in 2011 but got as low as 54 pairs in 2009.

Productivity though was good with only three of the boxes failing to produce young and a total of 325 nestling's were ringed by the group. A total of  81 adults were also caught, 54 of which were re-traps. These show the pattern of previous years, the adults mainly returning to the same wood and nestling's returning to breed for the first time  usually moving away from the natal wood to other woods in the valley. A few move further though,with two caught breeding in the Ribble Valley and  our re-trapping of  two females ringed as nestling's in Cheshire and Durham. By contrast a female was caught nesting successfully in the same box as it was hatched.

The oldest bird recorded this year was a male caught 6 years and 10 days after ringing as a nestling in the same wood.

John

Reed Bed Passerines Have a Good Season

Our ringing visits to Leighton Moss RSPB over the past few days suggest that Reed and Sedge Warblers especially have had a very successful season. The average August  catch of Reed Warblers over the past 16 years has been 366, over the first ten days of this August we have already  caught 232 and mid to late August usually produces the best catches. The breeding population based on the numbers of adults caught (140 against 182 in 2012) appears to be down but productivity has obviously been good. Adults prepare to leave as shown by one caught today weighing 13.8 grams and a fat score of 4. But juvenile weights have yet to show any noticeable increase.

The main Sedge Warbler passage is also in mid to late August. The 16 year average catch is 180. To date we have caught 64.Other warblers also appear to have done well especially Blackcap with 56 caught so far this year compared to just 27 in the whole of 2012.  Our isolated Bearded Tits are our main study. They have also done better this year with 36 juveniles caught compared to only 17 last year. They are now  stating to moult which makes them much more difficult to catch.
John