Spotty Youngsters

Yesterday Masai Mick and I arrived at Stanford at 0445 hrs and quickly erected several nets in the 40 foot rides from the reservoir dam towards the location of the Wildlife Trust's birdwatching hide. Previously known as "The New Hide" it was recently demolished on health and safety grounds and the location will be known for evermore as "The Old Hide".


We were treated to a fabulous sunrise as these images attempt to show:

Sunrise over the Poplars

With not a breath of wind, the reservoir was flat calm and, dare I say it, the weather was just too hot and the sky too clear for a productive ringing session.

Draw-off Tower

We managed 26 new birds (plus 10 retraps) which included the second juvenile Lesser Whitethroat of the year, a couple of juvenile Reed Warblers with prominent tongue spots and a juvenile Robin.

Spotty Robin

We also ringed two juvenile Sedge Warblers which were sporting very well marked "necklaces".  Most juvenile Sedges have a line of small dark spots starting at the sides of the breast which vary both in intensity and the number of spots - usually one or two spots at each side of the chest is the norm but these two birds had as well defined necklaces as we have seen for a long time.

Spotty Sedge Warbler

Here Comes The Sun

With the incessant poor weather since April there has been very little to blog.  Most planned ringing sessions at Stanford have been either cancelled, curtailed or produced very few birds. June 2011 resulted in 846 new birds being ringed whilst this June we managed just 307 - a total that was boosted with 46 Swallows from an adjacent stables to which we were given access for the first time (thanks Helen).
The weather forecast for yesterday was excellant and so the prospect of a good catch was very real - if only there were birds about.


Nets were erected in the early morning mist:

                                                                   

which cleared within twenty minutes:

                                                                              
                     
Mick came back from the first round of the nets and triumphantly thrust a bird bag into my hand - inside an adult male Redstart! We have ringed only 16 at Stanford since we started in 1976 so this was a very good bird and surprisingly the second this year as we ringed an adult female in June.
           

Adult male Redstart 21st July 

                                                                 

Adult female Redstart 20th June

The total catch for day was 65 new birds with 20 retraps - our best day so far but well short of what we would normally expect at this time of year.

Warblers predominated with:
Sedge Warbler 2 new (+ 2 retraps)
Reed Warbler 2
Whitethroat 15
Garden Warbler 2 (+1)
Blackcap 3 (+2)
Chiffchaff 4
Willow Warbler 9 (+5)

With good weather predicted for next week, a mid week session is planned.                                                                                                    
                 

Tyto Alba Cannabilism

Last night Webmaster Mike, trainee Ed and myself travelled north of Leicester to a site where the Stanford RG has been ringing Barn Owl chicks for the last five years.  Four eggs laid way back in April had hatched in May and produced four healthy chicks. We arrived at 1900 hrs to discover that one chick had completely vanished - almost certainly the recent long spell of frequent rain showers had prevented the adults from providing sufficient food and the oldest chick's survival instincts had kicked in and it had turned on its smaller sibling and devoured it - a practice that was brought to the attention of a shocked nation some years ago in BBC's Springwatch programme.

Mike did the honours of collecting the chicks from the nest whilst a happy Ed ringed his first owlets and they were soon back in the safety of their nest box just as the rain started again. 

We Have Been Busy - Honest!

With the obvious lack of recent activity on this Blog you could be forgiven for assuming that the Stanford Ringing Group has also been inactive. Well the truth is far from that because for the last four and a half months a dedicated faction of the group has been hard at work every Saturday undertaking scrub bashing and site maintenance. With the water level at the reservoir being unbelievably low it has been easier to access the scrub and overhanging branches from the foreshore, which is normally under several feet of water and, as a result, a great deal has been achieved. It has been a hard slog however so a big ‘thank you’ to those who turned out in all weathers. The water is now slowly returning as these images show:


The bay, normally under six foot of water, 1st October 2011


The same area 7th April 2012


Looking into the corner of the Bay towards our main ringing area


Access to the foreshore made the burning of the scrub much easier


A small amount of mid-week ringing has been carried out since the start of the year but the catches have been small with just 134 new birds ringed during the first quarter:



Saturday 7th April marked the start of the Group’s ringing proper but it was not a great day with intermittent drizzle for most of the morning. The result was a catch of 23 birds of which only seven were new birds but the first Blackcap of the year was a bonus. (Last year’s record breaking Blackcap total is detailed in our annual report for 2011 - follow this link Year Of The Blackcap)

We have processed 11 individual Chiffchaffs so far and the first Willow Warbler has been seen so hopefully over the next few weeks the warblers will return in good numbers to what is arguably one of the best, if not the best, inland ringing site for warblers.

Adam has made a start on this year’s nest recording and reports several boxes with Blue Tit or Great Tit clutches which are the earliest ever records for Stanford. The young could well be fledged by the first week of May which is when these birds used to start their nest building back in the 1960’s - a demonstration of the effects of global warming since then. We also have two boxes with Tawny Owls present so hopefully they will have a good breeding season.

Scrappin' Robins

Ed has been unable to get to Stanford recently and so tells us what he has been up to:

Over the past few months it’s been quite difficult for me to get along to Stanford so I’ve had to find alternative ways to get my birding fix. One such way is via a photographic project that I started working on in October last year. Nothing special really - I just wanted to photograph a particular Robin that turned up at the stables where my wife keeps her horses.

I noticed on a few consecutive mornings a Robin sitting quite nicely on the old wooden fence posts. I decided it would make a nice photo. The problem was getting close enough. Even with my 400mm lens fitted to the camera, and being particularly cautious in my approach he still proved to be very timid.

Over a period of months I have been feeding the Robin in an attempt to gain its trust so I can get closer.

At first the Robin was very wary, remaining in the trees and hedges until I was out of sight. Whilst I stood in the stables the Robin was content to approach the food and I could watch his behaviour without disturbing him. Over a number of weeks I continued to feeding him twice a day. I eventually got to the stage whereby I could stand outside the stables and he was still content to visit my feeding posts.

Not too much to my surprise in December a second Robin appeared at the feeding posts and was quite rapidly followed by a third. Sticking to my routine of feeding them twice a day and then carrying on with the jobs that needed to be done the birds have now become far more comfortable with my presence.  By January I was now able to put the food out and the Robins would now come within about six feet.  Even if I stopped and stood still to watch them, they didn’t seem too bothered and were quite happy to continue feeding. In February I decided the time had come introduce the camera again and to see how they would react.

All went well; they didn’t seem bothered by its presence in the slightest. On a bright, sunny and snowy day I decide to give it a go at getting some photo’s of the birds. I was hoping to get some action shots of the birds landing on the feeding posts. I was later than anticipated in getting to the stables. I quickly set up the camera on a tripod and placed seed on the post about ten feet in front of the camera.  It only took a couple minutes for them to appear and I was able to get some initial images of them.

Some of the better images can be seen below:

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2011 - year of the Blackcap

We've now written our 2011 Annual Review and it can be found, along with all the data from 2011, on our Ringing Statistics page

2011 Summary

• An excellent, record-breaking year with 5727 birds ringed at Stanford Reservoir from a total 8672 birds processed.

• Most warbler species were ringed in record numbers, as were Tree Sparrow, Linnet, Reed Bunting and Greenfinch. An unprecedented warbler and finch autumn movement was observed. However, our success in ringing thrushes during the winter of 2010/11 was not repeated in 2011/12 as the birds were virtually absent due to the mild conditions.

• The breeding season was good with 161 nests recorded. No obvious impact was observed from the previous hard winter (with the possible exception of Barn Owls).

• Higher than average controls were recorded (19), but the recovery rate was poor (only 11 recoveries in total for the whole year and only 4 birds of the 5727 ringed in 2011 have been recovered to date) .

• Environmental work effort has been higher and more successful than ever before.

• Website and Blog features were expanded during 2011.

• Stanford Ringing Group has taken on more new trainees and helpers during 2011 than in previous years.

And finally, for Stanford Ringing Group, 2011 was definitely the year of the Blackcap, with 710 ringed at Stanford Reservoir. Never before have we ringed so many birds of one species in a single year.

Ed Succumbs to Temptation

With varying numbers but some days as many as 20 Short-eared Owls being reported throughout the month at a site not too many miles from Stanford, Ed finally succumbed to the temptation, went to see them and managed a photograph.

Here is his report:

On Sunday 20^th November I finally managed to take a trip across to the site at Maidwell in Northants to see if I could see the abundance of Short Eared Owls that had been reported there.

The day had been quite misty and following a break in the weather I headed off mid afternoon. I chose to walk the last mile, although you can drive, and on approaching the site I saw my first Shortie take to the wing from a tree not too far from the track that I was following.

The site had pockets of photographers dotted along the track so finding the right spot to stand wasn’t too difficult to work out.

I didn’t have to wait long either, in less than two minutes there was one flying around, swooping down low over the scrub and periodically landing. After that they seemed to be everywhere, but the most I counted at any one time was four. At one point two of the owls had a dispute and a mid-flight brawl but unfortunately they were too far away to photograph.

I was however treated to one flying quite close and passing within 30 metres or so as it went to the field behind to hunt up and down the hedgerow.

My visit was quite short lived, after only being at the site for half an hour the fog rolled back in sealing off any chances of seeing the owls any more.