July - First Week

Saturday 2nd        

We thought June at Stanford had been hectic but July got off to a flying start with 143 new birds and 68 retraps. 

As would be expected at this time of year at Stanford, warblers dominated the catch (retraps in brackets):

Sedge Warbler   6 (15)               Reed Warbler     1                     Lesser Whitethroat   4 (1)

Whitethroat       27 (12)              Garden Warbler   5 (5)               Blackcap   18 (3)

Chiffchaff          10                      Willow Warbler    9 (2)

Tree Sparrows continue to appear at the feeding station but 28 new with 10 retraps was a surprising total.

A sprinkling of other species included Coal Tit 1, Willow Tit 1, Linnet 8 (1), Reed Bunting 8 (6) and the first Yellowhammer of the year.

Yellowhammer

Leaving Stanford we were invited to a privately-owned nature reserve where we ringed three Barn Owl chicks to round off the day’s ringing rather nicely – thank you!

The youngest Barn Owl chick

The oldest Barn Owl chick

Monday 4th

Intrepid Adam ventured into the reed bed on the Leicestershire side and managed an impressive 64 new birds with 50 retraps before blearily starting his shift work at 2pm.  As expected Reed Warblers dominated his catch with 30 new birds ringed (of which 12 were pulli) and 40 retraps but his star bird was the second year male Yellow Wagtail that he caught in one of his beloved spring traps – not only another new species for the year but the first Yellow Wagtail to be ringed since 2005.

Yellow Wagtail

Wednesday 6th

With heavy rain and wind forecast for Thursday, Webmaster Mike and I decided that Wednesday, with a forecast of cloud and no wind until 1000 hrs, was going to be a much better bet.  WRONG!  
At 0430 hrs we erected nets around “The Point” area and got off to a very slow start but just a few hours later, after the second heavy shower and with the wind increasing, we took our sorry selves and our wet net bags home.   
We had managed a disappointing 26 new birds (and 32 retraps) which included warbler numbers of:

Sedge Warbler   6 (2)                 Reed Warbler 1 (3)                     Whitethroat       7 (5)

Garden Warbler 1 (2)                  Blackcap        1 (1)                     Willow Warbler 2 (5)

By the end of the week we had ringed 233 new birds with 150 retraps of 26 species

Sedge Warbler Recovery

Thanks to the Scouse Ringer, Peter Fearon, for details of Stanford Sedge Warbler V733483 that he controlled in Portugal last year at his ringing site at Lagoa de Santo Andre, Setubal.  Our recoveries and controls page on the SRG web site has been updated to include this bird click here. Peter caught several UK ringed Sedge Warblers as his Blog shows Peter's Blog

End of June Totals

With just short of 1,500 birds being processed and a total of 846 new birds ringed it has been without doubt our best June ever at our main ringing site.

We believe that the environmental work that we have carried out at Stanford over the last few years has benefited warbler species generally and certainly these do feature prominently in the June totals of new birds ringed:
Sedge Warbler 58, Reed Warbler 123, Whitethroat 126, Garden Warbler 23, Blackcap 86

These and the other totals for June are now available to view on our website page "Ringing Statistics" - click here  monthly stats

Thursday 30th June

0430 hrs at the Reservoir on the last day of June and the water was flat calm with a slight fog hanging over it.

Misty mist net

Masai, Webmaster and I erected single 40 ft nets along the water’s edge in the area from the Draw-off Tower past the first birdwatching hide to “The Orchard” (so called due to the presence of 4 crab apple trees, a greengage and a damson that were planted many years ago in the garden of a small dwelling - now long gone). 

Another ride at the water's edge

Only recently the water’s edge from the Tower to the Hide was lined with a mixture of tall trees, predominately sallows, and was pretty much devoid of birdlife.  Now, following a combined effort by members of the SRG in conjunction with the Northants Wildlife Trust, the area consists of fresh sallow growth and grasses such that insect and bird life has increased enormously – and testament to that was the day’s catch of over 100 birds in the very same area that produced 100+ last week.

Net ride amongst new sallow growth

We ringed 71 new birds and processed 40 retraps – not bad for an area that until the last two years was pretty much ignored!  Once again, Whitethroats were much in evidence with them representing 40% of the total catch.  The first 3J Song Thrush of the year, two more young Treecreepers, our second juvenile Marsh Tit and a sprinkling of warblers made it a worthwhile session to end the month on (retraps in brackets):

Wren 2,   Dunnock 2, Blackbird (2), Song Thrush 1

Sedge Warbler 6 (8), Reed Warbler 2 (1), Lesser Whitethroat 1 (1), Whitethroat 17 (9), Garden Warbler 6 (6),

Blackcap 9 (1), Chiffchaff 5, Willow Warbler 1,

 Long-tailed Tit 1 (3), Marsh Tit 1, Blue Tit 3 (3), Great Tit 1 (3)

Treecreeper 2 (1), Linnet 6, Reed Bunting 5 (2)

The Willow Warbler was of the race acredula – the second ringed by us at the Reservoir - the first was on 23^rd August 2008 and is documented on our web site click here

Northern Willow Warbler - 30th June 2011

Rain stopped play at 1100 hrs

A Control Breezes In

Meeting at 0430 hrs Tuesday 28th June, with Masai Mick and Webmaster Mike, we were greeted by a chilly, breezy and overcast morning for a ringing session at "The Point" area at Stanford.  The conditions were not great and the morning's catch certainly reflected that - just 66 birds processed with 32 of these being new birds.

Whitethroats were in strong evidence (13 new and 9 retraps) and as such comprised one third of the total catch.

Whitethroat awaiting extraction

A male control Blackcap (L 858207) was the highlight of the session.

On a quiet morning, there was time for more photographs:

Looking down the path from The Point towards the Old Railtrack

The "Line" net ride at The Point

Waiting in Line

Our Webmaster at the net

A Busy Week In June

We have four main ringing areas at Stanford and, during the breeding season especially, we alternate our visits as much as possible.  This week we created a record as we managed to cover all four areas in five days. 

On Tuesday (21^st) with me suffering with a bad back Masai Mick was the only one available and went to Stanford on his own. Unfortunately the weather was not great, with the wind being the main problem.  However he managed to process 87 birds before the wind just got too bad, 50 new ringed with 37 retraps.  The juvenile Sedge Warbler with the deformed bill that was ringed last week was retrapped with no change in its weight of 10.4 grams so it seems to be surviving alright. Mick also caught the first young Lesser Whitethroat of the year - hopefully it will be the first of many!

Thursday (23^rd) Mick & Mike ventured into the larger of the two reed beds that we have at Stanford and had ringed 44 new birds with 48 retraps before the heavens opened and they got absolutely drenched - lucky I missed that!  They had managed to ring 8 new Reed Warblers plus 23 pulli and processed our third control Reed Warbler (BTO ring number L528926) of the year.

Friday saw me back on my feet as I joined Mick & Mike along with Adam as we gave a demonstration on the wonders of bird ringing to a U3A (University of the Third Age) group from the Lutterworth Branch – thanks to Brian for organizing that.   

some of the U3A visitors

 
The better weather resulted in the best catch of the week with 63 new birds with 40 retraps.  The new birds ringed included three juvenile Treecreepers with new additions to our ever increasing warbler totals of 11 Sedge Warbler, 14 Whitethroat, 7 Blackcaps and a Garden Warbler.  One of the Sedge Warblers was yet another with a deformed bill.

Our second Sedge Warbler with a deformed bill

An adult shows what it should look like

Saturday (25^th) and we were back at our base on the Old Railtrack. Having handled and ringed, for the first time, a few of the adult Swallows at her father’s farm with us last Monday, Lisa Adams seems to have caught the ringing bug and so met up with the rest of the Group at our normal meeting time of 0430 hrs.  The overnight wind and rain cleared and we tentatively put up just a couple of nets around the feeders and then erected a few nets in adjacent rides as the morning progressed.  

 At about 0800 hrs 9 year old Louis arrived, with his mother and younger brother Alex, and correctly identified his first Treecreeper in the hand (our fourth this week) – this boy has potential!   

Louis identifies Treecreeper

Alex and Louis with a Great Tit

The poor conditions resulted in just 65 birds being netted of which 31 were new.  At the close, a trip to the other side of the Reservoir to ring five Kestrel pulli brought our tally of new birds at Stanford this week to 193 ringed with 158 retraps – well worth the effort and thanks to all those involved.



All in all, a very busy week and one in which Lisa "A" progressed rapidly:

On Monday with her first bird in the hand - a Swallow

On Saturday discussing the finer points of emargination

Skomer Island Trip

Becca recalls her recent trip to Skomer:

At the beginning of June, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to volunteer on Skomer Island for a week.  Having never even seen a Puffin before stepping onto the island, I was in absolute heaven living in the researchers’ accommodation with views of hundreds of Puffins greeting me each morning.

Accommodation on Skomer

Puffins

My main role on the island was to assist a PhD student from Oxford University with her studies of the foraging behaviour and migration patterns of the Manx Shearwater.  The nocturnal nature of shearwaters meant some very late nights, but the chance to handle these fantastic birds and to experience the phenomenal atmosphere created by 120,000 "Manxies" calling in unison was well worth the lack of sleep!  We deployed a total of 21 GPS units on individuals that were due to leave their burrows to feed out at sea on return of their partners – the data retrieved will contribute to the University’s long term studies into these birds.

"Manxie"

With only a week on the island, I was keen to experience as much of the bird life as possible. This wasn’t difficult when living with David Boyle – an incredibly knowledgeable birder who has lived and worked on Skomer for the past nine years.  I assisted him with identifying colour ringed birds and was able to handle Razorbill chicks whilst he ringed this year’s broods that had so far managed to avoid the wrath of the Great Black-backed Gulls.

Razorbill chick

Adult Razorbill

Helping the Teifi Ringing Group with ringing of Shags and Great Black-backed Gulls on Midland Island (see earlier Blog uploaded 10th June) was a definite highlight – and it was certainly a relief to survive jumping off the boat onto the craggy rocks of the island!  The other big highlight was having Springwatch filming on Skomer Island all week.  Although more stressful than glamorous behind the scenes, it was good to meet the crew and Iolo Williams was surprisingly pleasant and down to earth (I am perhaps biased as he brought us cakes and beer on the final day of filming!)

Becca with the Teifi RG

All in all I had a fabulous week and am looking forward to getting back to handling all of the fantastic birds at Stanford with the Stanford RG again!

Saturday 18th June

Mick writes:

Knowing that ex Stanford Ringing Group member, Kester Wilson was coming up from Cornwall to visit his parents for the weekend and intended to drop in to see us at Stanford on Saturday we were hoping for fair weather for his visit.  Kester was a trainee with us from 1991 to 1994 and had not been to Stanford for many years.

Mick & Kester share a joke

 

With a poor weather forecast of heavy rain for most of Saturday morning the prospects for a good session were not good and certainly at 0300 hrs the rain was lashing down but an hour later it had stopped so much so that I set off for the planned meeting at 0430hrs with the other Group members.  On arrival at Stanford, although not raining, it was clear that the windy conditions would restrict us as to the number of nets that we would be able to erect. With the reduced netting, we still managed to ring 60 new birds with 44 retraps.  

A juvenile Sedge Warbler with a deformed bill was of interest and the best retrap of the day was a Garden Warbler ringed by us as a juvenile in 2004 - as such, it is our second oldest of this species to be retrapped at the site.

Juvenile Sedge Warbler with deformed bill

We also had an adult Whitethroat with an extra growth to the upper mandible:

"Tubenose"  Whitethroat

So far this month, with relatively poor weather, we have already exceeded last year’s June total of 317 birds ringed with 549 new birds.

June totals for some species of interest, with June 2010 figures, in brackets are

Sedge Warbler 49 (25)

Reed Warbler 90 (9)

Whitethroat 92 (71)

Blackcap 84 (11)

Tree Sparrow 117 (89)

Linnet 48 (28)

Monday morning John and I made our second visit to a local farm to ring two broods of Swallow that were too young on our previous visit last week.  We also managed to net some of the adult birds as they flew in and out of the building but they soon became wise to what we were up to and managed to find ways round the net.  In total we have ringed 26 pulli and 7 adults there – thanks to Bob and Lisa for allowing us access and for their assistance.