The Blackcaps are definitely here.

Well because of the bad weather yesterday the team decided to go ringing today. Adam and Mick got to the reserve early about 3am and erected the nets. That meant that the rest of us Peter, Stuart, Kate and myself could arrive later and didn't have to be there until 6am..
The first two rounds were crazy catching over 100 Blackcaps including 2 controls and 30 odd Chiffchaffs.
We continue to catch a few Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Sedge and Reed Warblers as they pass through the area.  It was also good to catch one of our previously ringed Cetti's Warbler, and a new Coal Tit which I believe is only our second for the year. After the first two rounds the number of bird caught reduced and it gave Adam, Stuart and Kate the opportunity to check one of the pole boxes containing Barn Owl pulli. We had previously ringed 5 of the 6 pulli about 2 weeks ago. The youngest at that time had been too small to ring.. However today it was large enough and Stuart was fortunate enough to ring his first Barn Owl.
By midday we had taken the nets down and were having some refreshment at our local hq The White Hart.
During the week there had been sightings of Common Sandpipers in the area of the dam..After some discussion  Adam, Stuart, Peter and myself decided to see if they were still around..
On arrival we spotted 2 on the overflow wall. So we erected two nets in the overflow gully and a couple of Spring traps on the overflow wall.
After about 3 hours we had had great success catching 3 new and 1 retrap Grey Wagtails and one of the two Common Sandpiper. Lucky Adam.
At this time of the year we get several stop off during their migration south but we very rarely catch and ring them. The last Common Sandpiper caught and ringed at Stanford was in 1984.

So all in all we all had a great days ringing, processing 210 birds of which 132 were Blackcaps, including 2 controls, 39 Chiffchaffs, 5 Reed Warblers, 4 Willow Warblers, 4 Whitethroat 3 Lesser Whitethroat, 3 Grey Wagtails, 2 Sedge Warblers a Coal Tit, the Barn Owl Pulli and of course the Common Sandpiper.

Common Sandpiper, showing distinctive wing bar.

Common Sandpiper

Grey Wagtail

Early September

As i am sat here watching the rain rather than birds raining down on the nets i thought i would give you a bit of an update on our early September efforts. We have been out on 5 occasions ringing a total of 807 birds of 24 species,73 retraps and 2 control Sedge Warbler, not a bad effort at all. As you would expect at this time of year the warbler species have been our main quarry and they have not disappointed with Blackcap (443) and Chiffchaff (126) being the bulk of the catch. Generally speaking September sees the other Warblers tail off sharply, so after the exceptional Whitethroat catch of last month we are not surprised with only 60 being ringed so far. Both Sedge and Reed Warbler are doing quite well with 40 and 37 respectively, Willow Warbler (15) and Garden Warbler (2) have both had disappointing years and September is certainly not helping. Lesser Whitethroat (14) however are making a late season surge and finally Grasshopper Warbler have continued to make a showing with 2 being caught so far. After last years exceptional passage of Redstart again we have managed to catch 2 so far. We have not caught anything else of note so far but here's hoping for the rest of the month. Mick.

 August Summary

Well August has been and gone in a blur here at Stanford Res with some 1531 birds ringed during the month we had highlights a plenty. To start with I have to say this is the highest August total we have ever had and bettered last year by about 300 birds with a visit less. So unlike the rest of the year to date we can not moan about their being no birds about. The warblers seem to have recovered a little from their early season disaster when most first broods just did not make it through the June monsoon's. Cetti's Warbler are continuing to colonise Stanford with some juvenile birds present at long last from at least 8 females caught showing signs of attempting to breed, what a brilliant result as they only started to breed at Stanford last year. Grasshopper Warblers have returned to Stanford with a vengeance this year with at least 4 pairs present so the 11 new birds caught this month were not to be unexpected. Reed and Sedge Warblers both did well this month with 85 and 173 birds ringed respectively. All the other Warblers species have shown a downward trend except Whitethroat, which have surpassed all previous records. We have ringed more Whitethroat this month than we have ever done in a year before with some 577 being ringed bringing the total for the year to 799. Quite unbelievable. Numbers wise apart from the Warblers everything else apart from Robin with 49 being ringed this month have been a spectacular flop with smaller numbers than usual being ringed. However we have had some nice birds caught for the month with Redstart and Spotted Flycatcher being two of them. But the most unexpected was the Wryneck that we caught on the 26th. This is the first to be ringed at Stanford and I can report that Peter the Trainee who was with me and therefore ringed it is still buzzing a week later .There's nothing quite like a good bird on your own patch and someone to share it with !!!!!!

It’s Amazing What Turns up in Your Nets at 0500

A trainee writes: It’s been busy at Stanford reservoir in the last few weeks. We are now truly up to our ears in juvenile birds (‘3Js’ in ringing parlance; the ‘3’ means it is this year’s bird and the ‘J’ that it is still in juvenile plumage). 

On Monday 1^st August Mick and Peter went out ringing along the poplars at Stanford and logged up 115 new birds, with 40 Whitethroat and 26 Blackcap. However, the main surprise was found at 0500 by Peter who came across a strange large brown bird in a net. But hang on, are birds meant to be hairy? Expertise was clearly called for and Mick duly attended our first bat of the year. But not any bat, this was a Noctule, the largest bat in Britain. Mick extracted it with some robust language ringing around the reservoir. As can be seen this is a very handsome animal with some alarming teeth which it is not reluctant to use. We then had the opportunity to take some pictures. When we were finished, the bat had clearly taken a bit of a liking to Mick, and in fact would not fly, so we draped it on a tree, from where it eventually flew off.

Saturday 6 August was our regular CES day. Mick was out early putting up nets in the pitch dark (not sure how he manages this). We had a good turn out; Dave, Stuart, Dawn and Peter arrived at a marginally more civilised 0430, joined by Viv who was with us to be assessed for her ‘A’ permit (success, well done Viv!). Jo also turned up to make a guest appearance and hog any glamorous birds which we might have. We had a stonking morning, with 156 new birds and 52 re-traps, of which 85 were Whitethroats, mainly 3Js. Considering that this has been a rather wet and cool Spring/ Summer, this is a great result! 

Peter Norrie

A Day of Juveniles

Our ringing sessions are normally on a Saturday morning, but this weekend Saturday was far too windy to be ringing so the decision was made to ring on Sunday. Well we met at 4.30 at the rail track gate. Mick was back from yet another holiday, this time in Scotland and the Orkneys, and together with Adam, Max, Peter and myself we went and erected the nets between the feeders and the Northants reedbed. We made our base at the bench midway between the reedbed and the feeders. After all the nets were up Adam, Max and Peter went one way and myself and Mick went the other. As soon as we started extracting the birds from the reedbed and the point nets, it was obvious we were going to have a large number of birds to process. We actually ran out of bird bags so I took the birds back to Adam and the others, for them to process while I returned to Mick with more bags to carry on extracting. Moments later I returned to the ringing base with  another arm full of birds. Mick had given me one bird that he won't ID  saying you'll have to ID it back at the ringing base.
At the base I took the bird out of the bag and I have to admit was baffled, as were the other trainees. So with Adams assistance we ID'd the bird as a juvenile Yellow Wagtail. We do not catch many Yellow Wags and normally in the Autumn migration, the last being in 2014.

The session continued with 4 of us ringing while Mick continued extracting the birds from the nets. Max who has only just started ringing had a baptism of fire with numerous new species for him to ring, including a juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker.
As the day progressed and the number of bird caught reduced, Adam and Peter checked some nest boxes and in total ringed 16 Tree Sparrow pulli.
We had an extremely good days ringing having processed 194 birds, many of which were juveniles, including a young Cetti's Warbler. 133 were new and 61 retraps including 2 controls.

Cetti's Warbler 1 -0   Grasshopper Warbler 2 - 1  Reed warb  17 - 8,  Sedge  warb 10 - 6 , Whitethroat 39 - 6 ,  Blackcap  8 - 1 ,  Garden Warb 0 - 3 ,Chiff   5 - 3 , Willow warb 5 - 2 ,  Wren 1 - 0 , Great Spotted Woodpecker  1 - 0 , Dunnock  4 - 2 , Tree Sparrow 26 - 4 , Yellow Wagtail 1 - 0 ,  Reed Bunt 4 - 1 , Great Tit 3-  16 , Blue Tit 1 - 6 ,  Bullfinch 1 - 1,  Robin 2 - 0 , Chaffinch 2-0, Goldfinch 0-1.  

By the end of the day we all needed to retire to the pub for a well earned drink..

What a difference a week makes

At Stanford Reservoir, Northants our CES 5 on 18th June produced just three juveniles out of a miserable total of 30 birds which was more than likely due to heavy losses after an almost entire week of torrential rain leading up to the weekend.
CES 6 yesterday was a completely different story with a total of 105 birds processed throughout the day. However, only 58 contributed towards CES.
Of those 58 CES birds, 41 were juveniles and 17 were adults. Highlights of the day were this years first juvenile Willow Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Grasshopper Warbler and Goldcrest.
Unfortunately we were rained off an hour early and with everything soaking wet and all packed up decided to visit the dam for a look around. A family of Grey Wagtails were feeding on the pond weed in the outflow so we decided to set up a 20' across the channel and see if we could catch some.
Two juveniles of both Pied and Grey Wagtails were caught although the adults proved far too net-wary. A Mute Swan caught by hand on the dam ended a rather damp but productive morning.

Adam

Renewing the Constant Effort at Stanford

A trainee writes: The ringing year is now well into its swing at Stanford. We have a portion of our ringing site which is used for the Constant Effort Sites (CES) Scheme. This is a national survey which is organised by the BTO (amongst others). In the CES, ringers operate the same nets in the same locations over the same time period at roughly 10 day intervals throughout the breeding season. The Scheme provides valuable information on the abundance of birds, their survival and breeding success. The CES is an important source of scientific information which influences conservation nationally. The fact that we then retire to the White Hart at the end of each session is because we have exhausted ourselves in the interest of science. It is a hard life being a ringer. Anyway, we have thus far completed four CES sessions and, as usual, for this part of the season it has been a little slow because the adults are too busy sitting on eggs or foraging for youngsters to wander into our nets too often. However, we keep ourselves busy. On Saturday 4th June we met up at 0430. Adam decamped with Stuart and Max to continue his ongoing pulli (nestling) ringing marathon. The boys duly ringed 50 Great Tits, six Blue Tits, five Tree Sparrows and five Wrens. The saga continues… This left Mick, Dawn, Dave, Peter N and Pete B to conduct the CES. It was one of the better early summer efforts, with all 10 of our resident warbler species making an appearance. Numbers for the session were 22 new birds and 33 re-traps, including a new pair of linnets. Of special note were three Grasshopper Warbler re-traps; this makes us think they are definitely here for the season, which is the first for quite a few years. Finally we ringed a family of three newly fledged Robins plus their dad! Definitely a sign of things to come. Below is a picture of a juvenile Robin, he looks a bit miffed but we look forward to seeing him again later in the year.
Peter N

Juvenile Robin by P Norrie