Just a bit of garden ringing here and there again today.
Fairly quiet, with just 11 birds caught:
new (retrap) control
Dunnock 1 (0) 0
Blackbird 3 (0) 1
Long-tailed Tit 0 (1) 0
Blue Tit 2 (1) 0
Great Tit 2 (0) 0
The Control Blackbird was a male (CW79044), and was the 3rd bird controlled by me here at Wyken Hall this month - the others being a Reed Bunting (Y113822), and a Great Tit (L725053). In due course, when I get the reports through from the BTO, I'll post details here.
Still waiting for details from the Dutch Arnheim scheme about the Robin I caught here back in October (BA65008), but hopefully that will come through soon.
About Me
- Graham
- Canna, Highland, United Kingdom
- This blog has been set up to keep people who are interested in wild bird ringing informed about my ringing activities both locally and further afield.
Wednesday 29 February 2012
Tuesday 28 February 2012
A Wandering Great Tit
A half hour ringing session yesterday in my back garden wasn't expected to turn much up.
True to form, the net filled up with Blue Tits, with 13 of them caught, along with a single Great Tit, and a single Robin.
Best of the bunch was the Great Tit, a control (L725053). There are quite a few other ringers living nearby, so I suspect this one hadn't come too far. Time will tell!
Also of interest was one of the Blue Tits, first ringed on 16th May 2011 as one of eight pulli hatched out in an air vent in the back of the kitchens at the Leaping Hare restaurant here at Wyken Hall. This female had so far managed to avoid recapture, so it was a delight to see that she had survived, even if she'd not travelled very far (about 400 metres from the nest!).
True to form, the net filled up with Blue Tits, with 13 of them caught, along with a single Great Tit, and a single Robin.
Best of the bunch was the Great Tit, a control (L725053). There are quite a few other ringers living nearby, so I suspect this one hadn't come too far. Time will tell!
Also of interest was one of the Blue Tits, first ringed on 16th May 2011 as one of eight pulli hatched out in an air vent in the back of the kitchens at the Leaping Hare restaurant here at Wyken Hall. This female had so far managed to avoid recapture, so it was a delight to see that she had survived, even if she'd not travelled very far (about 400 metres from the nest!).
Sunday 12 February 2012
Lotsa Linnets and a REEBU control
Another session for the Suffolk Foraging Farmland Bird Project this morning.
I tried a different wild bird seed strip at Dairy Farm to those I've ringed at before. I started putting nets up at 7.30am, and had a couple done when a huge flock of Linnets (550+) came in from Upper Gravel Pit. Lovely though big numbers of birds are, I was ringing on my own, and didn't want to catch more than I could deal with, so quickly took down a net to leave it with just one 18m Ecotone. This was a good move, so it turned out, as the rain moved in half an hour later, with lots of birds threatening to find the net. I decided to call it a day, and to try another time with a better weather forecast. Still, I got a few interesting birds in the time I had the net open:
New (Retrap)
Dunnock 1
Blackbird 1
Blue Tit 1 (1) - this retrap was originally ringed in my garden, 2km away
Chaffinch 5
Greenfinch 1
Linnet 10
By lunch back at home, the sun had come out, so I decided to give it a couple of hours on the Wyken Hall estate up at The Dales again. The hedge between the wild bird seed strips has been cut since I was last there, and the estate had a hare shoot there yesterday, so bird numbers are down a bit, but it was still a worthwhile session:
Chaffinch 3
Reed Bunting 4 (3)
Of the 3 already-ringed Reed Buntings, 2 were retraps from this same ringing site, but the other was a Control Y113822. Could this be 'your' REEBU?
I tried a different wild bird seed strip at Dairy Farm to those I've ringed at before. I started putting nets up at 7.30am, and had a couple done when a huge flock of Linnets (550+) came in from Upper Gravel Pit. Lovely though big numbers of birds are, I was ringing on my own, and didn't want to catch more than I could deal with, so quickly took down a net to leave it with just one 18m Ecotone. This was a good move, so it turned out, as the rain moved in half an hour later, with lots of birds threatening to find the net. I decided to call it a day, and to try another time with a better weather forecast. Still, I got a few interesting birds in the time I had the net open:
New (Retrap)
Dunnock 1
Blackbird 1
Blue Tit 1 (1) - this retrap was originally ringed in my garden, 2km away
Chaffinch 5
Greenfinch 1
Linnet 10
By lunch back at home, the sun had come out, so I decided to give it a couple of hours on the Wyken Hall estate up at The Dales again. The hedge between the wild bird seed strips has been cut since I was last there, and the estate had a hare shoot there yesterday, so bird numbers are down a bit, but it was still a worthwhile session:
Chaffinch 3
Reed Bunting 4 (3)
Of the 3 already-ringed Reed Buntings, 2 were retraps from this same ringing site, but the other was a Control Y113822. Could this be 'your' REEBU?
Wednesday 1 February 2012
Reed Buntings
Another fairly successful ringing session on The Dales as part of the Suffolk Wildlife Trusts' 'Forgaing Farmland Bird Project' at Wyken Hall.
Nets where open by 07.15, with a slightly frosty start soon warmed by a gorgeous sunrise.
A nice little haul, dominated by Reed Buntings, with enough birds to keep things ticking over nicely throughout the morning.
Birds as follows:
New Birds (Retraps)
Wren 1
Dunnock 1
Robin 1 (1)
Chaffinch 2
Yellowhammer 4 (1)
Reed Bunting 22 (2)
Total 31 (4) = 35 birds handled. A nice start to February!
Up at Little Bofus lake I put up a 3m net in the reeds to assess the extent of the Reed Bunting roost. Birds started to come in at around 16.45, but there weren't that many of them. I caught 3 more Reed Buntings, but would have liked to see some of the 23 Pied Wagtails finding the net. Maybe next time!
Interestingly, one of the Reed Bunting retraps this morning was ringed at Little Bofus a couple of weeks ago, showing that at least some of the birds foraging around the farm during the day come in to roost at this lake in the evening. Back in the summer I had a male Reed Bunting nesting at the lake that was colour ringed by the BTO in winter 2007 in pretty much the same place as my nets are set up on The Dales for the Forgaing Farmland Bird Project.
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