Kestrel chicks rung.

Visiting nest boxes has not been very productive this spring. Many broods have failed because of the poor weather. It was great to therefore ring 3 Kestrel chicks this week. Only two in the photo because onre was so fiesty!

Nest box roundup

As Sunday was a nice day, for once, the opportunity was taken to check the small boxes in the wood with a view to ring any chicks. 7 boxes of Blue Tits had big enough chicks and 50 in total were ringed. There were 2 boxes of previously ringed chicks that were now nearly ready to fledge, a further 2 boxes still had  small chicks, about 5 days old but also with quite a few unhatched eggs. The 5 boxes with Great Tits in them have also seen some failures as 2 boxes had been abandoned containing dead chicks, but out of the rest 22 were big enough to ring. Watching the adult birds visiting the boxes with beakfuls of large green caterpillars gives me some hope that they will survive to fledging and that they are finding enough food during all this wet weather.
The Tree Sparrow colony seems to be slower moving onto a second clutch than last year, and not all the boxes have been taken up, but another brood of 5 well-fed chicks were ringed today with another clutch just hatched and another 4 on eggs.
Some of the open nests that we have been monitoring on another site have unfortunatley been predated, Meadow Pipits included, probably by corvids as there is alot of them around the area, but the vegetation is growing rapidly so this should give more cover and a better chance of survival with the next clutch.

More boxes checked

This time some larger boxes. An evening visit on Monday around the local fields/farmland where we have an assortment of boxes in place resulted in a single Tawny chick ringed from an 'A' frame Barn Owl box, a Barn Owl on 2 eggs, (in an 'A' frame), a Kestrel on 6 eggs and an adult Stock Dove ringed with 2 chicks not quite ready yet. Still a few more to go.
Tuesday evening we found 2 more Meadow Pipits sitting on 3 eggs each, our other M P has 3 chicks hatched out of four eggs, now 4 days old.

Box Checking

We finally got the chance yesterday (Sunday) to check our 'tit' boxes in the wood, but the first few were empty, so this wasn't looking good. Out of the 25 we checked 6 held Great Tit and 7 held Blue Tit, all the birds were sitting tightly. The rest of the boxes were empty, normally we have a better take up than this, as last year we had 14 Blue Tits. Over at our Tree Sparrow site they are now coming to the end of their first broods, but they have been hit by the poor weather. Our main block of 13 boxes has 6 boxes still with  nests at various stages that have not moved since the beginning of April, and the others have all seen chick losses. They are 1/5, 3/5, 3/5, 2/5, 1/5, 5/5. so only 15 chicks ringed so far, but 2 are already laying up their second clutches. Last year we ringed 101 chicks from these boxes, so we have a long way to go yet.

Chiff tail.

I recently rung this Chiffchaff that showed that it had replaced its two central tail feathers, which are more adult, but still retains the more brownish grey and worn juvenile feathers.

Tough for Herons.

 Jedward the heron!

We managed to ring one juvenile heron at Watermead. Sadly its two siblings had succumbed to the cold and wet weather. This may be made worse by Sundays extreme weather. I also saw a heron carrying nesting material, so perhaps second attempts will be made, but this is rare. Let us hope that Jedward Heron makes it through!

Box Check

Just a quick check yesterday (Fri) (well not that quick as it took 2 hrs) of a few large boxes on the Nature Reserve found 2 boxes occupied by Tawny Owls, one contained 2 eggs and the other contained 3. Both these boxes have only been in place for a couple of years so I'm pleased with the result and nest record cards have been written up for them. Unfortunatley the other boxes were either empty or had had squirrels in them.
A few Meadow Pipits were seen and a Merlin dashing low across the field.