In the reedbed

That got your attention didn't it? Not one of today's birds sadly but please read on .... Andy, Barry and I were in the reedbed from 6:00 am today and the weather forecast was spot on; cool with light breeze for the first half of the morning. The air was full of song but with a typically slow early season start we caught just 22 birds with 9 nets. A nice mix of Reed and Sedge Warblers, Reed Buntings, assorted Tits and Thrushes. Some of the Reed Warblers have made the sub-Saharan round trip a few times now and it's always great to have them back. As long as we don't get a repeat of 'summer' 2012 things are looking promising. One unexpected delight yesterday was a Turtle Dove seen well by the rangers at the southern end. It's been a long time since I ringed one of those so forgive this indulgent reminiscence. Turtle Doves are in SERIOUS trouble having declined a frightening 93% since the 1970's. The RSPB and others are working hard to investigate the underlying cause. The current edition of 'Birds' has a feature piece on this very subject. Please visit www.operationturtledove.org

To check or not to check? Part 2

Seventeen days ago I checked my Tree Sparrow colony, so another visit was now due. I found 7 incomplete clutches and one with very young chicks, maybe a day old, the rest of the boxes were either empty or still at various stages of building.
The 2 boxes that had half built nests of moss now contained a sitting Blue Tit and Great Tit.
The woodland site had 14 boxes with incomplete clutches belonging to either Blue or Great Tits, the other 18 were empty, but i'm still hoping for a few late comers to take up residence.

Where are the Wheatears?

I keep checking my traditional 'Wheatear' spots every day and so far ..... nothing! This should be peak time for Greenland Wheatears but not so far this year in this part of the county. So, just to cheer myself up here's one I caught earlier!

To check or not to check?

Boxes that is.
 With the cold weather holding everything up this year I was beginning to wonder if nesting would ever start, but encouraged by seeing a Blue Tit in my garden taking nesting material somewhere (obviously not to one of my boxes) I thought it may be time to check some of the small boxes on our sites.
Starting with our Tree Sparrow colony, from 22 boxes there were 4 with 3/4 built nests and 5 with complete nests although not lined with feathers yet, good start, the rest were empty apart from 2 that contained half built nests of moss, so they belonged to either Great or Blue tits. Based on these findings I think I will leave checking our woodland site for another week.
 This recent run of good weather has obviously encouraged the birds to start nesting.
This time last year some of our Tree Sparrows had already hatched, so it looks like we're behind by about 3 weeks.

Grace Dieu today

Spent a nice few hours today with a net up at our Grace Dieu reserve.

Over the last few weeks there have been a steady flow of Siskins coming in to the feeders, I probably only see 2/3 on the feeders at a time but we have now reached a total of over 20 ringed in the last few weeks. Not a large number compared to  some parts of the country, but a nice species for the group to handle.

There are two large feeders with Niger seed and seven feeders with Black Sunflower. In this area Siskins are a fairly uncommon species, breeding was only proven when group member Andy Smith caught a female with a well formed brood patch a couple of years ago.

Male Siskin, courtesy of Neil Hagley

We catch the majority of our Siskins in the second half of the winter, mainly late February and March. There are definite "Siskin" years, this being a modest one. It coincides with the first half of the winter period seeing record numbers of Brambling being caught. I am not sure if the two are related. The previous record year for Siskins was 2003 when we had recoveries of Siskins ringed from as far afield as Eastern Germany and France as well as a modest number from the UK.

Here are todays totals, New Birds/Retraps

Blue Tit 1/0
Bullfinch 2/0
Chaffinch 5/0
Dunnock 0/1
Goldfinch 4/1
Greenfinch 7/0
Great Tit 1/0
Nuthatch 1/1
Robin 3/1
Siskin 5/1
Sparrowhawk 1/0

At one point I did catch a grey squirrel in the top shelf as it was jumping from one side of the net ride to the other. Luckily, it extracted itself without damage to the net or me!!

Snowdrops on the Grace Dieu reserve

Field Day

I wasn't intending to catch any birds today (Saturday), snow, windy weather and all that, so I just kept the bird feeders topped up and stuck some apples in the Cotoneaster bush, and also placed some on the lawn where my whoosh net area is. Just an odd couple of Fieldfare now had been taking the last few berries from the bush, I've had up to 5, hence the apples in the hope of keeping them coming to the garden.
A break from doing some houshold chores (a womans work is never done, sob sob!) late afternoon saw me looking out the window onto the garden, checking what was about; low and behold I'd got Fieldfare coming to the apples in the whoosh area, eventually there were 12, blimey the most I've ever had in the garden at once! Sod's law I hadn't got the net set ( well I wasn't intending to catch any birds!) decisions, decisions, would they come back if I disturbed them? I risked the chance and quickly went and set the net and waited, within 5 minutes I had 10 birds back on the lawn settled and feeding, so I took the catch. Two escaped but I had 6 new birds and 2 retraps that I'd ringed on 28th Feb.
Having processed and released the birds I checked the weight of the two retraps from last time, the female first weighed 92.9g and today it was 85.6g, and the male first weighed 104.7g and today it was 97.4g so both had lost overall about 7 grammes since Feb.
The weight of the new birds caught ranged from 89.3g to 113.7g, this latter bird also had a wing length of 159mm which is 7mm longer than the average stated in Svensson it also felt alot 'chunkier' than the others so made me wonder if there is a small population that come to our shores in Winter from further afield than Scandinavia?
Answers on a postcard please.

Linnet flock and Redpoll - wear there's a will

The Linnet flock in the field next to me at Whetstone is incredible. At its peak in the snow it grew to over 250 birds and several weeks on it is still over 100. Through abrasion the males are looking the part as the breeding season approaches. What is abrasion? Visualize a pink feather with a buff tip. As the tip gets weathered and worn the buff browny bit is 'rubbed off' eventually getting down to the pink part. When hundreds of bland tips next to each other wear off the lovely carpet of colour below comes through. Lots of finches and buntings come in to breeding plumage the same way. That's how male Reed Buntings get their blackish heads and Redpolls get pink breasts. Male Redpoll. Nice transformation! Most of the pink feathers you can see had buff/white tips just a few weeks ago. These have since worn off revealing the pink below.