Squabs

Back for another year, the garden Wood Pigeons have nested in the Wisteria and the little squabs were ready for ringing this morning. The parents are coming periodically to feed but also to brood them, especially important in today's cooler breezier weather.

More Willows

Nigel and I had a late afternoon session at our summer site yesterday, the conditions weren't the best - sunshine and breezy but all in all we didn't do too bad, with 28 new birds and 4 retraps. We first checked an owl box that we knew had 2 Stock Dove eggs in it at the last visit and found 2 ringable chicks. At the site there was still plenty of birds singing so we felt hopefull. Each net round contained Willow Warblers 15 in all, with 7 adults showing various stages of moult and 8 juveniles. At one stage I thought we were never going to get a juvenlie Garden Warbler but we had 3, and an adult female.
Over the 3 visits we've made to this area, so far we have ringed 30 Willow Warblers,our previous best for the whole area has been 7, with only 5 last year.

Stock Dove 2 pulli

Blue Tit 3
Willow Warbler 13 (2)
Great Tit 5 (2)from a brood of 7 pulli ringed 31/05/10
Garden Warbler 4
Wren 1
Blackcap 1
Treecreeper 1

More Owlers than Robert Green

Just thought I'd start a new game, the corniest World Cup word plays ever!
Last night, forfeiting the excitement of Italy v Paraguay, 6 'Owlers' set off in to the shire to ring Little Owls. Paul and Daz of 'Owls About That' blogspot fame have spent hours and hours finding and recording nest sites and what a good job they've done. In the space of a couple of hours we visited only 5 of them and ringed 16 birds, 1 adult and 15 chicks. Here's just one chick from a recently erected box site in south Leics.

Nest Record Scheme Course

A couple of weeks ago Chris and I spent an enjoyable weekend at The Nunnery in Thetford on a Nest Recording Course run by the NRS of the BTO. The weekend started on the Friday evening with the usual welcomes and an excellent presentation by Carl Barimore (NRS Organiser). This was followed by an delicious meal at the Black Horse, which gave the course participants time to meet and exchange experiences. The following day started at 7.00 meeting in the Nunnery car park, we then ventured to the Nunnery Nature Reserve to try and find nest of species like Linnet, Whitethroat, Willow Warbler and others. After a break for breakfast we went into Thetford Forest to find woodland birds' nests. Most of the day was spent in the field nest finding.

The following day (Sunday) followed a similar pattern. We were soon fully au fait with such devilish techniques as 'tapping off' and 'watching back'.

All in all as a team we managed to find 21 nests that had not been found previously which, I believe, is a record for the courses that have been running since 2008.

For anyone that is interested in Nest Recording then one of the BTO organised courses is a must. Not only does it introduce you to new ways of finding nests, but it also introduces you to other like minded people that it would be nice to keep in touch with.

Special thanks must be given to Dave Leech, Carl Barimore, Lee Barber and Mike Toms for making the course such a success.

Snake in the grass

An absolutely beautiful morning at Watermead started with 4 Grass Snakes warming up in a traditional spot and it just got better. We ringed 32 birds of 11 species including this lovely male Bullfinch.

Warblers at Watermead.

An early start at the Watermead reed bed was rewarded with 6 species of warbler today. Two Sedge and three Reed Warblers were caught along with 2 Willow, 2 Whitethroat, 1 Garden Warbler and a Blackcap. A very young recently fledged Robin was also caught.
On Thursday evening a final attempt at Heron ringing resulted in 5 pullus being rung. It does not seem to have been a good year for the Heron colony with most nests only having 2 young. Better news was the 2 Tawny Owl chicks rung at Thornton.

Warblers a plenty

We had our first session on Sunday at our 'Summer' site and was greeted with plenty of birdsong from Chiffs, Blackcap, Willow Warblers and Garden Warblers. So our expectations were high. Over the few short hours we were there 17 new birds were ringed, and one retrap from November last year. As an added bonus we also found a Willow Warbler nest with 7 eggs in it, maybe belonging to the female we caught. This will be visited again in due course, as we also take part in the Nest Recording Scheme. Totals are
Robin 2
Blackcap 1 male
Garden Warbler 5, (3 females Bp 1,2)
Willow Warbler 6 (5 males, 1 female BP3)
Chiffchaff 1
Long tailed Tit 2 (1)