Despite (mercifully) a lack of severe lockdown restrictions curtailing capture efforts outside of our own gardens for any period during 2021, this years efforts were down on 2020. Captures of some species were drastically reduced, driven by the almost complete loss of our 2021 Cantley season and a particularly poor passage period at Waxham. This in combination with me coming to the end of my PhD studies and therefore having less time, certainly didn’t help our totals. It’s not all been bad though, James has led a cracking effort at a new site for our group (Brewery Farm - but not all on UEARG rings so not all listed here), Max has continued to develop his solo efforts as a C permit holder, and many of our projects are going strong.
2021 saw us collect 7159 records of 4842 unique individuals consisting of 4153 birds ringed, 1974 retraps/controls, and 1146 sightings. It was a pretty diverse year with a total of 74 species recorded, 72 of which were ringed. Two species were firsts for our group this year – Mandarin Duck and Barn Owl, but others were the first the group have caught for many years such as Common Gull and Siberian Chiffchaff. Whilst it may have been a diverse year in terms of numbers of species, much of our ringing continues to be based at feeders (particularly in the winter), and Blue Tits romp home and take the top spot once again with ease.
| Species | New | Other | Retraps | Sightings | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blue Tit | 1091 | 4 | 834 | 0 | 1929 |
| Mute Swan | 43 | 1 | 4 | 951 | 999 |
| Great Tit | 369 | 0 | 380 | 0 | 749 |
| Greenfinch | 555 | 0 | 63 | 0 | 618 |
| Goldfinch | 398 | 0 | 90 | 0 | 488 |
| Blackbird | 213 | 1 | 60 | 1 | 275 |
| Dunnock | 135 | 0 | 105 | 0 | 240 |
| Robin | 109 | 0 | 110 | 0 | 219 |
| Long-tailed Tit | 112 | 0 | 73 | 0 | 185 |
| House Sparrow | 132 | 0 | 21 | 0 | 153 |
| Black-headed Gull | 36 | 0 | 1 | 97 | 134 |
| Reed Warbler | 107 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 110 |
| Chaffinch | 87 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 104 |
| Blackcap | 81 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 90 |
| Wren | 62 | 0 | 24 | 0 | 86 |
| Chiffchaff | 68 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 70 |
| Swift | 64 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 67 |
| Brambling | 45 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 46 |
| Mallard | 11 | 0 | 1 | 31 | 43 |
| Sedge Warbler | 39 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 39 |
| Reed Bunting | 36 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 38 |
| Goldcrest | 26 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 32 |
| Greylag Goose | 9 | 0 | 0 | 22 | 31 |
| Woodpigeon | 15 | 0 | 4 | 11 | 30 |
| Jack Snipe | 25 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 28 |
| Yellowhammer | 21 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 26 |
| Whitethroat | 24 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 25 |
| Jay | 15 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 18 |
| Great Spotted Woodpecker | 9 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 18 |
| Barnacle Goose | 0 | 0 | 1 | 17 | 18 |
| Yellow Wagtail | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 |
| Coal Tit | 11 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 17 |
| Willow Warbler | 15 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 16 |
| Starling | 14 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 15 |
| Siskin | 12 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 14 |
| Bullfinch | 11 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 14 |
| Bearded Tit | 9 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 10 |
| Skylark | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
| Collared Dove | 6 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 9 |
| Lesser Whitethroat | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
| Lesser Black-backed Gull | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 8 |
| Barn Owl | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| Magpie | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| Meadow Pipit | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| Snipe | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| Treecreeper | 6 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
| Marsh Tit | 4 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 7 |
| Song Thrush | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Kingfisher | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Redwing | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Swallow | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Herring Gull | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 |
| House Martin | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Lesser Redpoll | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Pied Flycatcher | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Grey Wagtail | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Common Gull | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Stock Dove | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Canada Goose | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Garden Warbler | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Jackdaw | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Sparrowhawk | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Woodcock | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Green Woodpecker | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Cetti’s Warbler | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Chiffchaff (Siberian - tristis) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Fieldfare | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Firecrest | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Linnet | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Mandarin Duck | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Moorhen | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Water Rail | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Yellow-browed Warbler | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Egyptian Goose | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Ringing sites
This year we had records from about 74 sites across Norfolk (and a little bit of Suffolk), but the vast majority of records come from just a handful of our main sites. Brewery Farm is (no surprise) farmland. Sites like Weatherby Road/Charter Wood, UEA Campus, and West Earlham are primarily feeder sites worked mainly in the winter months. Cantley Beet Factory is an extensive reedbed in the factory settling pools primarily worked from late summer to early winter. Waxham is coastal scrub and woodland on the east coast worked through spring and autumn passage. Other sites like Whitlingham and Bowthorpe/Earlham Marshes are where we hand catch and dazzle.
Colour Ringing Projects
The group continued with 4 colour-ringing projects this year to improve on the scientific outputs of our work (Mute Swan, Jay, Water Pipit, and Black-headed Gull), and joined a further 3 (Barnacle Goose, Greylag Goose and Pied Wagtail, but we will also be joining Coot & Mediterranean Gull projects very soon). The most prolific of these projects continues to be the Norwich Swan Project, which has seen us colour ring another 47 Mute Swans across Norwich and generate 956 sightings this year. We have also had good success with Black-headed Gulls this year with 36 colour-ringed, and recoveries as far away as Sweden. Please keep an eye out for any colour-ringed birds and report sightings, however menial you think they may be!
2021 Swan movements:
2021 Black-headed Gull movements:
Controls and Recoveries
Data will continue to come in over the next months, but in total we have had 27 controls/recoveries this year so far (excluding sightings of metal-only or colour-ringed birds), including birds to/from Belgium, Norway, Denmark, France, and Germany. Our longest movement being 871.5km by a Black-headed Gull.
Highlights
Our only truly new species this year (Barn Owl being a technicality) was the simply stunning adult male Mandarin that has been hanging around Whitlingham Country Park for a few years now, and is likely the only one of his species in Norwich.
After the 1000th Blue Tit of the year, feeder ringing can get a little stale. So finding a surprise Siberian Chiffchaff in a mist net on UEA campus this winter was a real treat. It’s the first record on campus, and just the fourth Norwich record I could find of what has been a good year for records of this sub-species across the UK.
City garden ringing may also not always produce much excitement, but my garden on the western edge of the city backs onto Charter Wood and produced a great mix of species. Fieldfare was a rare species for our group, and ringing 45 Brambling on passage was particularly good for this area.
Earlham and Bowthorpe marshes have really shown what a gem they are for city wildlife, and our efforts dazzling there with a thermal imager have truly surprised us with just how many Jack Snipe in particular use the site during passage and through the winter. Ringing 25 this year has been a real treat, and we also had our first between season recapture.
Conditions for flick-netting Swifts seem to seldom come my way since moving to Norwich but late spring saw a couple of weeks where conditions were perfect and we were able to catch a decent number over a couple of sessions.
I was beginning to feel like the only ringer on the east-coast that was yet to ring a Yellow-browed Warbler, and a particularly poor passage this year didn’t stack the odds in my favour for this to change. So, when I found one in my mist net at Waxham this autumn it was a big highlight for me!
A couple of Common Gulls hand caught in Norwich this year. Britains best breeding gull?
A Firecrest on passage through Waxham this autumn was a good record for us
We managed to hand catch a few freshly fledged juvenile gulls as they left their rooftop nesting locations around Norwich industrial estates.
Four Pied Flycatchers on passage through Waxham this Autumn was our groups best total for this species.
We caught three Polish-morph Mute Swans this year. Told by their yellow-ish legs.
Many thanks to all UEARG members that helped out this year, with particular thanks to our group leader Professor Iain Barr. Here’s hoping for a great year of ringing in 2022!
