More pied wagtails

Thursday afternoon saw a few of the group attempting to catch a pied wagtail roost that had been building to over 500 birds in recent days. The birds had been using two or three clumps of trees so the key was selecting the right one. we set up three nets- a double height (8shelf) 30 in front of one roost tree and some around one tree. the flock dithered and  a few decided that our trees would be the best for the evening and we caught 10% of the flock. 58 birds in total- including 2 white wagtails and 2 birds wearing rings.

The ringed birds were from a roost 2.9 miles to the south east. the first ringed 11 days previously (where Dave and Will caught 5 birds after running around a busy petrol station with nets(!)) and the other was from this same roost ringed earlier this year. The sex ratio was even and there were approx 80% juveniles. All birds were roosted overnight in boxes (to save bending tails in bags) and released at first light the following day. Hopefully the roost will stay in the same place and we can try again.

Last Waxham trip and Campus feeder ringing

As the autumn comes to a close and the leaves leave the sallows on the coast we squeezed in one last trip to the east coast for the year. The winds never swung round to full east as promised but we still managed a reasonable catch for the day; new (retrap)

Wren 2(1)
Blackbird 6
Song thrush 3
Robin 12(3)
Dunnock 1(1)
Goldcrest 5
Redwing 2
Chiffchaff (1)
Long tailed tit 4(1)
Blackcap 1

43 birds processed. We did see 2 firecrest in the woods - but failed to catch either.


We also managed a couple of sessions at UEA at our feeder site with a good haul, however the numbers of retrap tits mean that we are close to having seen them all once or more before....time to move sites in a while.

Details of visits 4/5-11-11 and 9-11-11.

Blue tit 6(26)
Great tit 6(23) - one local control (<5km but not our bird)
Chaffinch 6- including some large winged males carrying a lot of fat
Goldfinch 25(2)
Greenfinch 13- bring our total this year up to pre 2008 levels- a good sign surely
Dunnock  5(1)
Treecreeper (1)
Coal tit 1
Blackbird 1
Robin (3)
Nuthatch (1)
Long tailed tit 2(3)- all three wearing rings from another ringer.
Wren 1
Blackcap 1

Total= 127 birds processed.

one of the large male chaffinch- migrants just arrived?

Another Eastern Gem... this time a Pallas's

This was Iain's first "ringing tick"
 since the group started a few years
ago so he seemed pretty happy. 

A last minute decision to go down to Waxham for one last time this Autumn (for me anyway) paid off with this beautiful Pallas's Warbler that graced our nets late morning. I think it was probably fresh in as it was in the caught on the seaward side of the outer bushes and we would hopefully have caught it earlier if it had been there all morning, also it was not with a flock whereas later in the day it had joined a lotti flock. It was quite short-winged so therefore sexed as a female. We also continued to catch plenty of redpolls.

Stayed overnight for another catch on Monday morning, I shouldn't have bothered, the wind got up a lot overnight and we caught just 4 birds. 1 chiffchaff, 1 redpoll, 1 songthrush and 1 retrap robin...

Waxham Ringing (YBW, redpolls and controls)

At last, some Easterly winds! This tied in with some free time and finally we got out to Waxham for the first and possibly only time this autumn. We spent three days (12th-14th October) at Waxham and these resulted in some great catches. The first on the 13th being pictured above, this was caught amazingly in our triangle of nets out in the field for catching Meadow Pipits! The second highlight was a haul of 120 lesser redpolls on the 14th, slightly disappointing however was also on the 14th - shortly after Will found a Siberian Chiffchaff hopping round on the ground we watched it go straight into one of out nets before soon after flying out... doh, at the same time an unringed ybw was meters from the net but not going in... also NO BLUETAIL for us! Infuriating!

Congrats to every other ringer on the coast which all seem to have had a bluetail! They're common birds anyway...

Controls (anyone recognise these?) LESRE Y395783 & L530291, MEAPI L694287

(retraps)
(*controls)

A bit of a catch up.

Due to a ringing expedition to Georgia for myself, Ross Crates (ex UEA) and Stephen Menzie (See here - birdingandphotography.blogspot.com) I haven't been keeping the blog updated, so here's a brief catch-up.

Broads Swallow Roost

A couple of us did a swallow roost in the broads back on September 3rd, It was quite successful and we caught a total of 101 birds 96 new swallows, 3 Sand Martins and 2 Controls (L844574 & Y228006).

Campus & Whitlingham demonstrations for students

Species	Whitlingham 26/9/11	UEA  27/9/11	Total	Notes
Wren	6(1)	1	8	Retrap from 2011
Blackcap	14(1)	3	18	Retrap 2011
Robin	2(2)	6(1)	11	Retraps from 2010 and 2011
Dunnock	3(2)	7	12
Blackbird	1	5	6
Great tit	18(3)	16(5)	42	2 retraps from 2009, 1 from 2010
Blue tit	19(7)	29(11)	66	1 control. 1 bird from cringleford
Treecreeper	1(1)	1	3	Retrap from 2011
Chaffinch	3(1)	6	10	Retrap from 2010
Goldcrest	1	1	2
Goldfinch	3	17(1)	21	Retrap from 2011
Long tailed tit	16(2)	4	22	Retraps from 2011
Chiffchaff	2	2	4
Greenfinch	1	41	42
Green woodpecker	1		1
Song thrush		1	1
	111	158	269

Campus Sessions

We also did a couple of campus sessions catching a further 100 or so birds, mostly tits and finches, including the first redpoll of the autumn.

MARSH WARBLER at Whitlingham!

Yesterday evening and this mornings session at Whitlingham was still fairly busy despite many of our breeding birds having moved off. I'll update with the totals later but much more exciting than the totals was this beast of a Marsh Warbler that was unexpectedly pulled out of a bird bag by one of our newbies... before quickly being passed over. Not quite believing what we were processing we took all the necessary measurements which confirmed Marsh Warbler, obviously a first for the site.

Identification features of Marsh Warbler

Short, broad bill
Olive-toned
Emargination on p3 short of secondaries
Smaller notch on p2
Legs - pinkish yellow

Marsh Warbler

Reed Warbler

Marsh Warbler

Reed Warbler

Often a field (photographed) feature, emagination on p3 falls far short of secondaries, also note concolourous rump.

Notch length - 8.7mm (reed warbler > 9.5)

Legs pinkish yellow

  

400+ bird ringing weekend

This past weekend turned into quite the marathon with sessions running across the weekend at a range of sites. We welcomed a couple of new faces and had a fairly good turn out from the regulars.

Highlights -

Garden Tiger

Friday evening - Saturday morning - Whitlingham (East-side)
33 new whitethoats (now over 130 new birds ringed at this site this summer)
39 new Blackcaps

The moth trap produced a good number and varitey including several of these beautiful Garden Tigers

Saturday Evening - Norfolk Broads
58 Swallows caught in a roost catch.

1 Pied Wagtail

Sunday Morning - Norfolk Broads CES

After a very cold night a rather disappointing CES given the time of the year. A kingfisher improved the morning for Karl who's hierarchical privileges allowed him to ring this one (longest attending group member not to have ringed a KF).

Long-eared Bat - caught in the swallow roost

Sunday evening - Whitlingham (West-side)

21 Swallows caught in a roost catch.

Monday Morning - Whitlingham (West-side)

3 more Kingfishers