Surprise Stodo

Its not often we catch adult Stock Dove's in mist nets so this was a nice surprise this afternoon whilst ringing on campus. Photo courtesy of IB.

Totals were: (retraps in brackets).

Lotti 1

Greti 0(14)

Lesre 3(3)

Dunno 0(3)

Blabi 2(1)

Robin 1(1)

Chaff 3

Bluti 2(2)

Goldf 2

Bramb 1

Comre 0(1)

Grefi 1(1)

Woodp 1

Stodo 1

KPP, IB, JLD & JJS

More Mealies at the Feeders

A short morning session at the UEA feeders was quite productive, highlights being 2 Mealy Redpolls, a Jay and a Great Spotted Woodpecker.

Mealy Redpolls (left hand bird wing 77mm, right hand bird 75mm)

Mealy and Lesser Redpoll

This photo shows nicely how we ages this bird as a 5 (a bird hatched in the previous calendar year). Red arrows showing unmoulted 'Juvenile-type' feathers (the outer alula, all the primary coverts and the outer greater covert) Notice how the pattern of the bands across the primary coverts is the same on each feather showing they were grown at the same time. Green arrows show new 'Adult-type' feathers (second Alula and greater coverts).

Totals 

New birds (retraps in brackets)

Blabi 6(3)

Lesre 5(4)

Comre 2

Grefi 4

Bluti 3(16)

Dunno 0(2)

Robin 2(5)

Grswo 0(1)

Bramb 1

Greti 2(11)

Jay 1

Lotti 2

Frosty morning riverside session!

A good short ringing session this morning at the campus river site, despite us all being freezing and extremities becoming occasionally numb! 

30 new birds and 49 retraps, consisting mostly of everyones favourite feisty blue tits, with the highlights being a few long tailed tits, five new blackbirds some nice 6 male chaffinch and a lovely 5 female bullfinch. 

Photo below showing a nice contrast between the new iridescent gc's and old buffy tipped ogc's.

Crow Trap!

With decent numbers of corvids roosting in the Blackdale Woods on campus (recent estimates being 1300 birds involving 60% Jackdaw, 30% Rook and 10% Carrion Crow per LON) A few of us spent Friday morning making a crow trap to see if we can catch a few!

It only took an hour or so and there's still a bit of work to do before its finished but hopefully it will work. The design is slightly more 'heligoland' than traditional crow trap, the idea being that birds can be driven to end of the funnel and extracted. 

Horsford Ringing

Over the last few weeks we've been making regular visits to our Horsford winter feeding station. There has been an increase in Bramblings with c.15 on the last session, many more than we'd normally get in the entire winter. Here's a couple of highlights from last week

Waxham Recoveries and first Whitlingham session

On Monday we did our first Whitlingham session of the year, for mid May it was pretty good, catching 43 birds, made up of Garden Warblers, Linnets, Whitethoats, Blackcaps, Song Thrushes, a few tits and bits and pieces.

Continuing on the same vein as recent posts, another recoveries post, this time some Waxham birds.

Several of our lesser redpolls have been recaptured: 2 from mid October 2011, one retrapped in Surrey 516 days later and one in Loppem, Belgium 26 days later.

One from mid October 2012 moved locally to Eccles 62 days later.

 

View UEA Waxham Redpolls in a larger map

After a long wait, we have found out about a female Blackcap which was caught on 10th September 2010 and retrapped on 12th September 2010 on the island of Texel in the Netherlands.

View UEA Waxham Blaca in a larger map

More recoveries - Swans on the move

Among the batch of recent recoveries we've had from the BTO were a load of Mute Swan recoveries, most of these were ring reads at Whitlingham, where we ring the birds, but a few birds went elsewhere.

Some Mutes moved out into the broads: W**537, 539 and 540 were all rung on 29th February 2012 as young birds, possibly a family. 537 & 540 moved to Hoveton and were alive and well having their rings read in November. Sadly 539 was taken out by powerlines in March at Cantley, was he/she with the others at this time?

A Mute Swan, ringed at Bure Marshes as an adult in August 2010, found its way all the way to west Wales where it was found dead in March 2013.

View UEARGmutes in a larger map

Another great foreign report came from a Willow Warbler; ringed as a recently fledged juvenile at our CES in the broads on 11th July 2012, it was then retrapped by a ringer on its spring migration in northern Spain on 8th April 2013. Wonder where it spent the winter? Hope it made it back to UK from Spain.

View recsother in a larger map