Another Eastern Surprise.....well not really!

With the weather forecast for the weekend looking wet and windy I decided to ring at the Haven this morning (17th October). Unfortunately being a weekday there was no one else free, although Barry did suggest that he might pop by at some stage. With the numbers of birds per session dropping right down now, and the overnight weather conditions not particularly good for a fall, I decided to open all the nets. The first round was as predicted and produced a measly four birds, but as I was approaching the ringing station I heard the distinctive call of a Yellow-browed Warbler. I quickly processed the birds I had and headed out for another round. This time it was slightly better numbers wise, with 13 birds made up of Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps, Robins, Goldcrests and, yep you've guessed it a Yellow-browed Warbler. I have been watching the bird news over the last couple of weeks and there have been good numbers around the country, so it was not a major surprise to catch one, but they have been proving more that a bit elusive in Hampshire. I think Barry must have a sixth sense as just as I got the bird out of the bag to ring it he appeared around the corner.

Yellow-browed Warbler, Titchfield Haven - October 2014

The bird was in excellent condition, the plumage was immaculate and it was carrying a lot of fat (ESF score of 4). This is only the fourth Yellow-browed the be ringed at the Haven, the first was in 1978, but the last three have been in 2011, 2012 and 2014.

Yellow-browed Warbler, Titchfield Haven - October 2014

The tail feathers on this bird were pointed indicating that it was probably a juvenile.

Yellow-browed Warbler tail - October 2014

The session continued with nothing else notable to report and only 37 birds ringed of which five were retraps. The total included 13 Chiffchaffs, five Blackcaps and five Goldcrests, two Robins and single Song Thrush, Blackbird and a lingering Reed Warbler.

A sad looking Goldcrest

After ringing I wandered along the boardwalk looking, and listening for the yellow-browed but there was no sign which was a shame as it would have been nice to see it in the field. 

A quick scan over the beach was also worth while as a mixed flock of gulls were roosting there. The flock included seven Common Gulls, 14 Herring Gulls, 96 Black-headed Gulls and 1 each of Lesser Black-backed and Mediterranean Gull. The Med was sporting a red colour on its left tarsus with the inscription PPP9. A quick look at the colour ringing website here suggests that this bird was ringed in Poland, I will let you know the details when I find out.

Adult Mediterranean Gull with its red colour and the alpha-numeric code PPP9 (honest)

The Value of Colour Ringing Mediterranean Gulls - April 2014

Back in the summer of 2001, the 26th June to be exact, I was part of a team of ringers who visited the RSPB islands in Langstone Harbour with the specific aim of ringing Mediterranean Gull chicks. I remember it well as it was the first time that pullus, or nestling Med Gulls had been ringed in the County. The Mediterranean Gull was a recent colonist to the Hampshires breeding avifauna in those days and the aim of the project was to colour ring a sample of nestling birds in the hope of understanding their dispersal and survival rates. All of the captured birds were ringed with a standard BTO metal ring and a Darvic ring that included a combination of letters and numbers.

I was not the lead ringer and therefore I had not heard of any recoveries of the birds that we had ringed on that memorable day, until this week when I received an email from Pete Potts, the project co-ordinator. It would appear from Pete's email that there have been several sightings of one particular individual, since it was ringed. Below is a summary of its sightings.

2001 - Darvic ring number 2C31 was ringed on the RSPB islands in Langstone Harbour. After fledging it was first seen at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight before moving to Devon and then onto Sandy Cove in County Dublin where it was last seen on 8th November.

2002 - There were no sightings until 16th July when it was again reported at Sandy Cove. With the exception of occasional visits to other sites in Ireland it remained in this area until 12th September.

2003 - In March 2003 2C31 was reported Asturias Province, Spain before moving to Marias D'Olonne in France in April. There were no further sightings until it returned to Sandy Cove, County Dublin in July. It remained until there until September 2003.

2004 - There were only two sightings in 2004, both from Sandy Cove, County Dublin in July.

2005 - In March 2005 2C31 was seen three times at Marias D'Olonne, France before being reported in Berkshire, England in early April.

2006 - No Sightings

2007 - No sightings

2008 - In early May 2C31 was reported at Titchfield Haven in Hampshire, England.

2009 - There were two January sightings of 2C31 in Spain before turning up in Worcestershire in July. It was back in Spain in November where there were two sightings in Asturias Province.

2010 - There were three sightings in Ireland in 2010, one in August, one it September and one in October.

2011 - Three further sightings were recorded in Ireland in 2011, one in July and two in August.

2012 - This was the best year for sightings to date with 11 reported. Three were from France in March and April with the remaining sightings reported from Ireland between 16th July and 24th October.

2013 - In March 2013 2C31 was sighted near Madrid in Spain. There were no further sightings until July when it was again reported in Ireland, where it remained until 20th October. 

2014 - The latest sighting was from the 9th April where it was reported for the first time in Zeeland in the Netherlands.

Mediterranean Gull 2C31 is now the oldest recorded Med Gull to frequent Ireland where its preferred wintering site seems to be Sandy Cove, County Dublin. Since being ringed it has been recorded 62 times from four countries. On one occasion in 2003 it was recorded paired with an unringed male in France. It is now approaching 12 years since this bird was ringed and interestingly it appears never to have returned to its natal site. 

The amount of data gathered from this one bird is an excellent example of the value of colour ringing birds. The maximum recorded age of a Med Gull in the UK, according  to data from the BTO website is 15 years, three months and seven days.

Manor Farm Country Park - 2nd April 2011

They say that one swallow doesn't make a summer, well I wonder how many does? 

Today I returned to Manor Farm Country Park in Hampshire for some spring bird ringing and  the hope of catching some house sparrows for my ongoing RAS project. I only put up five nets as I was with a colleague who needed some training, but the usual sparrow nets were put up as they were my priority. Our first bird, surprisingly, was a second year female blackcap, which was my first ringed in the UK this year. As we continued with our first net round, two blackcaps and two chiffchaffs were noted singing; as I haven't been here for a few weeks I don't know how long they have been at the site, but suspect that they had arrived this week.

As I was extracting a sparrow during our second round I heard the familiar call of the barn swallow, and there above us were two swallows...... does that mean summers here? I was then distracted from the swallows by the frantic alarm calling of the resident starlings and jackdaws, and there above me a red kite slowly drifty west over the site. I haven't seen this species at the park before, but they have become much more common in Hampshire in recent years. I wonder if this was this one of the recent colonists or a newly arrived migrant?

I previously used to colour ring the house sparrows that I captured as part of my RAS project, but the little critters used to remove the odd ring making it impossible to decipher the different colour combinations, so I gave up. But I recently ordered some new darvic rings from a company in Poland, these rings are coloured and have three digits on them. These rings are overlapped making it very difficult for birds to remove, therefore it seemed like a good time to resurrect the colour ringing part of my project, as this massively increases the number of retraps seen each year.

Coloured Darvic Rings Used as Part of my RAS Project

Birds captured as part on my RAS project will be ringed with a single letter and two numbers on a yellow coloured ring, this ring will fitted on the left tarsus; a metal BTO scheme ring will be on the right trasus. Unless you live within a mile of Manor Farm Country Park it is unlikely that you will see one of my birds, as house sparrows are fairly sedentary, but you never know, so keep your eyes peeled.

After four hours ringing we had amassed a total of 23 birds, 15 new and eight retraps. The new birds included six house sparrows, the blackcap, a chiffchaff, blue and great tits and a  cracking adult male greenfinch. The retraps included a robin, a long-tailed tit and a four year old dunnock.