January Ringing

The last week has been a busy one work wise but I have still managed to fit in a few ringing sessions. I have carried on from where last year finished with my quest for crests and have also had a couple of sessions at the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust's Swanwick Lakes nature reserve and in the grounds of the head office at Curdridge. 

My quest for crests took me back to Gosport and the Wildgrounds. On the last visit I had seen at least three Firecrests, but only managed to catch one, so it was an obvious site to retry. Chris and I put three nets up and almost immediately caught a new Firecrest, we also saw a ringed bird, which was probably the bird we ringed last time, and subsequent to catching the first bird saw another un-ringed one.

Firecrest - The Wildgrounds, Gosport

Three new Goldcrests were also ringed at the Wildgrounds, two males and a female, so it was a successful visit to start the week.

Female Goldcrest - Wildgrounds, Gosport

Rob has been keeping an eye on the feeders at Swanwick Nature Reserve, and so we nipped over during the week to have a look. As it was a lunchtime visit we didn't have too much time but quickly put up a net to see what we would catch. I say that but there were never going to be any surprises given the number of Blue and Great Tits present. The lunchtime visit produced 15 birds, mainly Blue and Great Tits as suspected but also a Dunnock. The best thing about the session was the capture of a Blue Tit that had been ringed back in May as a nestling.

The next session was another lunchtime session in the grounds of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust's Beechcroft office. It was a quiet session with only four birds ringed, a Great Tit, two Nuthatches and a Firecrest, this one was a retrap from December.

Nuthatch - Curdridge

We were fortunate to catch one male and one female Nuthatch which provided the ideal opportunity to compare the plumage differences (see the image below).

Nuthatches - Female left, Male right

The final session of the week was a Saturday morning visit back to Swanwick Nature Reserve. The feeders were heaving, which was not surprising given the cold overnight temperature. I would not normally do bird feeders due to the large numbers of Blue and Great Tits that are usually caught, but such sessions are great for trainees, and as Rob and Megan wanted to ring it seemed like a good thing to do.

It was a busy session that resulted in the capture of 65 birds, most of which were Blue and Great Tits as suspected. There were a few other bits to make the session more interesting, three new Nuthatches, three Robins and a Coal Tit. 

Coal Tit - Swanwick Lakes

So not a bad week, 88 birds ringed including two Firecrests, four Nuthatches, a Coal Tit and a Blue Tit that was ringed last summer as a nestling.

A Handful of Nuthatches - May 2014

I was hoping to spend the weekend of 10/11th May trying to catch more Common Nightingales before heading off on a well earned break. Unfortunately near gale force winds over the course of the whole weekend made it impossible to use mist nets. Instead I decided to check a few nest boxes for a spot of pullus ringing which is something neither Chris or Rob, two of my trainees, had done before. On the first day I took Chris off in search of Northern Lapwing chicks and then on to check nest boxes.The first stop was my usual site just north of Portsmouth where there are regularly two or three lapwing territories. It was two weeks earlier than last year, but I had seen on the various forms of social media that chicks had hatched in many places, so it was worth a punt. 

When we arrived on site it was immediately apparent that the task of finding chicks was going to be much harder this year. Grazing at the site appeared to have virtually stopped and subsequently large areas of rush pasture had become dominant. Undeterred we pressed on and almost immediately I picked up our first chick wandering amongst the rushes. I was getting brief glimpses as it walked through the vegetation, but despite my best efforts I was unable to locate it. But they say that patience is a virtue and with some subtle positioning and stealthy movements (so as not to alert the parents) we had soon caught two chicks.

Northern Lapwing Chick, the first of two caught

Finding lapwing chicks can be challenging, even when you think that you know where they went down. If you alert the parents they utter an alarm call that makes the chicks take cover, usually in tufts of vegetation or small depressions, which makes things even harder. Fortunately I have an eye for them now and as long as they don’t run too far it is usually not too much trouble to catch them.

Northern Lapwing chick hiding in the tall vegetation

The first chick was a good size, weighing in at 95grams. It’s wing feathers were just starting to pop out of their sheaths so I suspect it was around ten days old. At this age they don’t seem to be phased by the whole experience and when being weighed they stand tall and stick their head out of the weighing pot to see what is going on.

Northern Lapwing chick being weighed

The second chick was considerably smaller, in fact half the weight of the first and was probably around a week old. Given the size difference between these two birds I suspect they were from two different broods, which would suggest there were more chicks out there for the taking, unfortunately we didn’t find any. There were five adult birds at the site, so one may have been still incubating, so it will certainly be worth another visit.

The smaller of the two Northern Lapwing chicks

Our next stop was a site in Gosport, where Chris has a load of nest boxes up. There were approximately 15 boxes to check, assuming they hadn’t been destroyed by the resident Grey Squirrel population. We had mixed success, the first two boxes were full of Blue Tits, with broods of 12 and 11, several other broods were either too small or were yet to hatch. A couple of treecreeper boxes had eggs in, but they didn’t look like this years, and more Blue Tits and a broods of Great Tits were in a couple of others. One box had a female Nuthatch on eggs which was a shame, as they may well have fledged by the time I get back from my break. Whilst walking around the site we stumbled across a young Roe Deer fawn that had been left at the base of the trunk of a tree. I stayed dead still in the hope that we wouldn’t see it….but we did!

Young Roe Deer 

Rob joined me on the next session. This time we started at Manor farm Country Park before moving on to the Hampshire and Isle Wight Wildlife Trusts Swanwick Lakes reserve. There were two boxes at Manor Farm, both with Great Tits and an incomplete clutch of eggs in a Blackbird nest. At Swanwick our first port of call was a box where Rob had seen some Nuthatch’s previously. This time we were in luck and a brood of seven were at an ideal size for ringing.

Brood of Seven Nuthatches in Nestbox

I always think that Nuthatch’s are hard core, since the don’t bother with all the most and feathers the Blue and Great Tits use when building a nest, a few leaves in the bottom of the box seems to suffice. These images clearly show the the strong bill, grey upper parts and pinkish underparts, no mistaking what they are going to grow up to be. 

A Handful of Nuthatches

There were over 20 boxes at Swanwick and the boxes had good numbers of Blue and Great Tit clutches, some too small to ring and some still on eggs, but by the end of the weekend we had ringed 100 chicks, 61 Blue Tits, 30 Great Tits, seven Nuthatches and two Lapwing. I am hoping that when I get back there will still be some birds in boxes plus it will be time to check the Barn Owls, Kestrels and Swallows.

January Ramblings

A combination of a busy social calendar and short days has meant I have had little time for birding and blogging activities, and to be honest there has not been much to report. I did manage a bit of a New Years Day bash around a few local sites, which produced about 70 species, including a red-throated diver in Stoke's Bay, Gosport, very close to the shore, an adult Mediterranean Gull at Walpole Park, and of course the regular ring-billed gull that winters at this site. I cannot remember exactly how many years this bird has been returning to this site, but I think this is its 10th year, which is quite amazing.

Looking Down the Throat of a Ring-billed Gull

The light was fantastic the morning of New Years Day, and so I had the opportunity to get more photos of this very confiding bird. At one point the bird was trying to swallow some food stuck in its gullet, and gave some interesting views of the inside of its bill and throat, unfortunately in my haste to get the shot my focus was slightly off, but you can still get the picture.

Adult Ring-billed Gull

Identifying an adult ring-billed gull is as straight forward as it gets, the pale iris, yellow legs and bill, and broad black band across the upper and lower mandible, are all good features which will clinch the species' ID.

Adult Ring-billed Gull

Bird ringing activity has been limited to four mist netting sessions one nocturnal wander around Manor Farm Country Park in search of woodcocks. There was no joy with the latter, in fact, I did not see a single woodcock, in stark contrast to last year when there was a peak of 12 birds on one visit.

Eurasian Nuthatch - A retrapped bird from early December 2012

Two garden ringing sessions have produced the usual blue and great tits, a retrap nuthatch, coal tit, a large flock of long-tailed tits and a few goldfinches.

Long-tailed Tit - One of 12 Birds Captured Today

Ringing sessions at Manor farm have been relatively quiet numbers wise, but have provided a bit of diversity including blackbirds, song thrushes, redwings, chaffinches and goldcrests. A stunning adult male pied wagtail was caught out by my single shelf nets, the only one of over 12 birds feeding in the fields.

Adult Male Pied Wagtail

With no contrast in the greater coverts, its very dark upperparts and pure white forehead, this bird was easy to age and sex.

All dark rump and back of adult male Pied Wagtail

So far this year I have caught five bullfinches, four females and one male, all of them were first winter birds. One of the birds was infected with the mite Knemidocoptes mutans making the leg very crusty and too large to take and A size ring, so I had to let it go un-ringed.

Bullfinch leg infected with the mite Knemidocoptes mutans 

Of all the birds captured, several were retraps, the most notable being an adult goldcrest that was first ringed as a first year bird in November 2010, 2 years and 58 days previously.

Birding in the West of Hampshire

Over the last few weeks bird ringing activity has been non-existent, mainly due to the waves of torrential rain and high winds that have been sweeping the country. Even just getting out to do a spot of birding has been difficult, unless, that is, you are covered from head to toe with waterproofs. However, over the weekend of 8/9th December I did manage to get in a spot of birding in the west of County.

Wetland Area with Lapwing, Wigeon, Black-tailed Godwit and Glossy Ibis (the small black dot in the middle)

I had not recently been birding in this area and with the arrival of a few unusual birds it seemed like a good place to go on the one day it wasn't raining, although it looked like it was going to at any minute. My first port of call was Bickerley Common, a flooded meadow to the south of Ringwood. Most of the river valleys in Hampshire are swollen at the moment, and the River Avon is no exception. Water has spilled from the main river channel into the adjacent floodplain creating some interesting wetland habitat for birds. On the plus side this has created sanctuary areas that have become inaccessible to humans thereby limiting disturbance, but on the negative side, there are so many of these flooded areas that birds are widely spread and often difficult to find. But this is not the case at Bickerley Common, where the flooded meadow has become a haven for wetland birds, with the two most noteworthy species being glossy ibis and great white egret.

Great White Egret

Arriving at the site the closest bird was the great white egret, this species has become semi-resident in the area over the last few years, with a colour-ringed bird, originally of French origin, spending most winters at the nearby Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust (HIWWT), Blashford Lakes reserve. Unfortunately this bird spent all of its time feeding in thigh deep water and so it was not possible to see if it was the colour-ringed individual.

Great White Egret

In contrast the glossy ibis was happily feeding right at the back and was virtually the furthest bird, giving acceptable scope views but useless for photography (as can be seen in the first picture). There was also a good mix of other wetland species including black-tailed godwit, snipe, green sandpiper, lapwing, kingfisher, Canada and greylag goose, teal, wigeon, gadwall, shoveler and tufted duck. So a good variety of species to start the day. I next headed up to the Avon causeway and Harbridge in search of a Bewick's swan, a species which used to winter in large numbers in the Avon Valley, but those days are long gone. With no sign of the Bewick's and not much else to see in the area I headed back to the HIWWT's Blashford Lakes reserve.

Little Grebe

I started at Ibsley Water and more wetland birds. The middle of the day is not the best time to visit since all of the goosanders will have dispersed across the valley, but nonetheless there were still birds to see, pochard, tufted duck, goldeneye, pintail and good numbers of shoveler. Another noteworthy species for its scarcity these days was ruddy duck, an introduced species  from North America into the UK, that has recently undergone a massive decline due to a licenced cull. The species' fate was sealed due to its interbreeding with the closely related and much rarer white-headed duck in Spain. Ruddy ducks are the more dominant species, as with many North America species, and have been identified as one of the causes of the decline of the now endangered white-headed duck. The licenced cull has been very effective and now only very small numbers of this species exist in the UK.

Wigeon, Gadwall, Coot and Red-crested Pochard

My next stop was Ivy Lake, and the usual location for a very obliging bittern, but not this day. A drake red-crested pochard was causing some interest among the local birders but otherwise the species present were much the same as seen on Ibsley Water. One of the highlights of visiting Blashford Lakes is the excellent views of lesser redpolls and other finches and woodland birds drawn in by the abundance of food provided by the Trust. Identification of the different redpoll types can be very tricky when they are feeding at the top of an alder tree, but here the birds are drawn down low to the feeders.

Lesser Redpoll Carduelis flammea cabaret

Lesser Redpoll Carduelis flammea cabaret

Lesser Redpoll Carduelis flammea cabaret

The redpoll sub-species cabaret, which is the common race in the UK, is generally smaller and darker than the flammea race, which occurs in Fenno-Scandia. Occasional birds of the race rostrata have been recorded at Blashford lakes in recent years, these birds generally larger, darker and more heavily streaked than the race cabaret.

Lesser Redpoll Carduelis flammea cabaret

Lesser Redpoll Carduelis flammea cabaret

Lesser Redpoll Carduelis flammea cabaret

The variation in colour and size of individual birds can make identification of the different races very subjective, and things are not helped by variations in lighting conditions. I did not see any birds that even vaguely resembled a common (mealy) redpoll, maybe one will turn up later in the winter.

Brambling Fringilla montifringilla

Of course redpolls are not the only species visiting the feeders bramblings, chaffinch's, siskins and nuthatch's are all attracted in and give excellent views.

Female Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs

Eurasian Nuthatch Sitta europaea caesia

So if you are visiting Hampshire and want to get to grips with identifying lesser redpolls, there are not many better places to visit than Blashford Lakes in the winter.

Partial Leucistic Nuthatch

I have previously posted on this blog about abnormal plumage in birds, in particular leucism, and posted pictures of a few species with varying plumage patterns. Well this previous article prompted Nick and Teela Spratts to send me these pictures of a partially leucistic Eurasian Nuthatch that has been visiting their Oakhampton, Devon garden.

Leucistic Nuthatch - N & T Spratts

At first glance this bird looks very reminiscent of the subspecies Sitta europaea asiatica or  S.e. europaea that occur in Eastern Russia/Siberia or Fenno-Scandia/Western Russia, respectively. But the pictures show that this bird lacks the rust coloured vent and slate grey mantle of those subspecies.

Leucistic Nuthatch - N & T Spratts

Comparing this bird with a typically plumaged S. e. caesia (the British and Continental European race) which I have previously ringed shows the extent of the aberration in the plumage. The slate grey mantle and warm peach coloured underparts are lacking, although it is still possible to see patches of rust showing through on the vent, which may indicate that this bird is a male.

Normally Plumaged Nuthatch

Thanks to Nick and Teela for sending these pictures and allowing me to post them, it is an interesting looking bird but I think I prefer the normal plumaged one!