Swanwick Lakes and Manor Farm Country Park

Rob and I had a planned ringing event at the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust's Swanwick Nature Reserve today (15th April) so we decided to check out the area the night before. We were planning to ring in the north-east meadow and had identified some areas that looked good for a net ride and put up some feeders to attract a few birds in. We cut in three net rides with enough space for four 18 metre nets and left each one open for a while. It was a worthwhile exercise as it turned out because we caught 21 birds, eight each Great and Blue Tits, two Wrens, two Marsh Tits and a Robin.

This morning we arrived on site at 05:45, it had been a clear night and was colder than expected. We hoped that there might be some migrants around, but our first bird was one of the residents, a female Great Spotted Woodpecker. The event went very well and the attendees were able to see Blackcaps, Chiffchaffs, Great Tits and a Goldcrest close up.

Female Blackcap - Swanwick Nature Reserve

After our ringing event had finished Rob headed back with the group to check out the moth trap, whilst I kept an eye on the nets. I continued to catch birds and by the end of the session we had ringed 19 birds, six Great Tits, three Chiffchaffs, two Blackbirds, two Blackcaps and single Great Spotted Woodpecker, Wren, Dunnock, Goldcrest, Marsh Tit and Coal Tit. Over the two sessions we had ringed 40 birds of 12 species so a good quantity and mix or species.

Marsh Tit - Swanwick Nature Reserve

Coal Tit - Swanwick Nature Reserve

Later in the afternoon, I decided to pop down to Manor Farm Country Park for a spot of birding. My intention was to try and find Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, as I had heard them there recently, but at this time of year there is always the chance of something else. As it turned out I stumbled across a Lesser Spot straight away, and so spent the rest of the time generally birding. Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs were present in good numbers and as I worked my way around the fields I picked up my first Common Whitethroat of the year. I headed into the woods, working my way to were the Lesser Spots bred last year; I did not find them but did find a breeding pair of Marsh Tits hanging around their nest hole.

Marsh Tit - Manor Farm Country Park

After a while I headed to the estuary in the hope of a Whimbrel. It was very busy on the water so the only wader was an Oystercatcher, along with four Little Egrets and a few Black-headed Gulls. I decided to head home and started working my way back to the fields; as I did so a Red Kite drifted overhead, my second patch year tick of the day. I passed the area where the Whitethroat was, it was again in full song but was now only giving brief glimpses. As I approached my car I noticed a chat sat on the barbed wire fence around the overflow car park. I was expecting it to be a Stonechat, which would have been a good bird, but it was in fact an adult male Whinchat, so a truly exceptional bird. It was fairly approachable and perching on prominent places as they do. A cracking bird and my third patch year tick of the afternoon.

Whinchat - Manor Farm Country Park

Whinchat - Manor Farm Country Park

Back at home, I decided to sit in the garden and go through my pictures. I had only been out there a couple of minutes when I heard the distinctive mewing call of a Mediterranean Gull, and there above the garden were two adults. Although it wasn't a patch year tick it was a nice species to end the day on.

Adult Mediterranean Gull

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.