Sunday 29 January 2012

Poxy GRETI's

After a small mist netting session in Atherton Woods with Zac last weekend & catching the below Great Tit with Avian Pox, I was keen to have another session this weekend - to collect information on infected birds for ZSL. This combined with catching more Blue Tits to colour ring for Zac's dissertation fieldwork.

So after an early start on Saturday it was encouraging to only catch two other infected birds, and their wounds were nothing like the above birds! Lots of other Great Tits were captured and ringed, but didn't show any signs of Avian Pox!

A good day was had with 97 birds being captured - mainly Blue, Great & Coal Tit making the bulk of the catch, however several Goldcrest, Chaffinch, Treecreeper & Nuthatch were also captured. Zac colour ringed over 20 new Blue Tits, including colour ringing several that were already BTO ringed, therefore adding known aged birds to the project - something which will provide useful to Zac's study.

Back at home, during Saturday evening we placed a CCTV camera into my garden owl box. Over the last few weeks I've been noticing a pair of Tawny Owls hanging around the box, so was pretty keen to get the camera installed before any eggs were laid! However it seemed they had beaten us to that, as when I went up to the box a single Tawny Owl egg was in the nest cup! So we had to work fast to get the camera up before the female came back! She did and went straight back to the box & is now sitting on two eggs!

Sunday morning was spent mist netting in the garden, whilst comfortably watching our first Nest Record Card of the year from our television screen!! 20 birds captured in total - mainly Goldfinch, Blackbird, Robin and a smart Bullfinch. A recap Blackbird turned out to be more than 8 years old & ringed in the garden by me & Steve during my training days....

Lastly we finished off at Crompton Lodges catching 4 Coot & 3 Canada Geese.

Saturday 14 January 2012

To Start The 2012 Ball Rolling…..

Several of us spent the first week of the year on holiday in Ireland. This short break was a mixture of relaxing, birding and carrying out a bit of ringing when the weather permitted!

P1140620

Although the weather conditions were very different from last years trip, more wet & windy, rather than icy cold - we didn’t do too badly catching 24 gulls in total over a two day period.

19 Black-headed Gull, 4 Herring Gull and 1 Common Gull were captured and ringed. A distinct lack of Common Gull was noticed, compared to catching 35 individuals during our trip in 2010.

Nimmo’s Pier didn’t fail in providing some class bird watching and a full trip report can be read on Zac’s blog…..

Friday 13 January 2012

2011 & Updated Ringing Totals

I’ve spent the afternoon updating my ringing totals for 2011 and thought I would post below a copy of my up-to-date ringing totals, since getting my permit in 2008. During 2011 I ringed a total of 1854 new birds (still to add up the recaptured/controls etc)……..
 
   Species 2008 2009 2010 2011 Total
Barn Owl 0 3 9 1 13
Blackbird 13 75 57 15 160
Blackcap 0 0 0 2 2
Black-headed Gull 23 29 201 293 546
Blue Tit 73 240 365 192 870
Brambling 0 0 13 0 13
Bullfinch 0 19 65 19 103
Canada Goose 113 87 136 80 416
Carrion Crow 0 0 0 1 1
Chaffinch 1 30 133 27 191
Chiffchaff 0 0 0 2 2
Coal Tit 0 1 15 9 25
Collard Dove 0 4 3 9 16
Common Gull 0 0 2 37 39
Coot 181 144 634 127 1086
Dipper 0 8 0 0 8
Dunnock 0 38 19 16 73
Gadwall 0 0 1 0 1
Goldcrest 0 1 9 0 10
Goldfinch 4 233 224 215 676
Goosander 0 4 1 2 7
Grasshopper Warbler 0 0 1 6 7
Greenfinch 0 55 85 13 153
Greylag Goose 9 4 1 1 15
Great Tit 49 132 211 122 514
Grey Wagtail 0 3 0 1 4
Great Spotted Woodpecker 0 1 4 1 6
Herring Gull 0 6 0 0 6
House Martin 0 4 0 0 4
House Sparrow 0 8 5 9 22
Jackdaw 0 4 2 0 6
Jay 0 3 2 0 5
Kestrel 0 3 0 6 9
Kingfisher 0 2 0 0 2
Lapwing 1 0 5 9 15
Lesser Black Backed Gull 0 1 1 1 3
Lesser Redpoll 0 0 5 11 16
Long Eared Owl 0 0 3 5 8
Long Tailed Tit 0 25 49 23 97
Magpie 0 4 2 0 6
Mallard 35 24 2 3 64
Mandarin 0 0 0 1 1
Meadow Pipit 1 10 1 0 12
Mistle Thursh 6 2 1 0 9
Moorhen 1 4 1 8 14
Mute Swan 111 151 88 0 350
Nuthatch 0 8 9 8 25
Pied Wagtail 4 0 0 0 4
Red Crested Pochard 0 0 1 0 1
Redwing 0 1 1 1 3
Reed Bunting 0 20 22 8 50
Reed Warbler 3 3 58 186 250
Robin 15 18 33 33 99
Rook 1 0 0 0 1
Sand Martin 0 0 3 0 3
Sedge Warbler 0 5 3 4 12
Siskin 0 9 0 3 12
Song Thrush 14 6 25 1 46
Sparrowhawk 4 1 0 1 6
Starling 18 286 60 8 372
Stock Dove 2 5 3 2 12
Swallow 8 60 23 45 136
Tawny Owl 3 2 4 2 11
Treecreeper 0 1 1 8 10
Tree Sparrow 0 77 99 239 415
Tufted Duck 5 17 67 4 93
Waxwing 0 0 36 0 36
Whitethroat 6 0 5 8 19
Whooper Swan 0 1 0 0 1
Willow Tit 0 3 0 3 6
Willow Warbler 0 1 12 5 18
Wood Pigeon 6 14 6 14 40
Wren 0 8 3 4 15
Yellowhammer 0 1 0 0 1
74 710 1909 2830 1854 7303