Winter or Spring?

Snow, strong northerly winds, rain and sub-zero temperatures along with cloudless skies, bright sunshine and a couple of the hottest days of the year has made this last month pretty unusual.  The birds have thought so too with certain summer species arriving up to three weeks late and some winter species still present. 

On Leith Hill winter species were highlighted with a late Redwing and Lesser Redpolls being the most ringed species (71), whilst all the summer visitors put together being less than a quarter of this (17).  Four of the eight Willow Warblers were retraps which included one ringed in 2011 and three in 2012.  Amazingly two of the latter birds were caught together on 2nd May 2012 as a breeding pair and were caught together again in the same place on 29th April 2013.  An amazing thing for two birds that bred then migrated seperately over 3000 km to Africa for the winter then returning to the exact same spot to breed again with the same partner.  Another highlight was the first Green Woodpecker of the year (below).

Adult male Green Woodpecker

This month also saw the first breeding signs and nesting activity of many species, but one of the highlights was a pair of Firecrest (below) caught on Leith Hill.  I also did my first checks of a few of my regular boxes, but most activity is late with only an adult Stock Dove to show for it.

Male and Female Firecrest

My first Constant Effort Site (CES) visit at North River also took place, but although only 16 birds were caught one was an adult female Grey Wagtail (below) and three of the four Blackcaps were birds ringed here last spring.

Adult female Grey Wagtail

Birds ringed:
Lesser Redpoll - 71
Blue Tit - 24
Siskin - 17
Chaffinch - 9
Great Tit - 8
Robin - 7
Dunnock - 7
Blackcap - 6
Chiffchaff - 5
Willow Warbler - 4
Wren - 4
Blackbird - 4
Coal Tit - 3
Great-spotted Woodpecker - 3
Nuthatch - 2
Whitethroat - 2
Firecrest - 2
Song Thrush - 2
Redwing - 1
Grey Wagtail - 1
Jay - 1
Green Woodpecker - 1
Stock Dove - 1

SHRIEK! It's a Shrike!

I nearly started this posting complaining about the last month's weather, but have felt the need today to finally celebrate the last couple of days sunshine.  It was so good, that I nearly got down to just two layers.....nearly!  Of the 23 species ringed this month there are a number of highlights.

This was the first month of the winter that I caught a good number of Siskin (80) after a bit of a drought since about September, and the latter part of the month saw a big array of migrants carrying lots of fat deposits.  Sizes were very variable from wings of 69mm to 80mm, whilst weights were between 10.9g and 16.6g.  It also included this unusual looking adult male below with an extended amount of black around the face.

Adult male Siskin

Adult male Siskin

It has also been a very good Fringilla month catching 34 Chaffinch of which the majority have been of the larger northern populations.  With wing lengths up to 96mm and weights up to 27.6g, some were bigger and heavier than either of the five male Brambling caught.  This was more Brambling than I usually catch in a year!

But today proved to be a very memorable one.  Not just because I finally caught my first Chiffchaff of the year, but that I caught my first and probably last GREAT GREY SHRIKE!  Although I had always thought it possible to see one on the heathland at Leith Hill, I never expected to catch one, let alone in the middle of the Rhododendron Wood a kilometre away from the heathland!  What a handsome beast though:

1st year Great Grey Shrike - the blood on throat and face is from its last kill, not from me!

remnant juvenile barring on the breast feathers give away that this is a 1st year bird...

...as do the nine unmoulted greater coverts.

What will the rest of April bring?

Waxwings, Siskins Return and Gambia Part 2

A pretty good start to the year with the first two months producing just over 300 new birds.

Leith Hill has been rather quiet on my heathland site, with very few Redpolls and Siskins have only just started to return, both of which are by far mainly adult birds.  The new woodland site has been very productive although the main numbers are Blue and Great Tit highlights have come in the form of seven Marsh Tit, eight Nuthatch and five Great Spotted Woodpecker.  The only major species that seem to be missing from this site is Wren, for which not a single one has been caught or heard which seems weird for a woodland!  Today's visit produced the first Sparrowhawk to be ringed at this site, but was suffering with some sort of callouses at the edge of the mouth (see below)

2nd year male Sparrowhawk with callouses in gape

2nd year male Sparrowhawk with callouses in gape

A group of up to ten Waxwing that were frequenting two straggly rowan bushes in front of Cranleigh Baptist Church on the village high street.  They had been there for a couple of weeks, so took the opportunity to attempt a catch and after a few near misses managed to catch this wonderful first-year female (below).  A week later I tried again and also only caught a single bird which amazingly was the same female from the week prior.

1st year female Waxwing

1st year female Waxwing

I was lucky enough to be able to go back on expedition to Gambia at the end of February, to assist in the ongoing project here to learn more about our summer birds on their wintering grounds and to learn more about West African birds.  This was an amazing ten days and I joined a brilliant team of like-minded and hard working people which made for a great experience.  Although we started slowly with relatively small numbers of birds this picked up and by the end caught 1222 new birds of 110 species.  Ringing highlights below:

Wattled Plover

White-faced Whistling Duck

Senegal Coucal

Yellow-billed Kite

1st year African Goshawk

White-crested Helmet-shrike

American Golden Plover - 1st to be ringed in Africa

Cuckoo Finch - one of three caught, representing the 2nd, 3rd and 4th record for The Gambia!

Hamerkop - one of only about 10 ringed in the world of which this is the third here in two years!

1st year Black-winged Stilt

End of 2012 Totals and start of 2013

With us now entering the start of a New Year I am planning to restart my blog after 6 months of absence, mainly due to just too much else going on!!  So to start off, below is a quick round up of the totals I achieved in 2012.  Highlights have been the 24 Barn Owl, 9 Tree Pipit, 7 Redstart, 2 Firecrest, 6 Spotted Flycatcher, 1 Rook, 708 Redpoll and 33 Crossbill.  Also, the unexpectedly large totals of 300 Goldcrest and 98 Coal Tit.  A big thank you to Paul Stevenson, Sue Walsh, Martin Gray and Claire Boothby for their help with my ringing this year.

Species	Full grown	Nestling	Total
Mute Swan	2	0	2
Sparrowhawk	2	0	2
Stock Dove	1	0	1
Woodpigeon	3	0	3
Collared Dove	2	2	4
Barn Owl	5	19	24
Tawny Owl	0	7	7
Green Woodpecker	1	0	1
Great Spotted Woodpecker	23	0	23
Swallow	4	39	43
Tree Pipit	9	0	9
Meadow Pipit	5	0	5
Pied/White Wagtail	0	7	7
Wren	59	0	59
Dunnock	35	1	36
Robin	77	8	85
Redstart	6	1	7
Blackbird	54	9	63
Song Thrush	19	0	19
Redwing	30	0	30
Reed Warbler	2	0	2
Whitethroat	9	0	9
Garden Warbler	12	0	12
Blackcap	58	0	58
Chiffchaff	88	0	88
Willow Warbler	64	0	64
Goldcrest	300	0	300
Firecrest	2	0	2
Spotted Flycatcher	6	0	6
Long-tailed Tit	23	0	23
Marsh Tit	3	0	3
Coal Tit	98	0	98
Blue Tit	504	6	510
Great Tit	234	16	250
Nuthatch	11	0	11
Treecreeper	11	0	11
Jay	4	0	4
Magpie	2	0	2
Jackdaw	3	15	18
Rook	1	0	1
Starling	3	0	3
House Sparrow	2	0	2
Chaffinch	88	0	88
Brambling	4	0	4
Greenfinch	55	5	60
Goldfinch	96	4	100
Siskin	224	1	225
Linnet	1	0	1
Common Redpoll	301	0	301
Lesser Redpoll	265	0	265
Redpoll (Common/Lesser)	142	0	142
Common Crossbill	33	0	33
Bullfinch	3	0	3
Total	2985	121	3129