Three Gold Recoveries

Just had three recoveries back from the BTO of varying interest:

The first was an immature female Goldfinch L757075 which was ringed in my garden on 13th November 2010 and found dead 153 days later on 15th April 2011 just 2km away in Warnham (map below).

The next was an immature male Goldcrest DNK024 which was also ringed in my garden on the same day and was caught by ringers at the well known migration site Landguard Point, Felixstowe, Suffolk on 27th March 2011 - a distance of 149km (map below).  These dates would suggest that this was possibly a Scandinavian bird which had come to winter in Britain and was then caught whilst on spring migration going back, although the only way we will truly known would be if it was then caught in Norway or Sweden!  I can only hope.

The last recovery and by no means the least was another immature female Goldfinch, L132885, which I ringed at Chesworth Farm, Horsham on 15th March 2010 and was caught 654km away by a ringer on 24th April 2010 at Inch Island, Donegal, Ireland (map below)!  This is the fifth longest movement of a Goldfinch within Britain and Ireland, but by far the fastest of those five and the only one of those to have had to cross the sea.  Obviously must have been a spring migrant, but had it flown down from its birth place in Ireland to Sussex for the winter and was heading back or was it dispersing from birth place?  Difficult to know, but if it had flown any further it would have been heading out into the Atlantic - next stop Canada!

Another Busy Week

Two sessions on Leith Hill, two sessions at home, a morning doing the rounds of the Horsham Barn Owl boxes, another duck rescue at Horsham Hospital and a few more nests!  In total, 193 new birds ringed this week of 26 species.

Sunday at Leith Hill was ended early with only two hours of ringing due to the onset of rain and just four new Siskin were caught along with a handful of Great Tits and the first juvenile Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler of the year.  Whilst the session this morning had to close the nets early because of too many birds!  Siskins were everywhere, with 36 caught (22 new) along with three Blackcaps, two Whitethroat, a juvenile Treecreeper, a juvenile Goldcrest and two Willow Warbler being the highlights which mainly came in one check of the nets!

The two sessions at home were again dominated by tits, but a few highlights included my first juvenile Goldfinch (above) and Long-tailed Tit (below) of the year, another five juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker (making 19 for the year so far) and a Jay.  The extra surprise was the pair of Spotted Flycatchers that had taken up residence this week, hopefully they will breed which will be a first for my garden.  Fingers crossed!

A trip round the remaining Horsham Barn Owl boxes was very successful.  Being joined by Barrie and Graham we visited four boxes of which one was empty, one held three chicks and two had four chicks (photos below).  Which were all ringed as well as an adult male, whilst an adult female was retrapped that was originally ringed as a chick in nearby Lambs Green in 2005. 

Graham with his first Barn Owl



Barn Owl chick being weighed

Adult male Barn Owl

Whilst doing the owls, one barn also had a pair of Stock Dove nesting on a ledge which had two perfect sized chicks.  Whilst other nests done this week were five Pied Wagtail chicks at my Leith Hill office and ten Swallow chicks (below) from three nests local to home.

The last ringing of the week was a return to Horsham Hospital where Linda and I rescued another family of five Mallard ducklings and rehomed them onto Horsham Park pond next door!

Birds ringed:
Great Tit - 57
Siskin - 26
Blue Tit - 24
Robin - 3
Chaffinch - 4
Blackcap - 3
Whitethroat - 2
Swallow - 10 nestlings
Pied Wagtail - 5 nestlings
Goldfinch - 5
Dunnock - 2
Wren - 1
Chiffchaff - 3
Willow Warbler - 3
Treecreeper - 3
Goldcrest - 1
Long-tailed Tit - 4
Greenfinch - 8
House Sparrow - 1
Nuthatch - 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker - 5
Song Thrush - 1
Mallard - 5 ducklings
Stock Dove - 2 nestlings
Jay - 1
Barn Owl - 1 + 11 nestlings

19th June 2011 - More Youngsters and Two Recoveries

Rain restricted a lot of ringing this week, but the increase of juvenile birds on the scene kept numbers up.

A short session at Leith Hill on Sunday produced just 11 new birds including only four new Siskin, but I did find my first Whitethroat nest with five eggs (below).

A visit to a couple of neighbours houses on Monday produced two more ringed Swallow nests (chicks below).  Interestingly, one of these was a brand new nest and had been completely constructed of cow dung which must have been a substitute material for the lack of mud this spring.

I got a phone call from Linda Baker at Horsham Hospital this week asking for my help in relocating a family of Mallard that had bred in one of the courtyard gardens.  With no way out for the ducklings, Linda and her dad Eric have been providing a water feature and some extra food until big enough to fend for themselves.  So, the three of us caught up the seven ducklings which I then ringed and then Linda and Eric led the mother carrying the ducklings to Horsham Park pond which backs onto the hospital.

Linda with one of the ducklings

Before meeting Linda and Eric I had a quick stop at Coot Pond and very quickly managed to catch my first Canada Goose of the year (below).

Ringing at home over this week produced 111 new birds which were almost all juveniles and mainly consisted of Great Tits.  Highlights came in the form of a nest of Blackbird (2), a nest of Song Thrush (5) and from netting a juvenile Blackcap (below top), a juvenile and two adult male Whitethroat, two juvenile Treecreepers (below middle), four juvenile Great Spotted Woodpeckers, a Collared Dove and an adult Starling (below bottom).  This Starling is only the second that I have caught at home since I began ringing here in 2008!

A couple of recoveries have come through, as follows:

Lesser Redpoll L080774 ringed on 14th December 2009 at Chesworth Farm, Horsham as a first year bird was controlled at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire on 13th March 2011 as an adult male, probably on its way back to Scandinavia.

Grey Heron A47 ringed on 9th April 2011 at Warnham LNR as a nestling within the Heronry and was sighted at Thorpe Park near Chertsey, Surrey on 12th June 2011.  This bird was last seen at Warnham LNR on 30th May 2011.  A quick movement of 40km over 13 days NW.

Birds ringed:

Great Tit - 64

Siskin - 4

Swallow - 9 nestlings

Robin - 6

Blue Tit - 12

Chaffinch - 2

Blackcap - 2

Whitethroat - 3

Dunnock - 1

Treecreeper - 2

Willow Warbler - 1

Greenfinch - 5

Blackbird - 3 + 2 nestlings

Great Spotted Woodpecker - 4

Starling - 1

Song Thrush - 2 + 5 nestlings

Canada Goose - 1

Mallard - 7 ducklings

Jackdaw - 1

Collared Dove - 1

9th June 2011 - Jars and Lots of Different Youngsters

This week began with an evening on Leith Hill trying to catch Nightjars with the help of colleagues Catherine, Matt and Graham.  After 30 minutes two birds had just missed the net, so we moved the net to a new location and resulted in a catch within just two minutes (below).  It is always an experience catching a Nightjar, but this one turned out to be even better than normal as it was the juvenile bird that I had caught at this site last year!  This is a great event to know that this bird was almost certainly born at Leith Hill last year, migrated off to Africa for the winter months and then has come back to the same area for its first breeding season.  Hopefully he will find a mate!

This week has also been full of youngsters as the first birds start leaving their nests.  A couple of sessions at Leith Hill produced another 19 new juvenile Siskin and newly fledged Garden Warbler (below top), Great Tit and Whitethroat (below bottom).

Three newly fledged Wrens (below top), a juvenile Nuthatch (below middle), a juvenile Blackbird and a juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker (below bottom) and the first large juvenile tit flock catch.

Also around home I made a visit to a few nesting possibilities including Stock Doves (two chicks ringed - below top) and the first Swallow nestlings.  And at Leith Hill I found my first Wood Warbler nest (below bottom) which the chicks were too big to attempt to ring to the point the first one fledged whilst I sat back and watched for 15 minutes!

Pam Mears joined me on Tuesday afternoon to go to Warnham LNR to ring the two pairs of Common Tern chicks that were nesting on the artificial rafts with only about five days difference between the two families (below).

And I just had to mention the very territorial male Pheasant that has been on Leith Hill for the last month.  Whenever I am doing a ringing session it follows be as I check the net rides, pecking at my shoes, jumping at my legs and clucking constantly with its colourful neck feathers raised.  I have finally managed to get a decent video below:

Birds ringed:
Siskin - 19
Great Tit - 21
Garden Warbler - 1 + 2 nestlings
Dunnock - 1
Swallow - 5 nestlings
Whitethroat - 1 nestling
Blue Tit - 1
Willow Warbler - 1
Wren - 3 nestlings
House Sparrow - 1
Nuthatch - 1
Blackbird - 4
Great Spotted Woodpecker - 1
Stock Dove  - 2 nestlings
Common Tern - 5 nestlings
Jackdaw - 1

1st June 2011 - Siskins and Firsts for Garden

31 birds ringed this week which started with a nest of four Robins at home which I had only just noticed on Friday (27th), which I quickly ringed before having to rush off to my brother's wedding!  Dressed in my tails it was probably the most presentable nest ringing ever done!  (Below - my brother's wife Abi with myself, best man Glen, Ben and Rob.)

This was followed on the Bank Holiday Monday with a netting session in the garden which resulted in just seven new birds, although did include a juvenile Dunnock, two juvenile Robins and my first ever warblers for May here - a Chiffchaff and a female Whitethroat!  The other two birds were also the first ever juvenile House Sparrows caught here in nearly three years (below)!

Then back to Leith Hill on Tuesday (31st) catching 20 new birds which included 16 juvenile Siskin.  As Siskin juveniles cannot be sexed on standard plumage I tried out the sexing criteria studied in Spain which looks at the size of the dark spot on the second outer tail feather.  This proved to have a huge variation in size from covering the whole feather (below top) to just the tip (below bottom).  With preliminary results showing that six were female and ten were male, but whether the British Siskins follow the same rule as the the Spanish is yet to be found out! Hopefully I will be able to catch these same birds again once they have undergone post juvenile moult and can be sexed on standard plumage as well to confirm these measurements.

Also caught was a juvenile Chaffinch which had an all adult tail (below), which had me fooled for a minute, and had presumably lost its tail at a very early stage and shows the importance of checking all ageing criteria.

Birds ringed:

Robin - 2 + 4 nestlings

Dunnock - 3
Whitethroat - 1
Siskin - 16
Blue Tit - 1
Chaffinch - 1
Chiffchaff - 1
House Sparrow - 2

25th May 2011 - More Siskins, Tits, Jackdaws and a new Warbler

This week started with a trip up to Leith Hill in the evening to try to catch Nightjars, but the weather became a lot windy than forecast, although at least two males were seen and heard.  Before going for the Nightjars, I went up a few hours early to see if an evening session would be any different from my normal mornings here.  Happily, this produced another seven new birds including four Siskin, a Garden Warbler, a Song Thrush and a Great Spotted Woodpecker (latter two being new species caught on the heath).

The following day, a late afternoon visit to Warnham LNR to ring the last two boxes of the nest box scheme which were both Blue Tits and interestingly had two of the smallest broods of just five and six!  Whilst here a quick view of the Common Terns showed two pairs on eggs which the first pair had hatched at least two chicks by the time of writing.

Saturday morning at home produced the first two juvenile Robins of the year (above), and the last nest boxes of Blue Tit (again just five chicks) and Great Tit.  But the best catch was my first Lesser Whitethroat for the garden (below) and surprisingly it had a fairly well developed brood patch!  Because both sexes incubate the eggs (so both get brood patches) it wasn't possible to sex it but shortly afterwards a pair were seen in another part of the garden and a male was heard singing!  Why haven't I seen or heard them prior to this?

Back to Leith Hill on Tuesday morning and nine new Siskin (including many juveniles) and a new Goldcrest were highlights and with thanks to Stephen Menzie for the link to a paper about sexing juvenile Siskins that I will try on my next visit.  The following day I went to do the last two nests of Jackdaws on Leith Hill helped by colleague Ruby (above with one of the chicks).  One of the nests was in a beech tree and was quite interesting as the nest hole had no bottom, but had been filled with stick to make it so (below top) and a lower whole had had two eggs laid in it (below bottom).  I have presumed that as there were just two nestlings these two eggs had been laid by the same female and she had chosen to just incubate the top nest!

Birds ringed:
Siskin - 13
Garden Warbler - 1
Blue Tit - 16 nestlings
Robin - 2
Goldfinch - 1
Lesser Whitethroat - 1
Chaffinch - 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker - 1
Blackbird - 1
Song Thrush - 1
Great Tit - 8 nestlings
Goldcrest - 1
Jackdaw - 5 nestlings

18th May 2011 - First Juvs and More Nests

Yes, more nests!  Starting this week with a Pied Wagtail nest under the eaves of the house next to my Leith Hill office, then a further trip to Warnham LNR to do more Blue Tit nestboxes.

I have been watching a nest of Chiffchaff at Village Greens Farm Shop in Ockley and they were finally ready for ringing.  So, on Sunday (15th) met up with Louise and Gary to ring these and a quick trip around the Jackdaw boxes on Etherley Farm, where four nests were now also ready for ringing.  Another box containing three chicks were still too small and will need a later visit.

For the rest of the day, Gary and Louise were trying to develop their nest finding skills in the woodland and around Leith Hill Tower.  Finds included a Great Tit nest in a tree tube, a Treecreeper nest, two Blue Tit nests (including one by one of the top windows of the Tower), two seperate female Chaffinch carrying food, a pair of Whitethroat carrying food and a female Firecrest carrying food!  Unfortunately, none of these were ringable until right at the end of the day another Chiffchaff nest was located and were perfect size for ringing!  I was on car park duty and whilst visiting the car park in Forest Green I stumbled upon a beautiful Greater Butterfly orchid (above and below).

Another two hour Monday morning netting session on Duke's Warren was rewarded with a catch of 15 new birds which included 11 Siskin of which six were my first juveniles of the year.  Although Siskin cannot be sexed at this age there certainly seemed to be two plumage differences, the first pale and more grey (below top) and the other bright and yellow (below bottom).  If anyone knows different please let me know!

The only addition to my garden ringing this week was a new Collared Dove that I caught in a potter trap on Saturday.

Birds ringed:
Pied Wagtail - 4 nestlings
Blue Tit - 59 nestlings
Dunnock - 1
Siskin - 11
Chaffinch - 1
Whitethroat - 1
Chiffchaff - 10 nestlings
Willow Warbler - 1
Collared Dove - 1
Jackdaw - 12 nestlings

A Batch of Recoveries

After ringing nearly 5000 birds last year I had hoped for more recoveries than I have currently received, but got a recent batch of 13 recoveries that has redressed the balance somewhat.

The first four were all Mallards - three of which were all juveniles which had been ringed on 6th June 2010 at Warnham LNR, two of them were shot just 3km away in Warnham on 31st December 2010, whilst the third was shot 18km away in Pulborough (furthest movement so far).  The fourth was an adult male that was ringed at Coot Pond, Horsham on 28th November 2010 and was shot at Warnham again just 2km away on 21st January 2011.  These are the 2nd - 5th recoveries of this species; with the first in 2009 also being a juvenile shot in Warnham.

The next two were Grey Herons from the Warnham LNR colour ring project as follows:

1504256 (A04) ringed in nest CP15 (one of four chicks) on 28th March 2010 found freshly dead 'Taken by Animal' in Westbury, Wiltshire 129km W on 4th Oct 2010 (map below).

1505253 (A35) ringed in nest MP5 (one of three chicks) on 28th May 2010 found freshly dead 'caught up in fishing line and weights' at Burton Millpond, West Sussex 24km WSW on 30th October 2010.

These are the 4th and 5th recoveries of the Grey Heron project and so far gives absolutely no trend for dispersal from the colony as one moved close E to Weir Wood Reservoir, West Sussex, one moved far NE to Rainham Marshes, Essex, one moved close N to Capel, Surrey, then the other two as above!  The only direction not taken is South.

The next was a nestling Woodpigeon ringed at Horsham Hospital on 14th July 2010 was found in Horsham on 30th July 2010 with a broken femur and taken to a local vets where it was looked after.  Although not a great story, this is actually the first recovery for one of my Woodpigeons.

An exceptional juvenile Great-spotted Woodpecker ringed at Chesworth Farm on 14th June 2010 was found freshly dead 'Taken by Animal', possibly a cat, on 2nd November 2010 86km E in Ivychurch on the edge of Romney Marsh, Kent!  This is a huge dispersal for this species which generally doesn't move any further than a couple of kilometres and makes you wonder whether it would have eventually migrated across the Channel if it hadn't died (map below)!  This is just the third recovery of this species for me for which the other two also died and moved no distance at all.

A Long-tailed Tit ringed on 22nd December 2011 at Warnham LNR was found dead having hit a window 2km away on the edge of Horsham on 12th February 2011.  Again, this is my first recovery of this species.

Two Blue Tit recoveries show different movements - a juvenile ringed at Chesworth Farm on 28th June 2010 found freshly dead in Horsham just under a month later on 23rd July 2010 having gone less than a kilometre whilst another juvenile ringed at Warnham LNR on 3rd September 2010 was caught and released by another ringer 10km away in Slaugham, West Sussex on 4th March 2011.  This again being my furthest movement of this species.

A first year female Great Tit ringed in my Warnham garden on 21st March 2010 was caught and released by another ringer 15km away in Gomshall, Surrey on 8th February 2011, again the furthest movement of this species for me.

The last was yet another first recovery for a species being a Goldfinch that was ringed as a breeding first year male on 14th June 2010 at Chesworth Farm and found freshly dead 'Taken by cat' just 2km away in Horsham on 22nd December 2010.

What will come next?

11th May 2011 - A Nesting Week

This was a full on week of ringing with the grateful help of Gary, Louise, Kevin, Eddie and Jake.  The week was mainly focused on going around nests and nestboxes that have been under observation over the last few weeks, but also a couple of netting sessions and a few surprises.

The week started with the first surprise being a Tawny Owl that was reported to us at Leith Hill dazed on the side of the road.  Went to inspect and indeed a beautiful female (above) was sat on the side of the road.  She was showing a developed brood patch, so obviously had a brood of young nearby and after about five minutes she had recovered, so quickly ringed and released her so that she could get back to her young.

Two netting sessions were had on Leith Hill catching a total of 18 new birds which included three Garden Warbler, four Whitethroat, five Willow Warbler and three Siskin and finally the first two Blackcaps for this site which involved one bird with a high fat score suggesting that this was a newly arrived migrant.

The only other netting session was in my garden at home where I have reduced to just a single net, but caught three new birds - a Blackcap and surprisingly a new pair of Long-tailed Tit (where have they been hiding?).

On Friday morning (9th) Gary, Louise and I went round all the Jackdaw boxes at Leith Hill and although the majority were still either on eggs or too young chicks we did ring an adult female and a brood of five.  We were also very surprised to find two Barn Owls in a box which I had been watching Jackdaws use over the last few weeks, one of which we caught and ringed (above).  Whilst going round we also managed to find a Chaffinch nest and a Treecreeper nest that were able to be ringed.  Generally Treecreeper nests aren't possible to be ringed, but occasionally they are and much caution should be taken.  A section of the loose bark had fallen off making them far more accessible than they should have been.

Afterwards a trip to one of my near neighbours, Bob Day, who wanted me to check two boxes at his house that he had seen activity at produced a female Mandarin (above) sat on eggs in one and then two Tawny Owl chicks (below with Bob) in the other.

This also saw the first visit to Warnham LNR for the Nestbox Scheme here of which there are 53 boxes at present managed by Friends of Warnham LNR!  Although a number were unused we still managed to ring 18 nests of Blue Tit and Great Tit as well as a couple of adults.

The last ringing this week involved a couple of Blue Tit boxes at my home and a nest of Pied Wagtails at the National Trust Surrey Hills head office in Mickleham.

A very fulfilling week!!

Birds ringed:
Garden Warbler - 3
Whitethroat - 4
Siskin - 3
Blue Tit - 2 + 108 nestlings
Blackcap - 3
Chaffinch - 4 nestlings
Pied Wagtail - 4 nestlings
Willow Warbler - 5
Treecreeper - 5 nestlings
Long-tailed Tit - 2
Great Tit - 70 nestlings
Blackbird - 1
Tawny Owl - 1 + 2 nestlings
Barn Owl - 1
Jackdaw - 1 + 5 nestlings
Mandarin - 1

4th May 2011 - Just a Few Nests

This last week has seen no new netting sessions, partly due to the high wind conditions, but also due to me spending the long weekend staying at Dungeness Bird Observatory!  But, I did manage to do a couple of Blackbird nests this week, one on Duke's Warren (Leith Hill) and another at home, with three (below) and four chicks respectively.

Whilst ringing the nest at Duke's Warren I heard rustling in nearby fallen leaves and on inspection found a Grass Snake had just caught a Frog and was dragging it into the undergrowth whilst trying to swallow it alive!  This was the first time that I had seen a snake kill and luckily had my camera with me to video some of it, but didn't want to disturb it for fear that it would abandon its meal:

I also did another visit to the Heronry at Warnham LNR which proved rather disappointing as only a single Grey Heron chick was ringable and no new nests were found!  This has meant a huge reduction in the population here this year from 26+ nests last year to just ten this.  Don't know any real reason for this, but a couple of possibilities could be increased pressure from the ever more present Buzzards or that there was a high mortality over this harsh winter.

My weekend at Dungeness was planned to have an amount of ringing, birding and time out with friends, this didn't quite pan out.  Although the latter was achieved, ringing was impossible as the wind was so strong, but the wind did make for a fantastic display of spring passage offshore with over 120 Pomarine Skuas, 14,000 Bar-tailed Godwits and lots of Black Terns over the weekend.  Whilst rarity interest came in the form of a Bee-eater which I missed by about five seconds, a Purple Heron which showed well and a Red-rumped Swallow which was found just an hour after I left!!  One of the best sightings though was a young female Badger that was a regular visitor to the back door of the Observatory on most evenings, completely unphased by the over excited people staying:

Birds ringed:
Blackbird - 7 nestlings
Grey Heron - 1 nestling