Fieldfare and Siskins Return

Another week and another two sessions on Leith Hill producing another wealth of Redpolls (a cracking adult male Common below).  Wednesday being the first non-foggy day for almost a week and a half produced another 39 with a supporting cast of four Chaffinch which seemed to be of northern origin and a few Goldcrest - including a first year male with a huge wing length of 58.5mm, well outside the accepted size for this species.

The second visit yesterday morning was much more productive with 101 new birds which included 12 Goldcrest and 43 Redpoll, but was highlighted by a Great-spotted Woodpecker (below top two), my first Fieldfare of the year (below bottom three) and 22 Siskin.

The woodpecker is an obvious first year bird and is showing a huge amount of bleaching and wear on the older feathers.  The Siskins were a real surprise as there have been very few about recently and I have only caught 12 since the beginning of October (seven new and five retraps).  They were all coming to nyger which is usually not started in earnest until the New Year when the natural food starts to become scarcer.  Only the next few weeks will tell!

Also today another control Redpoll was caught Y439009 and the following recoveries were received:

Y443956 - Redpoll ringed on 29.10.11 at Queen Mary Reservoir, Surrey and controlled on 16.11.11 at Leith Hill 18 days and 27km SE later.

DHC979 - Goldcrest ringed on 16.10.11 at Hardham, Sussex and controlled on 17.10.11 at Leith Hill one day and 29km NE later.  This was a great movement for such a little bird in just one day, and seemingly in the wrong direction for autumn migration!

Birds ringed:

Common (Mealy) Redpoll - 65
Lesser Redpoll - 3
Redpoll sp. - 14
Chaffinch - 5
Blue Tit - 12
Great Tit - 6
Robin - 1
Siskin - 22
Wren - 4
Goldcrest - 20
Redwing - 2
Fieldfare - 1
Great-spotted Woodpecker - 1

Redpolls Continue and Recoveries

Two very foggy sessions at Leith Hill over the last week saw another couple of hits of Redpolls, again mainly Mealies (a couple of pictures of variation below), with a supporting cast of Redwing, Goldcrest, Chaffinch and a few Tits.

A couple of controls were also caught L623717, X816840 and Y443956 and received a few more recoveries as follows:

5256658 Canada Goose - ringed as a juvenile in Regent's Park, London on 4th July 2010 and seen by Jake Everitt at Warnham LNR on 3rd November 2011 - 487 days, 52km SSW

DHX336 Goldcrest - ringed as a 1st year male at Lancing College, Sussex on 6th November 2010 and caught at Leith Hill on 31st December 2010 - 55 days, 38km N

T400793 Great Tit - ringed as a 1st year female at Gomshall, Surrey on 20th December 2005 and caught in my Warnham garden on 18th September 2010 - 1733 days, 15km SSE

L852356 Lesser Redpoll - ringed as a 1st year at Easter Inch Moss, Blackburn, West Lothian on 27th August 2011 and caught at Leith Hill on 30th September 2011 - 34 days, 565km SSE

Birds ringed:
Chaffinch - 8
Common (Mealy) Redpoll - 35
Lesser Redpoll - 10
Redpoll sp. - 18
Blue Tit - 3
Great Tit - 3
Coal Tit - 1
Goldcrest - 11
Redwing - 1

Woodcock and Rye Bay

A phone call from Jake on Monday 7th November, began 'How quickly can you get to Warnham LNR?'  I was luckily able to go and within ten minutes I was there and arrived to find Jake holding a box that he had been given by a local resident.  I quickly learned that the box contained a Woodcock (below by Jake Everritt) that the residents cat had brought into the house!  Although the bird was slightly shell shocked, it was completely unharmed so I ringed it, took a few photos and then released it.

The following day saw another session up on Leith Hill although with a much reduced amount of Redpolls present catching just 15.  One of which was a retrap from the previous winter ringed here on 1st February 2011 which shows winter site fidelity.  Other highlights were two male Chaffinch probably of a more northern origin, four Redwing and two continental male Blackbirds (below).

note thin yellow orbital ring and dark bill

note grey scalloped edges to breast and belly feasthers

Then I spent this weekend in ringing luxury with the Rye Bay Ringing Group at Icklesham.  The new accommodation here is great and a vast improvement on the caravans of the past.  The birds didn't disappoint either with about 600 new birds over Saturday and Sunday which is exceptional for this time of year.  The highlights were a Water Rail, a Teal (below top), three Firecrests, Meadow Pipits, the first Ring Ouzel here since 2005 (below bottom), c250 Redpolls, c40 Siskin and four species of warbler (Chiffchaff, Blackcap, a very late Whitethroat and two late Reed Warbler).

The incredibly warm and sunny weather on Sunday saw a good number of butterflies and dragonflies and the most unexpected catch of the weekend.  As I was checking one of the rides I flushed a dragonfly that was sunning itself into one of the nets.  As I got it out of the net I realised it was something different and after further investigation it turned out to be a female VAGRANT EMPEROR!!!  Although there have been a number of sightings this year there have only been about 20 records for Britain prior of this Mediterranean species (below).

note whitish frons and brown eyes

note sitting position and yellow blotch within wing

To finish, I had a short session in my garden this morning catching 53 new birds including a Coal Tit, 11 Goldfinch, a Treecreeper and four Dunnock.

Birds ringed (not including Rye Bay):
Robin - 2
Redpoll - 14
Chaffinch - 5
Blue Tit - 28
Coal Tit - 1
Goldfinch - 11
Great Tit - 3
Dunnock - 4
Wren - 1
Goldcrest - 6
Treecreeper - 1
Greenfinch - 2
Redwing - 4
Blackbird - 2
Woodcock - 1

Redpolls and Recoveries

Another successful ringing session at Leith Hill on 29th Oct produced another 88 Redpolls taking the Leith Hill Redpoll tally for the year to 645!  Continuing the theme of the last month at least 46 of these were Common (Mealy) Redpolls.

A further session on 31st Oct was cut short due to the onset of rain with just nine birds caught which involved another Redpoll, a Redwing, seven Goldcrest and a very late Chiffchaff (below) which was possibly the same bird that was seen here on 29th.

Birds ringed:
Blue Tit - 6
Great Tit - 2
Redpoll - 39
Common Redpoll - 46
Lesser Redpoll - 4
Chaffinch - 2
Chiffchaff - 1
Goldcrest - 7
Redwing - 1

Also received a few recoveries this week as follows:

L991303 Blue Tit ringed as a juvenile on 5th Jul 2011 at Gomshall, Surrey and controlled on 10th Oct 2011 in Rhododendron Wood, Leith Hill 6km away.

X317180 Blue Tit ringed as a first-year on 12th Oct 2008 at Warnham LNR, Sussex and taken by a cat on 7th Oct 2011 in Horsham, Sussex 2km away.

DJB232 Chiffchaff ringed as a juvenile on 18th Jun 2010 at Warnham LNR, Sussex and controlled on 3rd Aug 2011 at Weir Wood Reservoir, Sussex 22km away.

X969143 Blackcap ringed as a first-year female on 21st Sep 2009 at Chesworth Farm, Horsham and controlled on 23rd Jul 2011 at Cissbury Ring, Sussex 21km away.

Also, Sue Cocker found Canada Goose 5256306 at Southwater Country Park on 15th Sep 2011 which had been ringed on 6th Jul 2009 as a juvenile at Wimbledon Park, London 48km away.

Siskins Return and Common Redpolls Continue

Just ten new birds caught at home on Saturday morning showing that there is still not much coming to my feeders!  This involved a Dunnock, six Goldfinch, a Song Thrush, a Blue Tit and amazingly a Common (Mealy) Redpoll!  This was a first for my garden and was a very pristine immature male (below).

My next visit to Leith Hill with Martin again produced a bounty of Redpolls although much reduced from last week.  A total of 34 Redpoll were caught of which 32 were Commons and just two were Lesser and one of these Lessers was a retrap from 28th Sep which was only the second caught this autumn.  Same site retraps of this species are uncommon in autumn and winter because they are generally moving areas all the time in search of food.  A selection of photos of these Commons are shown below:

Bird1 - Adult male

Bird 1 - Adult male

Bird 2 - 1st winter

Bird 3 - Unaged

Bird 3 - Unaged

Other species caught included 11 Goldcrests, two Long-tailed Tit and after a couple of weeks absence five Siskin.  These were all first year birds and four of which were retraps having been originally ringed here on different dates between 22nd August and 27th September.

Birds ringed:
Dunnock - 1
Goldfinch - 6
Blue Tit - 5
Common Redpoll - 33
Lesser Redpoll - 1
Great Tit - 1
Goldcrest - 11
Long-tailed Tit - 2
Song Thrush - 2

Common Redpoll Galore

An amazing morning on Leith Hill which started with my first two Redwing of the winter (below), typically being adults as the first arrivals.  Crests also had a good showing with 18 Goldcrest and another Firecrest.

But the highlight was another onslaught of Redpolls, but this time I was able to devote more time and caught 134 by 10am!  Although this was a huge count what was more amazing was that 112 were Common Redpoll (below)!  I was very grateful to have Martin Gray and Wes Attridge with me so that we could discuss the finer points of this species ID. 

Adult Male Common Redpoll

Common Redpoll with Lesser Redpoll

Lesser Redpoll with Common Redpoll

This sudden arrival of this species was quite unexpected as the normal trend is for them to migrate over from Scandinavia to the Northern Isles and the north east coast and steadily more south, but this hasn't happened.  The only other place to have been catching large numbers of this species is Dungeness Bird Observatory where they have been catching them since 15th October so are these birds arriving from the south-east?  Another interesting confusion was that the majority of these birds were unusually smaller and variably coloured compared to the standard fare for this species to the point where there is a greater resemblance to Lesser Redpoll.  This is also the same as birds caught at Dungeness (pictures here) and starts thoughts as to the origins of these birds.

One of the few Lesser Redpoll caught was already bearing the ring L977558.

Sightings during the morning included 120+ Fieldfare, 1 Woodlark, 100 Crossbill, 2 Woodcock, 5 Brambling and 200+ Redpoll.

Birds ringed:
Redwing - 2
Goldcrest - 18
Firecrest - 1
Robin - 1
Blue Tit - 1
Lesser Redpoll - 20
Common Redpoll - 112
Redpoll sp. - 1

A Morning to Remember

Just a quick posting about this mornings visit to Leith Hill which was cut short due to the large number of birds present.  As I put up the two nets just prior to first light I was not expecting to have finished after the first net round!

On returning to the nets they had been swarmed mainly by Redpolls and Goldcrests and just shy of 100 birds were caught!  Myself and helper Colin set to work extracting and closing the nets as we went and in the end we caught 94 birds.  This included 71 Redpoll including one retrap from 14th Oct and 16 Goldcrest including a British control DHC979.

This part of Leith Hill was absolutely alive with birds with sightings including c200 Redpoll, c100 Siskin, c100 Crossbill, 10 Meadow Pipit, 1 Wheatear, 5 Skylark, 50+ Goldcrest, c100 Redwing and 2 Fieldfare.

Birds ringed (retraps/controls):
Redpoll - 70 (1)
Great Tit - 1
Chaffinch - 1
Blue Tit - 3
Siskin - (1)
Goldcrest - 15 (1)
Long-tailed Tit - 1 (1)

International Control

Within the last ten days I have done five ringing sessions to try to make the most of the abundant autumn migration and managed to avoid the really windy conditions.

On Leith Hill the large influx of Lesser Redpoll continued with another 65 caught over two visits along with just six Siskin, four Goldcrest, nine Long-tailed Tit and a Firecrest (above) amount others.  Whilst the highlight was a Lesser Redpoll that had been originally ringed in Belgium 11535633 (below) - my first international control that I have caught.  A third visit to Leith Hill was too windy, so I relocated to the sheltered Rhododendron Wood where a Nuthatch, five Goldcrest and 25 Blue and Great Tit were caught in an hour and half as well as a control Blue Tit L991303.

The two other ringing sessions were in my home garden catching 91 new birds of which 46 were Blue and Great Tit, 14 Goldfinch, two Song Thrush, eight Goldcrest, 13 Greenfinch and probably my last three Chiffchaff of the year.

Birds ringed:
Lesser Redpoll - 65
Siskin - 6
Blue Tit - 51
Dunnock - 3
Goldfinch - 14
Great Tit - 28
Chaffinch - 1
Wren - 5
Goldcrest - 17
Chiffchaff - 3
Firecrest - 1
Long-tailed Tit - 9
Greenfinch - 13
Nuthatch - 1
Blackbird - 1
Song Thrush - 2

Firepoll

What a difference a week makes!  Three short pre-work sessions at Leith Hill proved very productive with 165 new birds caught.  The 28th September visit produced the first ten Lesser Redpoll of the autumn, along with two Siskin, a male Nuthatch and large counts of nine Goldcrest and 14 Chiffchaff.  The Nuthatch which was caught had a very interesting head colouring that comprised a lot of white/creamy plumage along and behind the eye, which I had never seen before (below).

Two days later I caught six more Goldcrest, eight Siskin and 57 Lesser Redpoll and was highlighted by a control Lesser Redpoll L852356, while session three on 3rd October caught another 51 Lesser Redpoll.  Both of these sessions had to finish early as there were at least another 100 Lesser Redpoll were circling about the nets and would have been too much to handle.  In total 118 new Lesser Redpoll were ringed and there was a huge variety in the plumage, but there was also an interesting variation in the colour of the 'poll' (the forehead). All but three had a red poll  of variable shades from blood red to soft red (below top).  Two birds had what I and others refer to as a golden poll (below middle) which I have seen a number of times before, but another had what I could only describe as a 'firepoll' which was half and half (below bottom).  I can't think of how this has been caused or whether this has been seen before!

Adult male Lesser Redpoll

A day at home on 2nd October produced 28 new birds which included another Coal Tit, Goldcrest, Chiffchaff, two Nuthatch, eight Greenfinch, three Wren and a Blackcap.  Also caught a control adult female Goldfinch L614106.

Interestingly, over the last 6 or 7 weeks there has been a huge decrease of birds coming to feeders at home and at a number of gardens up on Leith Hill, especially tits and finches.  Where have they all gone, are they making the most of the availability of natural food, have they moved further afield or have they suffered the worst?

Birds ringed:
Lesser Redpoll - 118
Siskin - 10
Blue Tit - 3
Coal Tit - 1
Robin - 1
Chaffinch - 1
Blackcap - 1
Great Tit - 2
Goldfinch - 3
Dunnock - 1
Chiffchaff - 18
Goldcrest - 16
Wren - 4
Nuthatch - 3
Greenfinch - 8
Song Thrush - 1
Blackbird - 1

128 Birds Later

The last two weeks has gone by so fast and with a hectic work load of late have not kept up with the blog!  But I have still managed to do some ringing with four sessions at home and three sessions at Leith Hill which totalled 128 birds.

The sessions at home produced mainly Blue Tits and Great Tits, but a few highlights included the first Coal Tit here for the autumn (above), nine Goldfinch, six Long-tailed Tits, a Blackcap, a Goldcrest and two Chiffchaff.  Meadow Pipit migration is is full swing, but although I attempted to catch some of these on each session unfortunately came up with a big fat zero!  Will keep trying.  An interesting catch was a juvenile Greenfinch which had a partial amount of wing moult, having moulted primary feathers 5 and 6 with primary 4 just coming through (below)

At Leith Hill, I continued to try to catch some of the migrant Siskin that are coming through, but as with the Meadow Pipits, this proved far harder than expected as after three sessions only managed to catch eight!  One of these juveniles (below) looked as though it could have been a bird of northern origin as it had a darker plumage than the local birds and was further behind in its moult. Considering there were large numbers around including a flock of over 300, this was really poor, but they all seemed to be focusing on eating natural food instead of coming to feeders.  Although the Siskins weren't present in numbers ringing included 17 Chiffchaff and 7 Goldcrest.  Other migrants over Leith Hill included a few Woodlark, Yellow Wagtail, Tree Pipit, lots of Swallow and House Martin, but highlights were a Marsh Harrier and a Honey Buzzard.

Birds ringed:
Blue Tit - 40
Great Tit - 14
Coal Tit - 3
Dunnock - 4
Siskin - 8
Chaffinch - 2
Robin - 3
Goldfinch - 9
Blackcap - 1
Goldcrest - 8
Wren - 4
Long-tailed Tit - 6
Chiffchaff - 19
Greenfinch - 5
Blackbird - 1
Song Thrush - 1