Back home

With 100% humidity, clearing skies and waterlogged grass underfoot, it was with some trepidation I set out this morning with the intention of ringing. With it being so wet last night (>20mm rain), I swapped sub-sites and went back to the old faithful, "the rough", where I knew I could avoid the worst of the wet.

It took a while to get the nets up as the net loops on these latest ones are smaller and stick easily on wet bamboo. Once up, I erected the net by the feeders, now that the birds had had their dawn feed, the most important for many of them.

Early birds were three more Blackcaps, this time with two males, reversing the recent sex pattern. Plenty of Blue Tits in between and a few more retraps of pulli from our scattered boxes. Finally a burst of Chaffinches, well, just three actually, all birds of the year and one a female.

Scoreboard after roughly two hours:
Blue Tit 4 (10)
Great Tit (1)
Blackcap 3
Wren 1
Robin (2)
Dunnock 1
Chaffinch 3

 One of today's male Chaffinches

A 'long dead' bird was found on a fence post; the B ring was recovered and turned out to be from a House Sparrow that we ringed hereabouts in August 2008 as a juvenile.

Sightings this morning included a Jay, a male and a female Sparrowhawk, two high flying Song Thrushes, a Marsh Tit on the feeder, a Reed Warbler at the top of a tall Ash tree, a passing Goldcrest and a Chiff that refused to be coerced into any net by a tape lure!

Aylesbury Vale - visit 3

They weren't there when we drove in; mind you, it was dark, but even so, I think we would have noticed them! (Sheep)

Our third visit to this 15 year old, "wet", ash/oak woodland. Today was a touch on the blustery side and the nets blew, even though they were somewhat sheltered from the SW'ly wind.
We had our first re-traps today, namely 6 Bushtits, 2 Marsh Tits and a Great Tit, all being birds of the year from our previous visits.

Best bird today was another young Lesser Whitethroat on its way south.

Altogether, we are now up to 118 new birds of 18 species for the site since mid-August.
Today, we added:-
Blue Tit 7 (0) [18]
Great Tit 6 (1) [14]
Marsh Tit . (2) [3]
Long-tailed Bushtit 9 (6) [26]
Lesser Whitethroat 1 (0) [2]
Chiffchaff 2 (0) [14]
Wren 2 (0) [9]
Dunnock 1 (0) [6]
Brackets [] are the individual grand totals to put this catch in context.

I'm afraid the Chiffs, which I find endearing, took backstage today after the Sylvia.

We netted in some different locations today. Our "miss" of the day was a Great Spotted Woodpecker, which would have added another species. It hung on the upper shelf string until we moved to get it. Our intention is to return again in mid-October; maybe another chance?

Last of the summer

Went out ringing this morning, hoping that I might catch a few birds. To see how I got on, go to ...............

http://priorycountrypark.blogspot.com/2010/09/last-of-summer.html

Ladies' Day.

I call this "ladies' day" because of the number of female Blackcaps that I caught today at Priory. I didn't go early because of the dripping fog, but waited until 9 o'clock (BST). Most of the birds were caught during the next two hours whilst it was still rather "overcast". Thereafter, the sun appeared, albeit with fluffy, summer clouds.

Today's "bit of fluff".

A rather typical 'early autumn' day, with many of the migrants well on their way south, leaving just a few late broods to fatten up before taking off on their own migrations. There are other migrants from "up north" around but we don't get many of them here as they seem to prefer the Ivel valley (runs north-south) or the slopes of the Chilterns.

24 birds today wasn't a bad count - 50% Blackcaps was the main attraction. Put another way, six times more than were actually seen/recorded at the outset by my friend, DK.  Today's effort brought the total of new Blackcaps caught at this site this year to 71, just 17 short of last year's total, but a massive 36 short of the all-time winner, 107 in 1994!

Female Blackcap #415, wl 75.5mm, wt 21.8g, 1ogc, F3.5, M2. Today's fattest.

The full list for today comprised:
Chiffchaff - 2
Blackcap - 12, 10 of these were females!
C.Whitethroat - 1
Wren - 1
Blackbird - 1
Song Thrush - 1, (1)
Robin - 1, (1)
Dunnock - 2
Greenfinch - 1


Many of the young birds, other than the Blackcaps, were in early PJ moult and some had still not started.

 3JM Blackbird #080 in full juvenile livery.

The only adult birds were two of the female Blackcaps and a male Chiffchaff (with an abietinus call). The Common Whitethroat looked as good as any adult of the species.

Whitethroat #414 with juvenile eye colour, weighed in at 17.0g (F3,M1)

9 out of 10

That was what today was, 9 out of 10! A bloody good days ringing, ably assisted by Ed.
54 birds of 15 species in all ... and no retraps. We worked for it mind. Up and away by 04:30, on site 50 miles away by 06:00 and nets up before 07:00. First bird to be extracted was a year tick for me but not for Ed - Gr'opper!

Gr'opper - first bird of the day, whichever way you like.

While we were waiting for things to get going, we looked over the laid hedge and counted the Yellow Wagtails in the horse paddocks. We couldn't see all of the grass (hidden by the hedge further along and the rising ground) but we counted 30 (THIRTY) and suspected there were more. Later on in the morning we recounted and both times saw at least 20. Mega! Haven't seen that many at once inland for many a moon.

An early surprise was a young Goldcrest (well, Ed said it was) and later on Ed got his prize, an unringed Marsh Tit. He's done them before at Jenny's but they were all retraps. Just 1 Willow today and also a lone Blackcap. Then it was my turn. One had been calling in the large Poplars but moved off west, so it was a delighted me when I took a Nuthatch out. I haven't ringed one (but have processed) for well over 15 years, mainly because we are on the edge of the range and generally ringing in the wrong habitat. I just love those undertail coverts!

Nuthatch UTC

We caught just 5 adults all day, if you disregard the Bushtit 'grown ups'. Quite a few, probably the majority, of the juveniles were very young and still undergoing a PJ moult and carrying nil fat. The Blue and Great Tits were more advanced and all were coming to an end - just the heads giving the game away - instantly.

Here it is then, the list:-
Green Woodpecker - seen today [1]
Goldcrest - 1 [1]
Blue Tit - 7 [11]
Great Tit - 3 [8]
Marsh Tit - 1 [3]
Long-tailed Bushtit - 14 [17]
Chiffchaff - 8 [12]
Willow Warbler - 1 [6]
Blackcap - 1 [2]
Garden Warbler - absent today? [1]
Les. Whitethroat - 1 seen today [1]
C.Whitethroat - 2 [4]
Grasshopper Warbler - 1 [1]
Nuthatch - 1 [1]
Wren - 7 [7]
Robin - 2 [2]
Dunnock - 1 [5]
Bullfinch - 4 [7]

Todays 'best buy' - 8 Chiffchaffs

The figures in brackets [90] are the total of our two visits to this new site at the headwaters of the River Ray. The nets have been in different locations so far; we are still "exploring".

Home at 16:30 - after chatting to the site manager and the county Biodiversity Officer responsible for the R.Ray catchment enhancements. A 12 hour day. And worth it.

PS. If Ed's got some better pics, I'll post them later.