The Met. men start off their summer statistics from today - but the gardeners will wait another three weeks until the summer solstice before they agree on that. At least we shouldn't get any frosts for the next three months. Cold rain, gales, low cloud perhaps!
The birds are either busy nesting, i.e. sitting on eggs for the first or even second time, or trying to find enough food to satisfy their hungry chicks, or even trying to educate their flying offspring in the ways of this very human dominated world. This gives us ringers a warm feeling, as we should be kept very busy ringing the next generations at this time.
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| Pullus Blue Tit - ca. 10-11 days old (May 2015) |
We had a trip to the Field Studies Centre, ostensibly to ring some tits in a box. Unfortunately five eggs didn't hatch, leaving just three pulli alive. The cold weather and the rain that washed many of the insects off the trees have certainly caused their stunted
growth; they would normally have been much further advanced by this time. We played around with some potential net sites and were comforted with a further eight adult birds, including the mother of the chicks. It's all mod-con here! |
| Nettlecombe base |
The Jackdaws are coming "en masse" every morning as soon as I put out the suet pellets on the several bird tables. They are quite acrobatic and manoeuvre around the nets and other obstructions quite intelligently. One, maybe two, got caught out but I was unable to retrieve any for ringing this time. Slippery as an eel!
The "bright spot" of the last fortnight has to be the large number of House Sparrows caught, now amounting to 77 'new-for-year' individuals.
In all, we ringed 82 new birds, 11 of these at Nettlecombe, and handled another 42 separate birds.
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| Recently fledged 'spotty' Dunnock. |
Collared Dove - 1; an early youngster starting wing moult
Jackdaw - 0; nearly but not good enough
Goldcrest - 1; adult female with a classic "club" tail
Blue Tit - 9 (1); elderly male from 2011
Swallow - 1;
Wren - 2 (1);
Starling - 3 (2); a single juvenile so far
Blackbird - 3 (7); a third juvenile male and nine adults
Robin - 5 (6); 7, 4 new, were juvs.
Dunnock - 9 (1); 9 youngsters and a 2CY female (caught 3 times)
House Sparrow - 23 (10); 27 young birds ringed so far in 2015
Chaffinch - 3 (1); 3 juvs, the first on 25th
Greenfinch - 8 (4); 6 new & 2 recaptured juveniles; oldest bird ringed as adult male in November 2012
Goldfinch - 11 (8); 10 new juveniles to add to the 6 already ringed;
oldest bird was an immature when ringed in November 2012
oldest bird was an immature when ringed in November 2012
Siskin - 3;
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| A 'this year's' Siskin |
The little Blue Tit is so small and vurerable looking.
ReplyDeleteSlow growth this year but they did all fledge in the end.
DeleteCatching the local spadgers has to be a good result. Here they melt away at the sight of nets.
ReplyDeleteWrong breakfast menu, perhaps. They can't resist a 'pig-out'.
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