We’ve spent today mooching around downtown Reykjavik and we couldn’t resist a visit to Tjörnin Lake in the centre for a spot of gull ring reading!
Tjörnin is a gull catcher/grabber/ring readers paradise with lots of Lesser Black Backed Gulls on the look out for free food & coming within feet of the offering hands!
Two LBBG rings read – Y512 & YK14.
Now off to the airport to catch our flight north……………
So we’ve survived our 10 day trip to Flatey Island and seeing as though Flatey Island ringing activities have been featured on this blog many times before! I’ve decided to leave it up to the newcomers of ‘Team Flatey GB’ to detail this years trip!
The famous Manx Ringing Duo – Sean Gray & Kev Scott – joined Chris & myself on this years ringing expedition and both have created two excellent videos of the trip, which I think sums it all up!!
Kev’s video.
Sean’s video.
Here’s some highlights -
Capturing Puffins by locating birds in nesting burrows & fleyg netting - yielded a number of new & recapped birds including this bird (above) carrying a datalogger, attached in 2008 to determine the birds wintering areas.
Capturing adult Snipe on the nest & ringing pulli before leaving the nest.
Surveying Kittiwake breeding productivity, ringing chicks & capturing adults by noosing or fleyging.
Another successful year for flick netting adult Red Necked Phalarope & ringing pulli, with 71 birds ringed.
Ringing a Grey Phalarope chick & marvelling over their smart looking parents!
Flick netting Snow Buntings with 10 adults captured.
Kev holding a Puffin
Sean with a Kittiwake.
2011’s Ringing Team
Sverri, Sean, Mattis Aevar, Kev, Aevar, Chris & Me.
All that is left for me to say is thanks to both Sean & Kev for joining us this year & to Aevar Petersen and Sverrir Thorstensen for having us all along! It’s been another successful trip with other 1100 new birds ringed of 18 species.
Me & Chris are now in central Reykjavik preparing to fly North in the next few days to capture & ring Whooper Swans for WWT’s ongoing research work…………
Over the last two weeks I’ve been frantically rushing through reed-beds, up & down ladders to monitor boxes & ringing the last remaining pulli for what will be the end of my 2011 pulli season! It’s that time of the year again when I pack everything away & head on up north for my annual seabird, wader & Whooper swan fix in Iceland!
So I thought now would be an appropriate time to update the blog on this years Nest Record Totals.
| Species | Number of NRC’s |
| Barn Owl | 2 |
| Blackbird | 11 |
| Blackcap | 2 |
| Blue Tit | 36 |
| Canada Goose | 2 |
| Chaffinch | 5 |
| Collared Dove | 5 |
| Coot | 8 |
| Dunnock | 1 |
| Goldfinch | 1 |
| Grasshopper Warbler | 1 |
| Greenfinch | 2 |
| Great Tit | 24 |
| Kestrel | 2 |
| Lapwing | 4 |
| Lesser Whitethroat | 1 |
| Long Eared Owl | 1 |
| Long-tailed Tit | 1 |
| Mallard | 1 |
| Moorhen | 5 |
| Mute Swan | 2 |
| Nuthatch | 1 |
| Reed Bunting | 1 |
| Reed Warbler | 62 |
| Robin | 6 |
| Song Thrush | 2 |
| Sparrowhawk | 1 |
| Spotted Flycatcher | 1 |
| Stock Dove | 3 |
| Swallow | 14 |
| Tawny Owl | 2 |
| Treecreeper | 2 |
| Tree Sparrow | 68 |
| Whitethroat | 2 |
| Wood Pigeon | 4 |
| Wren | 3 |
| 36 Species | 288 |
All that was left to do yesterday was to ring a brood of Long Eared Owl, check the status of a Collared Dove nest, update IPMR & submit this years data to the BTO.
Surprisingly all five chicks were big enough for ringing, with the smallest on the far right just being big enough to hold the G ring! Our mate Ciaran on the far left who’s home from the Farne Islands for his brothers graduation (Congratulations Cal!) managed to spare us a few hours (the whole day actually!) for a good catch up! Really nice to see him home back in the great NW!
Cheers to Zac for the use of his camera/photos!
So that’s it now for the next 6 weeks! I shall be out in Iceland for four of them, before flying back home (for two days!) and flying onto Russia for two weeks! So I shall blog about my trips on my return.
So long………
Up and out very early this morning, driving to South Wales to join our colleague Gillian Dinsmore at the annual Llangorse Canada Goose round-up!
Canoes rounding up the flightless geese, that are undergoing their annual moult.
Over the past few years I’ve recovered a small handful of Llangorse ringed Canada Geese in the NW! The group receives some impressive recoveries from this species, a handful of them can be viewed under the Canada Goose section here, here & here.
I’ve always wanted to join in & help on Llangorse RG’s roundups. So I was over the moon when I got the chance to take part in this today!
Chris, Gillian, Zac & Me (behind the camera!) waiting to help with the roundup process….. getting a little wet, but something we’re very much use to!
Together with the canoeist and other members of the processing team, the birds are corralled.
Birds being ushered to the holding pens.
And the ringing begins!
409 Canada geese caught & processed, a fantastic day with cracking weather!! Our thanks go to Jerry Lewis of the Llangorse RG for allowing us to be involved!
Gillian being our latest member of the team, here looking after her ‘boys’ and being mother by providing lunch, drink and much needed malteaser chocolate cake!
