2009 - What a year!

On New Years Eve 2008 I decided that I would set a target of trying to ring over 1000 birds during 2009 - I'm pleased to say that, after grabbing every opportunity to get out ringing this year, on the 5th May I achieved it!! My 2009 total now stands at 1909 newly ringed birds. It's been a fantastic year not only for me, but also our ringing group (Loghan Hurst - Steve Christmas, Tim Christmas, Wes Halton, & Charles Findlay) as we've had our best year, totals wise, for over 10 years - ringing over 3000 birds.

I must say a few thank-yous, the first being to Steve Christmas for in the first place learning me how to bird ring but also for his encouragement and keeping me supplied with rings throughout the year. Also to Craig Brookes, Ciaran Hatsell and Chris Bridge for keeping me company when out ringing and for the good laughs!!

Must also thank the many landowners who have given us permission in accessing their land this year. And to Tony Wilkinson and Neville Powell from South Manchester Ringing Group and to Dave Fletcher and South West Lancashire Ringing Group for allowing me to carry out ringing in their ringing areas this year.

KB totals 2009.

Happy New Year!

Last day of 2009!

Thought I'd do a little more ringing before the year is out. Started off by netting the feeding stations catching - Blackbird, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Bullfinch, Chaffinch, Robin and Yellowhammer.

Then onto catching a few more Coot, Canada Goose & Mute Swan.

Thanks to Chris Bridge for his help today.

Gulls Galore.

Nice cold day up at Lake Windermere with Craig, Chris and Ciaran today- not many wildfowl around but the gulls were certainly playing ball....

13 new Black Headed Gulls caught, with 1 recap + 3 controls.

2 Coot, 2 Canada Geese and 1 Mallard also ringed.

Bird of the day has to go to a Lesser Black Backed Gull - which took some doing at catching however we eventually pulled it off......

As always, after the 'hardwork' we treated ourselves to a well earned drink.....

Local Coot movements.

Craig has been out today playing with his new Zeiss binoculars and did his spot of 'lunchtime ring-reading' in Stanley Park, Blackpool. Whilst birding he's always on the look out for ringed birds and today he managed to read another one of our Coot rings - GC82204.

Over the last few months, Craig has managed to read 5 Coot metal rings around the Fylde area. Four of these birds where ringed at Southport Marine Lake in 2008 - 3 to Marton Mere <17km>, 1 to Stanley Park <19km>, Blackpool. The other was ringed at Sands Lake, Ainsdale (near Southport) in 2003 and sighted by Craig, in July 09 at Marton Mere <22km>.

Over the last two years we've ringed 366 Coot - so where the other 361 are now is anyone's guess! So any lunchtime ring-reading of our Coot would be most welcome ;-)

At long last!!

I've always wanted to catch and ring a Great Spotted Woodpecker and this morning I got to! Managed to catch the bird along with Bullfinch Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Blue Tit and Great Tit at Shakerley this morning.

Interestingly I caught a 9 year old Great Tit that Wes Halton had ringed near the site in 2001!

Christmas Eve with Craig & Ciaran.

For months we had planned to visit Lake Windermere on Christmas Eve, however at the last minute we had to cancel. It was probably for the best we didn't go as thick snow fell throughout the night. However Craig & Ciaran decided to come down to Manchester to deliver Christmas cards - and so we decided we'd nip up to Crompton Lodges again.

Armed with 8 loafs of bread (for the birds), hot chocolate, whiskey and mince pies (for us!) we arrived to find we had most of the Lake to ourselves and with only us feeding the birds - which were hungry again - we managed to catch 25 birds.

Coot - 9 new / 3 recaps with metal rings which had colour rings added.

Mute Swan - 3 new

Canada Goose - 10 new

Great to see Ciaran back up north for Christmas - he's been working with the RSPB in Norfolk for 4 months.

We also took time to try and read as many Coot colour ring combinations, resulting in 31 rings being read.

However after all the ''hardwork'' we could not resist a sledge on the hills at Crompton Lodges before we left!

On the way home we nipped into the Shakerley feeding station for an hour, catching 19 birds. 15 new + 4 recaps (in brackets).

Blackbird - 6

Bullfinch - 3

Goldfinch - 2 (1)

Blue Tit - 4 (1)

Great Tit - (1)

Robin - (1)

Merry Christmas from us all....

Have you seen Z3G?

There's no stopping him......yes our Whooper Swan yellow Z3G is now on his travels again, after leaving Bowness on Windermere in October he took up residence at Watermead Country Park in Leics - where he made him self quite at home (see the below photos).

He was last seen at Watermead on 17/12/2009 - so where is he now!? If you see a Whooper Swan on your local pond begging for bread - please get in touch!!

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Thanks as always to Julie at Watermead for this information and for the photos.

Cool day for Coots.

The snow fell again during the night, here in Manchester and it's been very cold today, so I thought I would take a trip up to Crompton Lodges in Bolton. Most of the lake had frozen over and the Coot numbers had increased from my last visit. Around 30 Coot have been colour ringed at Crompton this year - however not many of them where around today (only read two ring combinations).

The birds were very hungry, when it's cold the birds are much tamer - so I thought i'd try and catch a few to ring. With it being quite cold - I kept handling to a minimum - so therefore didn't take any biometrics, just ringed the birds / aged and released.

30 birds in total caught - 22 new + 8 recap metal ringed birds which had colour rings added.

108 Coots have been colour ringed since October 2009

Any sightings of these birds can be sent to http://www.ring.ac/ or to kanebrides''@''googlemail.com

New species for the garden!

I don't keep a garden list - but it's always nice to catch a new species in the garden!

Where's the Wood Pigeon?

I was only saying to Steve today, that I had not caught or seen a Wood Pigeon in the garden for quite a while and as soon as one comes in - look what happened!!

Yes...foxed! He managed to catch it underneath the bird feeders this afternoon! Never seen a fox out in daylight....must be the cold! Video of him below....

Another week gone by.....

14/12/2009 - 20/12/2009

79 birds caught - 66 new & 13 recaps in brackets.

Blackbird - 9 (2)

Robin - 2 (1)

Dunnock - 5 (3)

Goldfinch - 16 (1)

Long Tailed Tit - 4

Blue Tit - 3 (4)

Great Tit - 8 (1)

Willow Tit (1)

Wren - 1

Starling - 2

Chaffinch - 3

Bullfinch - 5

Black Headed Gull - 1

Coot - 6 colour ringed.

End of the week!

A nice steady week which didn't go totally to plan - mainly because of Christmas shopping and minding kids! But I did manage to get out for a few days and ended the week with 73 new birds, 7 recaps and 3 controls.

Totals

Coot - 11 new + 3 retraps

Mute Swan - 24 new + 1 control

Tufted Duck - 3 new + 1 control

Mallard - 3 new + 1 recap

Black Headed Gull - 4 new + 1 control

Dunnock - 3 new + 2 recaps

Goldfinch - 17 new + 1 recap

Greenfinch - 2 new

Coal Tit - 1 new

Blue Tit - 1 new

Blackbird - 4 new

All the new + recap Coot have been colour ringed (example below) any sightings of these birds can be sent to http://www.ring.ac.uk/

Many thanks to Stephen Menzie for the above photos & for his help this week.

Bowness Whooper.

Many thanks to swan ringer Julie for catching our Whooper Swan (ZY0349) at Watermead County Park and adding a darvic ring to it. It will now be much eaiser to read his ring ''in the field'' and enable us to keep track of him much more.

Many thanks to all who have been in touch about this bird and provided sightings of it.

Where will he go next?

Thanks to Julie for these photos.

Southport Marine Lake

On 08/12/2008 I spent my lunch hour at Southport Marine Lake, probably my best ever lunch hour, as in that hour I managed to catch, single handedly 45 Coot (40 new, 1 control, 4 recaps). So my mind was wondering whether it would be another good catch there today - however it was not to be! There were not many Coot on the lake today and non were brave enough to be caught. :(

So I met Stephen Menzie there this morning and we caught 13 birds - 8 Mute Swan, 3 Black Headed Gull and 2 Canada geese.

We also met up with John Gramauskas and Chris Tynan at Ainsdale Lake, where John expertly showed us how to catch Tufted Duck!!

Travels..

I've just spent a few days in Spain and got back yesterday, before driving up to Dumfries & Galloway for the night last night, then driving to Cockermouth to visit relations this morning (I'm trying to use up holiday time before the year is out!). I've got this week of work and depending on the weather, I'm trying to get out to do some kind of ringing each day of this week.

Whilst in Cockermouth today, I thought I would visit nearby Whitehaven Harbour to catch Mute Swans. 17 newly ringed birds caught, 3 controls (two from SW Scotland, 1 from Northumberland).

Tomorrow I'm hoping to get to Southport Marine Lake, mainly to try and catch/colour ring Coot......update tomorrow evening.

Brrrrrrrrr!

I thought I would give the feeding station at Shakerley a go this morning. The weather forecast for this morning gave frost, cold and dry and they were bang on! At 06:30 it was -3.

My feeding station there now sits in a small pond, due to the large amount of rain we've had. And whilst I was stood in the middle of it setting the net up, it was then I realised I had a hole in both wellies! Great - wet feet at 7am and it's freezing!!

But I soon forgot all about that when a Sparrowhawk decided to hurtle itself, very kindly into the net! What a corker...

Other birds caught - Blackbird, Robin, Blue Tit, Great Tit and Willow Tit.

Back home - the net is now up in the garden, one new Dunnock caught and a Sparrowhawk has just got out of the net! (Argh!!)

The Coot will be tame at Southport today.....ummm....No there's work to be done!