First interchange between studies!

Several weeks back Chris Batty sighted a cr-ringed Coot at Preston Docks & reported it to me. However it seemed the bird was missing a colour ring & therefore we couldn’t pin this down as an individual. So mentioning this to Ciaran, who lives nearby – he was sent on a challenge to try & read it’s BTO ring, easier said than done at Preston Docks!!

However after much bread throwing this morning, Ciaran managed to persuade the bird out onto the ice & after several attempts he managed to read the metal ring – GC59952, not a metal ring we recognised!

A quick e-mail to our ‘‘Coot Colleagues’’ Craig Ralston & Steve Huddleston in Yorkshire, who also cr-ring Coot, revealed that it was one of their birds! The first interchange between the two studies & hopefully not the last!!

Blue – North Duffield, Red – Preston = 117km

GC59952 had been ringed on 23/10/2008 on autumn passage as a juv female at North Duffield Carrs in the Lower Derwent Valley NNR, south east of York!

Many thanks to Chris for the original sighting, to Ciaran for putting the effort in (well done!) and to Craig & Steve for the ringing information.

Coot Movements.

Photo taken by Steve Seal

Now we’ve loaded all the latest Coot data into IPMR, we can now update the blog on some of the recent & interesting movements, that were noted during the cold snap.

GC87855 – 4M 29/10/09 – Hill Top Walkden, Grt Manchester.

30/10/09 - Hill Top Walkden

09/01/10 – Crompton Lodges, 2km NNE.

30/08/10 – Hill Top, Walkden

03/12/10 – Stanley Park, Blackpool – 51km NW

GR05424 – 6 11/01/2010 – Southport, Merseyside.

10/10/10 – Netherley, Merseyside – 19km S

12/10/10 – Stanley Park, Blackpool – 19km N

03/12/10 – Southport Marine Lake – 326 days.

GR05471 – 6M 12/01/2010 – Southport, Merseyside.

21/01/10 – Birstall, Leicester – 167km 9 days

04/02/10 – Birstall, Leicester.

03/12/10 – Southport Marine Lake – 325 days.

GR05851 – 6M 07/02/10 – Redesmere, Cheshire.

20/03/10 – Redesmere – 41 days.

30/11/10 – Sefton Park, Liverpool, 50km WNW 296 days.

GR25171 – 4 12/11/2010 – Pennington Flash, Manchester

01/12/10 – Seaforth, Merseyside – 32km W 19 days.

GR25179 – 4 16/11/2010 – Ainsdale Lake, Nr Southport.

29/11/2010 – Doffcocker, Manchester – 37km E 13 days.

Photo taken by Tony Disley.

GR25043 – 4 30/11/2010 – Southport, Merseyside.

02/12/10 – WWT Martin Mere – 10km ESE 2 days.

GR25056 – 4 30/11/2010 – Southport, Merseyside

11/12/10 – Preston Docks – 21km ENE 11days

GR25270 – 4 03/12/2010 – Southport, Merseyside

08/12/10 – Seaforth, Merseyside – 20km S 5 days

Many thanks to everyone who has reported colour ringed Coot over the last few weeks….

500th Coot of the year!

Well we certainly didn’t think that this would be todays’ blog title, so soon after blogging about ringing our 300th bird! But with catching conditions nigh on perfect this week, along with stacks full of enthusiasm, we’ve managed to ring over 200 new Coot during the last 5 days. Of the 235, 106 of these were newly ringed today at Southport Marine Lake.

With the cold snap continuing, it was important for us to keep handling of the birds to a minimum. Therefore birds were caught, colour ringed, wing measured & released, as quickly as possible to ensure no unnecessary stress was placed upon the birds.

Most of the catching this week was carried at Southport Marine Lake (209 new birds), with a small amount of catching being done in Greater Manchester (15 new birds). Southport is especially good for catching Coot, when the weather is cold, since it holds a large wintering population but twinned with incoming birds from local lakes & ponds when they freeze over.

When not ringing the birds, our time & attention was devoted to reading colour combinations of previously ringed birds. This proved worthwhile since we’ve recorded several returning birds and/or cold weather movements, which we’ll blog about soon.

Other birds caught whilst out ringing this week were 5 Black Headed Gull & 3 controls, 2 Tufted Duck, 3 Canada geese & 1 Gadwall.

Since the start of the project in October 2009, over 750 Coot have been individually colour ringed at a number of sites, across the North West. The use of colour rings, has certainly emphasised the need to place additional marks, other than a standard metal ring on this species. The sightings of these colour marked birds have certainly increased the annual Coot recovery rate for 2010.

Subsequently we are beginning to understand more about the movements of this understudied & often overlooked species.

With thanks to – all ringers involved, especially Ciaran, John Gramauskas for loaning us his colour rings, when we were short! Len Golby & Steve Irwin at Southport Marine Lake for their kind assistance. And to Craig Brookes for driving 90 miles to collect BTO rings when we were running low!!

and finally thanks to Tesco for their value bread!

Starling RAS project gets underway.

With permission to colour ring Starlings sorted this week, along with the colour rings arriving this morning – I’ve just stuck a net up in the garden, and within minutes the first bird kindly volunteered herself to be participant number 1.

I’m not actually carrying out the RAS fieldwork until 2011, for a number of reasons. But I’m colour marking the birds this year to get as many marked individuals into the local breeding population.

Colourful Coots.

Today will probably be the last Coot catching session for some time - since it's not as cold, the days are getting longer + most birds seem to have moved onto breeding grounds.

I thought it would be worth while taking stock on the project so far.

A total of 342 birds have been colour ringed - from November 2009 to March 2010. Of these 310 were new birds at the time of ringing and 32 were birds either recaptured or controlled and had colour rings added. These colour ringed birds have generated 459 re-sightings, either at the ringing site or within the local area. At the moment we've had one sighting of a bird that had travelled over 100km from the ringing site (see here).

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More birds will soon be dispersing to summering & breeding grounds - so any sightings of colour ringed birds would be gratefully received. Sightings can be sent to me at kanebrides(AT)googlemail.com - all sightings will be acknowledged with full ringing & re sighting information on the bird/s observed.

I'd like to thank all the ringers who have helped me fit colour rings and also to everyone who has supplied sightings of colour marked birds.

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Many thanks to Andy Harmer for allowing me to use these two photos - http://www.btinternet.com/~andyharmer/

Astley Moss.

A nice morning out with Steve today on Astley Moss. Three nets set resulting in 30 birds being caught - 24 new & 6 recap (in brackets)

Yellowhammer - 8 (2)

Reed Bunting - 8

Greenfinch - 1

Chaffinch - 1

Dunnock - 2 (1)

Tree Sparrow - 2

Blackbird - (2)

Great Tit - (1)

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End of week totals.

A good week with 89 birds handled - 76 new, 12 recap and 1 control.

Wren - 1
Goldfinch - 7 new + 1 recap
Chaffinch - 4
Greenfinch - 1
Bullfinch - 2
Willow Tit - 1 new + 2 recap
Blue Tit - 5 new
Great Tit - 3 new + 2 recap
Dunnock - 1
Blackbird - 1
Jay - 1
Tufted Duck - 2
Coot - 35 new + 2 recap
Canada Goose - 10 new + 5 recap
Mute Swan - 2
Black Headed Gull - 1 Norwegian control.

37 Coot colour ringed this week.

Twite

Met up with Sean Gray at 07:15am at his Whiteholme Twite ringing site. A cracking morning, lovely sunshine and very little wind at first. After setting up and retreating back to the car, a small number of Twite started to appear. They appeared a little timid and their main interest seemed to be displaying to one another!


A single (colour ringed) bird entered the catching area and Sean quickly pulled the cord. After extraction and recording rings etc it turned out to be a lovely adult female.


Many thanks to Sean for inviting me along and thanks for the good laugh, coffee and pulling my car out!!!! Cheers...

Sean's blog - http://www.training-to-ring-birds.blogspot.com/