Luxury Ringing!

Several weeks ago Kieran Foster of Merseyside RG, had an e-mail from a member of the public, who wanted some Redpoll ringing in his garden. So Kieran passed on their details to us, as we where the nearest ringers to their Worsley garden.

Today we were invited along to Michael & Mary’s garden to place a single 30ft net up in front of their feeders and before too long the Redpoll arrived & the nets started to fill.

 

In total 84 birds were caught & processed of a good variety of species, including 37 Lesser Redpoll.

Species	Total
Lesser Redpoll	37
Goldfinch	2
Greenfinch	1
Blue Tit	18
Coal Tit	4
Great Tit	3
Long T Tit	7
Blackcap	1
Robin	2
Starling	2
House Sparrow	4
Blackbird	2
Collard Dove	1
	84

 

Watching the nets from the comfort & warmth of Michael & Mary’s house, being fuelled by several cups of tea & coffee – was a perfect way to end the year…

 

Thanks to both Michael & Mary for having us along. And to Kieran for putting us in touch…

Coot to Cornwall!

I received an e-mail from Nigel Climpson this afternoon, with a sighting of a cr-ringed Coot - which makes it our furthest mover since the start of the project!!

Pink,BTO,Green,Green was ringed at Southport Marine Lake, just 26 days ago by me & Ciaran. It was sighted on 28/12/2010 by Nigel at Par Beach Pool in Cornwall – 390km from Southport

It would be nice to think that this bird is now in-line for crossing to France!

Many thanks to Nigel for the sighting & the above photo.

Ringing Round-up

-A quick update on our recent ringing activities…..

We’ve had a few days off from ringing during the festive period, but with only a few days left of the year – we’re now back out catching & ringing.

Over the last few days we’ve made trips to Lake Windermere, Southport Marine Lake & Crompton Lodges – mainly ringing wildfowl and gulls.

At Windermere we caught 14 Black Headed Gull & 1 control (above). Plus a new species to be ringed at Windermere – a Common Gull!

Meanwhile today at Southport the thaw seems to have set in (at last!) and we continued with the good run of Coots, catching 30 new birds & recapping 2. Whilst Ciaran concentrated on catching Tufted Duck (9 caught), I also caught & darvic’d 10 Mute Swan for the North West Swan Study.

Finally - during two days at Crompton Lodges we caught 31 new Coot & recapped 5, which had colour rings fitted…

Thanks to Ciaran, Craig, Sam Bayley & Callum Hatsell for their help during the last few days…..

More Waxwings!

OK – this post is just an excuse to get more photos of these wonderful little birds onto the blog!!

6 more birds caught today, along with 6 Blackbird (+2 recap) and 1 Starling.

Ciaran with his favourite bird!

Also caught today – 14 Coot, 19 Black Headed Gull & 1 Common Gull.

Well they arrived!

I awoke this morning to the sound of Waxwings outside of my bedroom window. So jumping up & pulling back my curtains I was amazed to see around 100 Waxwings outside! I quickly grabbed some apples & made a makeshift apple tree in the garden & to my surprise around 20 birds came to feed on them!

Throughout the remainder of the day, the birds commuted between ours & a neighbours garden, with the birds coming down just low enough to catch – we placed a net up & caught 12 birds this afternoon, along with 9 Blackbirds.

With there being so many in the Greater Manchester area, we’ve been expecting them for a while here in Atherton & at long last they arrived!

Unfortunately we did find three dead birds, which were results of window strikes. Recovery rates for Waxwings are quite high mainly due to these collisions, so it’s well worth checking any dead Waxwings for rings!

Gull Grabbing.

I was dropping Ciaran off in Preston this afternoon, so we decided we’d take a quick look at the docks for Black Headed Gull rings. When we arrived we were greeted by lots of gulls which were eager to have a feed before they went off to roost. It was obvious the gulls were going to be easy to catch, so we decided to catch a few…. after 1hr 30mins of catching/ringing, a few turned into 41 new birds & 1 control – that of a Norwegian ringed bird!

For any ring readers at Preston Docks, or birders who are going to see the Iceland Gull, who maybe interested in giving ring reading a go. All the rings start with – EX541**. All the juvs were ringed on the left leg, the reason for this is because there is a Danish ringed juvy, ringed on the right leg & it'll allow Ciaran to easily pick this bird out, and hopefully read the full ring code.

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….

Brambling find Shakerley!

Having a little rest from Coot (actually waiting for more colour rings to arrive!) so I thought I’d spend my lunch hour at the Shakerley feeding station today. Definitely worthwhile as in my first net round, 5 Brambling were sitting patiently awaiting extraction!

After an hour of the net being up, I decided to take it down to let the birds carry on feeding. 50 birds caught of which 30 were new & 20 recaps. Surprisingly no new tits ringed today!

Species	New	Recap
Brambling	8
Goldfinch	9	2
Greenfinch	7
Chaffinch	3	1
Bullfinch	1	6
Reed Bunting	2
Robin		3
Blue Tit		6
Great Tit		1
Dunnock		1
Totals	30	20

Also observed - 10 Waxwings flying low over Shakerley!

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!