Worth waking up for!

With the moon now making the evenings/nights too bright to go dazzling, the only option now is to get up a few hour before sunrise and try then. Easier said than done! However this morning I was woken up around 06:00 by the rain hammering on my window, so I quickly got dressed and headed up to my ringing site near to home. Despite only having half an hour or so before it was too light to catch anything I still managed to catch 2 Golden Plovers and a Lapwing.

The elusive hat-trick.....

The conditions were near perfect for dazzling (heavy drizzle and windy) last night so I set off to the hills with high hopes of a good catch - I wasn't to be disappointed.

At my first site near Llanerfyl the birds were a bit jumpy, but I still managed to bag 1 Golden Plover, 1 Woodcock and another Jack Snipe (my 6th of the winter - where are they all coming from??)

Not satisfied with what I had caught I then headed up to the the Ceri ridge way where I knew of a reliable fields for Snipe. Within 5 mins or so I had caught one (JACKPOT - the elusive hat-trick achieved - Snipe, Jack Snipe and Woodcock), shortly followed by another 4 more! The night was rounded off with another 4 Golden Plovers.

A Good night all round!!

Nearly perfect!!

Last night was a dazzlers dream, very dark, a bit wet and a bit windy - the sort of night most sane people would stay in and watch the box!  That not applying, I headed off down to my site adjacent to Crychan Forest near Llandovery.  I've been catching Woodcock here for the last three winters and getting a good number of birds. Last night was a near perfect score, the only birds seen were 19 Woodcock of which I managed to catch 18 - I know the one I missed had a foreign ring on it, I just bloody know it did!!

The 18 birds caught included 1 last winter re-trap, 1 same night re-trap, 6 new adults and 10 new juveniles.

Beginners luck..........

Myself and Char (a first time dazzling for her) took a trip up to the Ridge-Way this evening to see what birds were about feeding in the fields. On arriving I wondered if we had made the wrong choice as the mist was very thick and the wind was very strong (at times Char was struggling to stand up!!). But in true fashion we soldiered on! It was a very steady start only catching 1 snipe and 1 lapwing in the first hour! But then we struck a bit of luck, with some of the birds finally deciding to sit! We managed to finished off with a total of 9 birds - 3 (+1) golden plovers, 3 lapwing, 1 snipe and the last bird to be caught (another!!) jack snipe!!

Not bad for a first catch!!

A pair of Jacks....

Last night myself and Tony met up on the Ceri Ridgeway to make the most of the dark evening. Another good catch was had with the highlight being 2 Jack Snipe! Other birds caught included 10 Golden Plovers, 1 Lapwing, 1 Snipe, 1 Fieldfare and another Stock Dove!!

Woodcock Control 2

Last night Terence Lambert took an hour to walk a local hillside neat Llanbrynmar to see if there were a few woodcock to ring. This is an unusual woodcock site being pretty steep faced rather than the normal hill top location. The first bird he caught was already ringed (EP94287) This woodcock was ringed by myself whilst being trained by Tony Cross on his Crychan site near Llanwrtyd Wells on 9/3/08. It was an adult bird when ringed making it at least 5 years old, our longest lived retrap so far!

Woodcock Control

Andrew Hoodless and I spent a few hours woodcock ringing near to Lledrod on 18th Nov. the second of the 5 birds we caught that night was already ringed. It was with great excitement that I discovered that was not one of my rings. On making a few phone calls the next morning I discovered that it had been ringed by Arfon Williams near to Llanrhystud three nights earlier and that he retrapped it the following night on the same field. It seem that this juv having arrived on the coast took fright at the Irish Sea and decided to have a think about it on dry land. The route from Llanrhystud to Lledrod takes in the Wyre Valley, perfect habitat for daytime roosting and night time feeding.

Last Thursday Dr Andrew Hoodless, the UK woodcock expert came to Llanilar to train members of the Woodcock Network on how to fit geolocators. Paddy Jenks, Wendy James, Richard Dobbins and Mike Sherman, came up for the night to see how it was done. It was amazing how we all use different nets, I was amazed that Richard and Wendy have managed so well using just a 2 mtr pole....respect!!!!
The night was a great success with 11 woodcock caught and everyone had a good chance to try fitting a radio tag, a substitute for the geolocator as we are waiting for the geolocators to come from the manufacturers. The design of these, a leg loop harness, are the same as for the geolocators so it was good practice for removing then too.

More Woodcock and a Nightjar control!!

Having finally sorted computer problems and caught up a bit on overdue jobs I actually managed to get out and do a bit of ringing again this weekend (first time in over a fortnight, almost unheard of!!).  Four Woodcock caught at Crychan on Friday night and another seven tonight near Bwlch-y-Sarnau. As Owen posted earlier most of them were first-year birds so it looks like they had a good breeding season on the continent.

Latest batch of recoveries from BTO included a Bangor Little Egret ringed on 5th June and sighted on Hilbre Island on 17th September.

....and the first ever control by another ringer of one of our Nightjars. A juvenile ringed on 26th July 2010 near Resolven, Neath was controlled as an adult female by Alan Lowe on 29th June 2011 at Ynyshir, Rhondda Cynon Taff,  25 km from where it was reared.  Not bad but one from sub-Saharan Africa would have been OK too!

Quality not Quantity

Only 3 birds caught this evening, thankfully they came in the shape of 2 Woodcock and this very smart Jack Snipe!!