Bit of a Purple patch

Last night I had to go to Aberystwyth to drop off a vehicle so as my trip coincided with high tide I thought I'd have a quick go at catching Purple Sandpipers on the sea wall. This is something I've tried many, many times before with only one success and a near miss to show for it.  The street lights immediately above the wall make lamping ineffective as the birds usually see you as you lean over and jump straight off. Nothing ventured nothing gained though. Don't know if this one was blind or asleep but it didn't jump quick enough! This is only the 3rd Purple Sandpiper we've ever ringed.

As Purple Sandpipers hop around on barnacle covered rocks all day they wear their rings away quite quickly so ringers are now required to put the ring on the tibia (above the knee) where they can't be seen so don't worry, we won't be spoiling anyones photographs!

Where next?

On Saturday 9th December Phil Owen photographed a Waxwing in Newtown College with colour-rings Blue/Black on the left leg. He showed me the photo thinking it was one we had ringed. 

Sometime later I realised that we had been colour-ringing on the right leg!! Surely we hadn't made a mistake? Luckily this bird was one of 18 that Damian and I caught later that same day so thankfully we could confirm it wasn't one of ours.

I have just received the following by email from Raymond Duncan of the Grampian Ringing Group.

"Well actually no, NW62620 isn’t one of ours, it was ringed on Fair Isle as a 3 male on 4/11/12 but then we retrapped it in Aberdeen on 15/11/12 (when 3 summer Fair Isle ringers were present!) and added blue over black colours on left leg. You haven’t gone and caught it have you?!"

We also heard from him that one of the Newtown ringed birds has turned up in Chepstow already. Great to be getting some returns for all our efforts. Please keep your eyes peeled and cameras ready for any other colour-ringed Waxwings.

Dab hands

A very mixed and enjoyable bit of ringing with Damian Clarke and Adrienne Stratford over the past 24 hours! The evening started with three Shags (all caught at roost!).

Psycho!

This was followed by a successful foray into a North Wales quarry in order to colour-ring one of a previously un-ringed breeding pair of Choughs.

Another one to look for

We then headed on to Anglesey in search of Little Grebes and managed a very respectable catch of 6  (5 new and one retrap from Jan 2012).

The crack Little Grebe squad 

Look, no hands!!

 A very smart adult

Then, earlier today, we headed out to Nefyn in search of more Choughs but only managed to locate a small group of 5 which were far too mobile to attempt catching,(although 3 of them were identified by their colour-rings). Whilst searching we came a cross a Buzzard on the beach eating a large fish-head. A couple of minutes later Damian's giant spring trap was set and baited with what remained of the fish-head and after a short wait the Buzzard returned to finish its meal. It didn't!

Damian's mega spring-trap scores a first hit!

What a Whooper!

Got Irish ringer, Damian Clarke, staying with me for a few days. We've been trying to do a bit of lamping and Waxwing netting but success has been pretty limited. Numbers of Woodcock (at least where we've been looking) have been lower than normal at this time of the year. Have managed a few though and that has hopefully spurred him on to try for a few back in Ireland. Waxwings too were not playing ball, until last night anyway, when we had a late catch of 16 just before they headed off to roost. By far the best bird of the visit so far though was a result with a half-hearted attempt to catch one of six Whooper Swans on a small lake near Ponterwyd. I even had a Darvic ring handy so that will hopefully increase the chances of some feedback.

A luring Waxwings!

On Tuesday the Waxwings at Newtown were having none of it. Spent all day waiting for them to turn up and feast on the ornamental rowan berries that had been hung alluringly in a convenient catching spot, nothing! A quick look at the Montgomery Bird Blog last night however showed that the following day (when I couldn't make it) they promptly polished off the lot!!

This morning the weather wasn't forecast as good but it was showing a small window of opportunity early on so I arrived pre dawn and reloaded the bushes with more berries obtained from a handy tree on the way! The first Waxwing was caught just as it was still getting light and over the next few hours another 13 were caught including 1 retrap. So far this winter we have ringed 75 of which 60 have also been individually colour-ringed. In one way I can't wait for them to move on but kind of hoping they might just hang around and fall for the same trick on Saturday morning - although I need to find another source of berries. Anyone seen 4 Swedes in a blue estate car?



A cautionary tale - whilst posting this on here I looked at the combination and thought I'd dropped a clanger. I'd ringed Red/Blue earlier in the week? This is actually Orange/Blue and a fairly orangey orange at that! Who said the camera can't lie?

Redwing roost.

This evening myself, dad and Tony headed down to a recent Redwing roost that I'd found, to see how catchable they were! As it was our first visit there it was going to be a bit hit and miss as to whether we'd catch anthing at all, but we set the nets up and waited! As it turned out the nets were in a perfect place, but by the time the Redwings started to arrive, the nets were already alive with several Starlings! When we had finally extracted them all, the majority of the Redwings had already passed over the nets (the delightful screaming Starlings didn't do us any favours there!!). But as there were several thousand birds using this roost we still managed a reasonable catch. We finished the night with a total of 30 Redwings, 25 Starling and 2 Goldcrests. Not bad for our first attempt, and several more birds to have a go at!

Viking Invaders, welcome and not so welcome!

The weekend saw increased activity and numbers of Waxwings in and around Newtown College. On Saturday Jane, Dave and I, briefly joined by Andre, caught and colour-ringed a further 25 out of the 200 or so present. Never seen anything like it - at one point several small puddles in the car park were literally heaving with Waxwings drinking and bathing. Luckily they were coming down to berries in several parts of the grounds so we were able to net some parts whilst the gathering of local bird photographers got ample photo opportunities nearby.

In a slightly surreal episode, at one point four other Swedish visitors arrived, covered a large part of the car park in sacking and proceeded to thrash hell out of the hedges with long sticks collecting the very hawthorn berries the Waxwings were feasting on. A slightly heated exchange saw them moving on to collect their berries elsewhere!

Sunday morning started brilliantly with Paul, Jane and I catching and colour-ringing another 16 new birds and 1 retrap before 10 am but then two unwelcome appearances by a sparrowhawk wazzed them all off and they only returned shortly after we gave up at 2pm. Sod's Law. Ah well mustn't be greedy. Hopefully they might hang around a bit longer as the next couple of days are forecast as not too good!

Two of Saturdays colour-ringed Waxwings. Have great expectations for future sightings and some interesting onward journeys once the berries have gone. Many thanks to Phil Owen for the photos.

No wingeing at Waxwinging

Today I managed a late trip to Machynlleth in order to check out the Waxwing flock near the library as Jane had obtained permission to ring there the day before. Unfortunately, Wednesday is market day and even the Waxwings weren't going to feed amid the Indian take-aways and burger vans positioned just outside the library. Fortunately the flock was easily relocated in the same small clump of ornamental sorbus trees they or their precedents frequented two winters ago just up the road! The location wasn't ideal for catching and as soon as Jane managed to join me we had to resort to a bit of full-public scrutiny flick-netting but hey, if needs must! Three birds were caught out of the 62 odd present but unfortunately it didn't include the ringed (not sure its a BTO ring either!) bird that Emyr Evans managed to photograph the day before. Thanks to a quick response from Raymond Duncan the Waxwing colour-ring co-ordinator and a quick dispatch of colour-rings by A. C. Hughes we were able to colour-ring these three birds thereby greatly increasing the chances of them being resighted elsewhere. Many thanks to Steffi Meier too who was already on the scene taking photos and kindly helped out and allowed some to be used here.

Blimey, TC tries to remember how to ring a bird!! The net is just visible behind the Give Way sign. Shame a few more of the Waxwings didn't!

Two of our first 3 colour-ringed Waxwings.  Hopefully we can soon report details of their onward travels

Last Sunday me, Dave Smith, Jane, Brendan Sheils and Brendan's friend Hannah (briefly joined by Paul and Marc Hughes on a mornings birding) managed to entertail the good folk of Mill Close, Newtown with our odd Waxwinging antics. Even managed to attract the attention of the Old Bill too. Good times were had by all and 11 Waxwings were BTO ringed. See Marc Hughes' post on the We Bird North Wales blog for more photos http://webirdnorthwales.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/waxings-close-up-and-personal.html.  One of them even got its picture taken - in watercolour! See Chris Wallbank"s blog http://cwallbank.blogspot.co.uk for some stunning artwork and hopefully the Waxwings will feature soon!

Sat Nav on the A44

Thursday night Paul and I headed out to the hills between Ceri and Clun in the hope of fitting the first of two satellite tags we have for our Golden Plover research (tags funded by EcologyMatters and the Welsh Assembly Government's Ecosystem Resilience and Diversity Fund and supplied by Microwave Telemetry Inc.).  Despite there being quite a moon up at the moment the clouds were thick and rain was forecast so conditions seemed good. As a matter of good practise I had set myself the limit of not attaching the tag (which weighs just 5 grams) to any bird that weighed less than 220g. 5g might seem a lot on a bird that size but they frequently put on and lose weight dependent on how cold it is and where they are headed. We know that birds can vary between 190 up to over 250g so, relatively, it is little extra to carry. As luck would have it the only Golden Plover we caught weighed in at 250g. BINGO!

Fitted with colour-ring A44 and its new sat tag this bird is set to make history as I'm pretty sure it's the first Golden Plover in Britain to be satellite tagged.

Golden Plover "Ceri" with satellite tag fitted. They feed at night on worms and wet nights are particularly good as all the worms are on the surface so they are loaded and ready to fire, frequently, as can be seen !

Hoping to fit the next one sometime soon. I will post updates here and on the EcologyMatters website.

Six Woodcock, 5 Fieldfare and a Jack Snipe helped to make it a very memorable night.

Two more anyway!

1st year male Waxwing 

Popped over to Newtown first thing to try for a few more Waxwings. I went to where we caught them 2 winters ago and sure enough at least 40 birds were dropping onto several ornamental rowan trees in the council estate. Siting a mist-net was a bit tricky but many thanks to the young couple and the little old lady who let me string it over the fence between their front gardens! Managed to catch two (which they were all thrilled to see close-up) but a marauding Mistle Thrush was making life difficult so the flock moved off to Coleg Hafren. Still far too many feeding opportunities there for successful netting - hopefully try again soon when the berries have thinned out a bit!