Geo-locator comes home!

I was out ringing tonight on my regular woodcock ringing site near Llanilar and the 6th bird I caught had a very pleasant surprise for me.... a geo-locator I fitted to EX28930 over two years ago on 10/11/10.

If all is well this should yield information about 4 migration journeys of this bird. Although there have been a number of recoveries of woodcock geo-locators in the past two years from birds shot both in the UK and Russia, this is the first live recovery in the UK.

Sorry about the poor quality of the picture, its hard to hold steady when you're that excited!

First Hat-trick of 2013

Last night I ventured up into the hills around Clun Forest again hoping to colour-ring a few more Golden Plovers. I managed to catch five but could only colour-ring four of them as the other had its tarsal bone protruding from its right leg! No gory photos I'm afraid. Amazingly it was an old injury and the bird appeared to walk normally but just shows how resilient they can be. As it was an old injury and the bird was otherwise in good condition I did put a BTO ring on its left leg!

I also managed the first "hat-trick" of the year - this is our term for a night when you manage to catch at least one each of Snipe, Jack Snipe and Woodcock (as it turns out it was just one of each but hey, who's complaining!).

Winter Dippers

After having a very busy few months, I've finally had time to start checking my winter dipper roosting sites around Montgomeryshire. Despite only a few bridges being checked so far, I've already managed to catch 7, with 3 more to go back for at one of the sites! Out of the 7 birds caught, 6 of them were new birds and one was a re trapped bird. The re trap was originally ringed in New Mills on 16/04/12 as a chick, which is 9km away from where I caught it again in Abermule. Nice to know some of last years birds have survived considering the awful wet summer we had!!

There can't be many people with a 100% catch rate of Dippers, but Sam is one of them!!!!!

New Goldie

After nearly a month of trying, last night, on my way back from survey work in Lancashire, I finally managed to catch and satellite-tag our second Golden Plover "Hawn" up on the Ceri Ridgeway.

"Hawn" immediately after having the sat-tag fitted.

There have been very few about since the cold spell in early December but last night there were at least 25 present of which I managed to catch three and a Woodcock. I was hoping to do the second bird at a different site to the first but as Ceri is still in Spain I guess that is less important. Below is the most recent location for Ceri on the Spanish/Portuguese border near Valencia del Alcantara. I guess we won't be meeting up in Madrid in a fortnight then!

Hopefully Hawn will hang around in Wales and give us some of the data we wanted on more local cold-weather movements.

They're off!

First honours this year went to Paul again with a catch of 3 Woodcock, a "double" Snipe (2 birds in the same landing net at the same time!) and a Fieldfare.

My first venture out for a while was at Nant-yr-Arian last night with Andre where we managed to catch two Woodcock and two Whooper Swans - a cracking way to start the year!

As can be seen from the previous post Owen managed a very respectable 12 Woodcock so 2013 is now well and truly under way!

Andre Marsh with one of the two juv Whoopers ringed last night

Golden oldie

After several months of water buffalo like activity walking waterlogged fields, last night saw the return of more normal conditions on my woodcock ringing site. The ground is still very wet, but with a soft drizzle and a gentle breeze conditions were far more pleasant for catching than the howling gales and heavy rain of the past few months

I counted an amazing 42 woodcock on the site, this is far higher than previous year, it was also fascinating that all but one of these were juveniles. Out of the 100 I've caught so far this winter 75% are juveniles. The one adult caught last night was a bird I ringed on 30/1/09, I also retraped it on 24/1/11. A real 'Golden Oldie'.

I often wonder why I spend so much time in the winter wet and cold walking dark fields, Tony Cross is partly to blame, but last night reminded me what a fascinating obsession woodcock ringing is.

Ringing in the New Year

Yes, I do hope so!!

Happy New Year

Waxies winging it!

Waxwing number 100! 

(always worth checking that you have a scenic background when composing a photo!)

On Tuesday I paid another quick visit to Newtown College where I managed to catch 3 more Waxwings taking the total we've ringed in Mid Wales this year to exactly 100! As previously posted, most of these have also been colour-ringed and we are really beginning to reap the rewards of making the extra effort to get them colour-ringed. So far we have had 5 good movements of birds ringed at Newtown as shown in the map below.

Ringing location in Red resighting locations in Blue

It is very early days yet, with several months before the Waxwings are due to turn round and head back to whence they came, so hopefully the next map to be posted will be near obliterated with place markers!

The map below is what I have in mind and shows the results of the Grampian Ringing Group's colour-ringing of Waxwings during the last major influx. Many thanks to Raymond Duncan of GRG for the map and also for providing us with colour combinations and passing on emails of re-sightings.

Hello Shorty!

On a recent ringing trip I caught this short billed woodcock. Sorry about the poor standard of photography, it was scrambled onto my mobile with the light of my head torch.
Nobody knows why we get short bills, as far as we can tell these are not the result of injuries as they look normal, just short, this one measured 49.6mm (tip to feather). Despite being a 'shorty' this bird weighed in at a respectable 330gms. Nigel Jones of the New Forest Woodcock Group has also caught a shorty this winter.

Beunas dias Ceri!

Just visited the Argos website, no not shopping for Christmas presents but checking out the whereabouts of our satellite-tagged Golden Plover 'Ceri'. Just over a week ago I stumbled into her whilst lamping, in the same field that Paul and I caught her in. I was a little bit surprised therefore to be taken straight to a map of Madrid!! I wasn't expecting that but obviously in the recent cold spell Ceri rather than nipping down the coast to Ynyslas or Ynyshir as we may have predicted has headed off to sunny Spain instead turning up there on 11th December. By an amazing stroke of co-incidence I'm off to Madrid myself in a months time. If she's still there I won't be able to resist going to see if I can find her.