Totally Choughed

Over the past month or so Adrienne Stratford and I, with help from numerous others, have been out and about all around the coasts, mountains, quarries and cliffs of Mid and North Wales colour-ringing nestling Choughs at well over 50% of all known nest sites. I also colour-ringed all 16 young reared in the five known Cornish nests. With just one site on Anglesey left to go back to I thought it was worth giving a very brief blog update.

Chough's nest is bottom right - you can just see the orange hard-hat!

Now you see me, now you don't.  In a mountainous sea, accessing one low site was a bit more exciting (and much wetter) than usual. thankfully the chicks were all nice and dry in the back of the small cave. The photos don't really do it justice!!

2013 will stand out as an exceptionally late year, with nests being started about three weeks later than normal on average. Success rates and productivity have been fairly good though and something over 200 nestling Choughs have been individually colour-ringed as part of the Cross & Stratford Welsh Chough Project. This projects has been running since 1991 and has now individually colour-marked over 4,000 Choughs in order to examine natal dispersal, survival rates and seasonal movements amongst other things. The land-mark of 100 Choughs colour-ringed in Cornwall was also reached, which is absolutely amazing considering they virtually all originate ultimately from the one pioneering pair.

Well over 50% of all breeding adult Choughs in Mid and North Wales are now individually recognisable and great efforts have been made (primarily by Adrienne) to confirm the identity of marked birds at all nest sites not just those that are accessible for ringing. Over 150 breeding adults have been positively id'd at nest sites so far this year including three 18-year old individuals.

Adrienne confirming the id of the current "Mr "and "Mrs" of a site on Anglesey

More from Mull

Although we went to Mull specifically to help out with the Golden Eagles, it was nice to have some spare time up there to try and find (and then ring) some wader pulli. As is often the case, the car proved to be a very good mobile bird hide. In total, we manged to catch and ring 25 (+ 1 adult) Common Sandpipers, 6 Lapwings and 2 Oystercatchers (we did catch 3 more but they were too small).

(amazingly, the 25 we caught will probably be 20-25% of the total pulli ringed in the UK for 2013!)

We also managed to find and ring 7 Common Gull chicks!

Golden Opportunity

Paul and I have just returned from a 3-day mad rush up to Mull to help a mate of mine, Derek Hayward, ring Golden Eagle chicks. In two days we visited six eagle nests, four of which were occupied, and ringed 5 chicks. 

What an amazing experience and great privilege, many thanks indeed Derek. Think we need to find Eddy, the Tregaron eagle, a mate as soon as possible!

Little Haws

Apologies for lack of recent postings but it has been a very busy time one way or another recently.

Over the past few weeks the Hawfinch guru, Dave Smith, has been scouring the woods around Dolgellau looking for Hawfinch nests to help with an RSPB research project on predation rates. He has located at least fifteen nests and I have been up and installed research cameras at  8 of these. Two of the nests were subsequently predated by Jays.

Caught in the act. A Jay renoves an egg from a Hawfinch nest on camera. It later returns for the rest of the clutch.

So far 23 young have been ringed at seven nests, with two more still to do.

Had no idea Hawfinches had fluorescent purple and yellow gapes. This must presumably help the adults to locate the right place to deposit food in the dense foliage where they frequently nest.

In the end we decided not to colour-ring the chicks because of the risk of them being removed by the adults. Hopefully we may catch some of them at the feeding site next season. At least five of the breeding adults were seen to be wearing colour-rings but reading them proved difficult as the cameras were largely at the wrong angle to see legs and the birds were in and out of the nests fairly quickly.

A12 incubating a nest in the main feeding site wood. Unfortunately this is the one shown being nobled by a Jay above.

It may prove easier to identify colour-ringed adults when they are feeding recently fledged young.

Dave Smith, the happy Hawfinch guru

Lagopus lagopus cambricus

After a long day on the coast looking for some Choughs to ring (none ready yet as nearly all nests are three weeks later than usual due to the cold spring) Jane and I had a quick trip up the hills looking for Red Grouse. Numbers seem a bit lower than of late at this site but we did manage to catch one male. Might go back, go back, go back and see if we can ring some more!

The not so famous, but much scarcer, Welsh Grouse Lagopus lagopus cambricus

It's in the bag!

Spot the Grey Wagtail nest!

Doh, think I gave it away!!

Lloyd was told of this unusual Grey Wagtail nest by the owner of one his Dipper sites. Six Grey Wagtail chicks were ringed here along with 10 others the same day in more usual nest-sites

Netting turns to nesting in the Hawfinch wood

All too soon the 2013 Hawfinch netting season at our RAS feeding site in North Wales has drawn to a close. In what was probably our final attempt this spring, Dave, Jane, Adrienne Stratford and I caught just three Hawfinch, all of which were retraps (although one was from 2011). The total of new birds for the year finished at 61. The Hawfinch studies are far from over for the year though.  This morning we installed three motion sensitive cameras on three nests that Dave had found earlier in the week. The cameras have been supplied by RSPB scientists and are being used to study predation rates and to identify the main culprits of said predation. Hopefully they will fail in this latter objective on these three nests and we will get to colour-ring our first ever Hawfinch pulli! Dave is on annual leave at present, desperately searching for more nests before the leaves emerge fully and make them impossible to see. All nests are being checked closely for colour-ringed adults too.

Hawfinch nests are often high in the tops of tall trees making nests hard to locate and difficult to monitor. Installing motion sensitive cameras makes things a whole lot easier.

Nests can then be safely checked from the ground, whilst having a brew!

I've never actually seen Hawfinch nests and eggs close-up before. They are an absolutely marvellous construction. like a miniature  deep-cupped woodpigeon nest lined with lichen. Here are close-ups of the three I climbed to today. Clutch sizes were 1 x 3, 1 x 4 and 1 x 5

From Aber to ABBA?

Have just received an email from Peter Olsson, the ringer who is researching the rare race of Baltic Dunlin, one of which we caught near Llanrhystud on 16th April 2013. Apparently he was observed singing at Tygelsjö ängar back on his Swedish breeding grounds yesterday, just 5km from where he was ringed as a chick! 

The capture in Wales was very unexpected and Peter speculates that it may have been following Scottish or Icelandic birds on its first spring migration. It is amazing to have been able to contribute to their research.

Busy Day, Mixed Bag

Wednesday started very early as Jane and I tried for Whimbrels at high tide. It is still early in the season but we did managed 4 new Whimbrel along with a Curlew and a re-trap Oystercatcher. Then, after a couple of hours sleep, we headed up north to meet Dave for more Ring Ouzel and Hawfinch ringing. After just a short wait we were successful in trapping and colour-ringing another cracking male on his breeding site (PS. just heard that Ring Ouzel AA, that we ringed there last week, was hit and killed by a car on Thursday! Sickening, what a tragic waste!)

At 07.45 we arrived at our garden Hawfinch site where we caught 2 new Hawfinch. There was a nice bit of by-catch too in the way of a first-year Jay and an adult  male Sparrowhawk.

The rest of the day was spent at our main RAS feeding site where we caught another 14 Hawfinch including 7 more new birds. The total of new Hawfinch ringed this year is now just 1 short of what we managed in 2012 but still less than half that achieved in 2011. Where are they all coming from?

Added interest here came in the form of two stunning male Wood Warblers, these really are a personal favourite. 

Big Dipper Days

Friday and Saturday were spent going around a whole load of Dipper nests in our RAS area in Shropshire and Mid Wales. This time of the year we would expect to be ringing most of the broods but things got off to a very slow start this year with many pairs almost a month later than normal! In all 73 regular sites were checked, 59 of which showed some signs of occupancy (a nest or part-built nest). 31 pairs were still laying or incubating eggs and 23 full clutch sizes were obtained (1 x 6, 16 x 5 & 6 x 4). 

Only 18 nests contained chicks (and two of the broods were dead in the nest). 11 broods, totalling 43 chicks in all, were ringed. In addition, 4 adults were colour-ringed at the nest and another 14 adults were identified from existing colour-rings. 

We don't colour-ring all our pulli Dippers because, unfortunately,  the vast majority of them will never be seen or heard of again once they fledge. Young birds ringed in the nest are colour-ringed if they are caught again in the autumn during roost monitoring.