Coal Aston Nests - 13th April 2019

I was out ringing this morning with 3 other members of Sorby Breck Ring Group at a local farm in Coal Aston. We had a steady morning, with 12 birds of 6 species, including our first ever Chiffchaff record from this site. Birds ringed were (new/retrap): Nuthatch 0/2, Dunnock 1/2, Blue Tit 1/1, Great Tit 3/0, Robin 1/0 and Chiffchaff 1/0. All the retraps were birds that we had ringed at this site previously.

Whilst there, we had our first check of the nestboxes for 2019, and were very pleasantly surprised to find 6 out of the 7 boxes were occupied (up from 2 last year). 1 box contained a Nuthatch nest, whilst the other 5 nests were all tit nests (1 with a 1/2 built nest, 1 with 5 eggs, 1 with 10 eggs, 1 with 8 eggs and 1 with 2 eggs). All eggs were cold, so incubation hasn't yet started.

Nuthatch nest

Tit nest, with 10 eggs and lots of horse hair

Details of all the nests recorded, will be sent to the BTO's Nest Record Scheme.

Coal Aston Ringing - 20th January 2019

I was out with 2 other members of Sorby Breck Ringing Group this morning for our first ringing session of the year at our farm site in Coal Aston. The owners of the site had reported that the feeders had been very busy since our last visit, so hopes were high for a good number of birds.

We weren't disappointed with a very respectable 33 birds caught (new/retraps): Blue Tit 15/4, Coal Tit 1/0, Great Tit 9/0, Robin 2/0, Wren 1/0 and Great-spotted Woodpecker 1/0. 

All the retrapped Blue Tits had been ringed at the same site; 2 on 30/09/17 (1 year 4 months ago), and 2 on 07/10/18 ( 3 months ago). They were ringed as 3s, so we know, more or less, how old they are. It'll be interesting to see how long they survive, and whether they breed on site this year.

Long Distance Blue Tit

This year I ringed 69 Blue Tit pulli (birds still in the nest) at Linacre Reservoirs and another private site in Coal Aston. In an average  year I'd expect to get a few retraps, usually within a few kilometres of the nestboxes the birds were ringed in. Imagine, then, my joy when I received an email from our data manager, with details about one of this year's birds that had been caught 19km away from its nestbox in Coal Aston.

The bird in question was the last bird ringed from a brood of 10 on 26th May. As you can see in the picture below, the nest is made up of approximately 90% horse hair, and was very warm indeed!

Blue Tits

The bird was re caught by another ringer of our group (Sorby Breck Ringing Group) on 17th November (175 days after ringing) on Bradfield Moor, which is 19km NW of the ringing site. Great record.

More Nests

As well as the nestboxes at Linacre I also monitor and record another 12 boxes at 2 other sites in North East Derbyshire. Both sites have 6 boxes, and the results from these boxes are also sent off to the BTO's Nest Record Scheme.

The first site, a farm in Coal Aston, where we also do some mist netting was checked on 23rd. Unfortunately, this site was very similar to Linacre, with just 3 of the 6 boxes in use. One box had a fully lined nest, with 2 eggs, whilst the other 2 boxes had the start of a nest (N1) and a slightly more advanced nest (N3) in it. I'll check them again next week, to see what, if anything, has developed.

The other site, a churchyard in Chesterfield, was checked yesterday, and, thankfully, had 4 active nests with eggs in them and another nest that had been built by a Nuthatch. This nest didn't have any eggs.... yet! If it does get used, it will be the first time one of these boxes has been used by this species here. Again, I'll give it a few weeks and then pop back to see what's happening.

Nuthatch nest

Tit nest

Coal Aston Ringing- 30th September 2017

I was out yesterday morning with 3 other members of Sorby Breck Ringing Group at our farm site in Coal Aston. We had 3 hours on site and caught 23 birds of 7 species, including a re trap Blue Tit (details to follow).

Totals were: Blue Tit 10/1, Great Tit 4/0, Coal Tit 3/0, Wren 1/0, Dunnock 1/0 and Robin 2/0.

After the ringing session we put up a Barn Owl box on a tree on the farm. Barn Owls have been seen in the area, so hopefully we might see some interest later in the year. If not, I'm sure the local squirrels will love it!!

Barn Owl box

Nestbox update - 20th May 2017

May is always a very busy month with lots of juvenile birds (pulli) in nestboxes that are ready to be ringed before they fledge. In the last week, I've been lucky enough to ring Blue Tits and Great Tits at Linacre (see last post), a Tawny Owl chick. and 3 Nuthatch chicks.

The Tawny Owl chick was 1 of  2 in a Kestrel box in a garden site in Wingerworth. What a super bird!!

Tawny Owl

The Nuthatches were a brood of 7 birds in a nestbox at a local farm in Coal Aston, where we also ringed a brood of 7 Great Tits earlier in the month.

Nuthatches

All these nests are monitored and recorded as part of the BTO Nest Record Scheme.

There are still 7 active nests in the Linacre boxes, which will need checking again later this week. In addition, Stewart, a fellow ringer with Sorby Beck Ringing Group, sent us details of 2 very exciting nests, 1 Barn Owl and 1 Kestrel that both contain eggs!! Hopefully, I'll be able to help out with the ringing  later in the season.

Ringing and Nesting

I haven't been out ringing since the end of March, what with one thing or another, so it was really nice to get out this morning for a few hours. I went out with 2 other members of the Sorby Breck Ringing Group, to the farm site in Coal Aston, and we managed to ring 14 birds of 6 species. Numbrs were as follows (new/retrap): Great-spotted Woodpecker (1/0),  Nuthatch (2/0), House Sparrow (1/0), Dunnock (2/0), Blue Tit (7/0) and Coal Tit (1/0). Here's a picture of the male House Sparrow from this morning.

House Sparrow

Whilst on site, we also put up a new owl nest box, and checked the 5 tit nest boxes. 2 were empty, but 3 contained the beginnings of nests, all of which looked like tits. The details of these nests wll be recorded for the BTO's Nest Record Scheme.

Beginnings of  nest

Coal Aston Update

After checking the nestboxes at Linacre yesterday morning, I drove across to the farm site at Coal Aston to check on the four active nestboxes.

The first box that contained 8 Blue Tits on my last visit now contained 7 chicks that were old enough to ring.

Blue Tits

The next box contained one large Great Tit chick that was also old enough to ring and 9 cold eggs. The final two boxes both contained sitting Great Tits, which I left. I'll come back to them next week.

Nestbox update- Coal Aston

I popped down to our new ringing site in Coal Aston this morning to check on the progress of the nestboxes that we put up this year. Last time I checked, there were 2 boxes with eggs in (see here), and today there were 3!

1 box had a Blue Tit sitting tight, 1 had a Great Tit sitting tight, and the other had 10 warm eggs in it.

Blue Tit

10 eggs

Great Tit

The site where these boxes are has horses on it, and all 3 nests contain alot of horse hair. BTO nest record cards have been set up for these nests.

 

Nest boxes in use.

At the start of April I put 5 new tit boxes up at a farm site in Coal Aston. Yesterday I got a text to say that there were eggs in 2, so I popped across to check and found this.

First eggs!

There were 2 clutches of 6 and 7 eggs. Another of the boxes had a lined nest, but no eggs, and the other 2 boxes were empty. Neither clutch was being incubated, so presumably there will be more eggs to come. I think 1 nest is Blue Tit and 1 is Great Tit. Nest Record cards will be started for the BTO's Nest Record Scheme.

New Ringing Site

After a week of cold, windy weather, and a distinct lack of ringing activity, I managed to get out for a few hours with Ray and Alan from Sorby Breck this morning, to have a first session at a new site in Coal Aston. The site is a small, family-run farm with cattle, and the family have set up two feeding stations in the garden area, where we set the nets. The site looks very good for Swallows, so hopefully we'll be able to ring some this summer. We've also put up 5 tit boxes, which I'll check later this month.

The weather for today's session wasn't the best, as it was quite windy, but we still managed to put up 3 nets, and, in just over 3 hours, we caught 17 birds of 6 species (House Sparrow, Nuthatch, Chaffinch, Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tit), which is a pretty good start. Here's a picture of the first bird caught and ringed at this site; a female House Sparrow.

House Sparrow

As the year progresses we should extend this list as new species arrive, and we catch some of the other resident species.

Other birds seen around the site today were; Song Thrush (1 singing bird), Redwing (1 over), Robin (singing birds), Wren (singing birds), Pied Wagtail (a pair of birds, possible breeders?), Great-spotted Woodpecker (heard drumming) and Carrion Crow.