Garden Ringing - 15th June 2019

I haven't done any ringing in my garden since March, so this morning I decided to get the net out for a few hours (05:45 - 09.00). My main target was to try and catch some of the 20ish juvenile Starlings that have been feeding daily in the garden, along with several ringed adult birds. By the end of the session I'd caught 17 birds, including 8 Starlings (6 new birds and 2 ringed birds), 2 juvenile Dunnocks, 4 Greenfinches (2 adults and 2 juveniles), 1 adult Blackbird and 2 adult House Sparrows.

I was able to sex the juvenile Starlings using their eye colour. The male birds have an all dark eye, whereas the females have a pale ring around the eye.

Male Starling

Female Starling

The two ringed Starlings that I managed to catch were very interesting. The first bird was an adult female with a very well developed brood patch (indicating breeding), and, when I read the ring, turned out to be a bird I'd caught in the garden in 20th May 2018. It had a brood patch then too.

The second ringed bird was a juvenile, and turned out to be one of the four pulli I'd ringed in May in the nestbox on the side of my house (see here). This bird was the only one of the 6 juveniles caught this morning to have started its post juvenile moult, as seen in this picture below.

Starling with a few adult feathers

It could also be sexed as a female, using the eye colour.

Female Starling

Other birds seen. but not ringed, were Chaffinch (2;1 male and 1 female), Goldfinch (4; 2 adults and 2 juveniles), Blue Tit (1 adult) and Coal Tit (1  juvenile).

Spotted Flycatcher

I was up in Ripley, North Yorkshire at the weekend enjoying my son's wedding(!). In a quiet moment, I had a walk around the village where I spotted a pair of Spotted Flycatchers, who were busy "flycatching" in the church yard, and returning to an unseen nest. Both birds were very confiding, and posed beautifully on the various gravestones. A very nice "year tick".

Spotted Flycatcher

Whilst there, I also had a walk down to the nearby Ripley Castle and River Nidd, where I had another pair of Flycatchers collecting food, as well as Grey Wagtails feeding at least 2 juveniles, a fly over Grey Heron and several pairs of Jackdaws visiting nest holes. Other species recorded in the village including Pied Wagtail, House Sparrow, Starling, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Collared Dove, Woodpigeon, Goldfinch, Goldcrest, Red Kite, Swallow, nest building House Martin and Swift.

House Martin

Year List update:
174 - Spotted Flycatcher

Sheffield Waxwings

I was out early this morning down on Queen's Road in Sheffield to "tick" some Waxwings for the "Year List". 300 had been reported on Birdguides yesterday, so I thought my chances were quite good. When I arrived at 7.45am there were about 20 Redwings and 3 Blackbirds feeding on the Rowan trees,  but no Waxwings. However, at about 8am, a small group of 4 birds arrived, and then, over the next 15 minutes, numbers built up very quickly to number at least 400!! They were very flighty, and barely settled for more than a few seconds, but I managed some photos.

Waxwings

After looking at the Waxwings, I drove down to Worcester, and added another 10 species to the "Year List" (numbers 37 - 41)

32 – Pied Wagtail
33 – Feral Pigeon
34 – Redwing
35 – Waxwing
36 – House Sparrow
37 – Mute Swan
38 – Common Buzzard
39 - Cormorant
40 - Herring Gull
41 – Lesser Black-backed Gull
42 - Lapwing

Ringing and Linacre

No ringing last week because of the weather, but I managed to get out this morning with David from The Group. We had a couple of hours at a private site in Sheffield, where we caught and ringed 11 birds of 7 species (new/retrap) : Blue Tit 3/0, Great Tit 0/1, Coal Tit 2/0, Goldfinch 2/0, Wren 1/0, House Sparrow 1/0 and Dunnock 1/0. Thanks David, for letting me ring them all!

I haven't managed to get around Linacre this weekend, but I did have about half an hour there this afternoon to see if I could find the Shag. Thankfully, after a "no-show" last weekend, it was back on its favourite perch on the bottom reservoir. Next week, the 21st, is the "anniversary" of the discovery of 8 Shags at Linacre (see here), so I'm hopeful that this one will remain until then. I'm keeping everything crossed.

House Sparrow Nest

As well as the Starling nest box I also have a House Sparrow Terrace on the side of my house. It was used last year, and I managed to ring a couple of pulli (see here). This year I noticed birds attending the box and yesterday I had a quick check to see what was happening. Here's what I found:

House Sparrow eggs

I've entered the details into the BTO's Nest box Challenge scheme and will continue to monitor the outcome of the nest, and hopefully ring the chicks 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

Garden Finches and a juvenile Woodpigeon

I watch and record the birds in my garden every week for the BTO's Garden Birdwatch Scheme. I don't blog about the results often, but this last week has been so good I wanted to share the news and a few photos.

Chaffinches, Greenfinches and Goldfinches are regular visitors to the garden throughout the year, with weekly winter totals averaging 15, 5 and 20 respectively. This year, however, these 3 species have been joins by their much less common cousins; Siskin, Lesser Redpoll, Brambling and Bullfinch.

Siskin in particular, have been very numerous this winter, with sightings in every week since the end of January. Numbers started off quite low, with 1s and 2s, but have steadily built up, culminating in a superb 14 birds this morning!

4 of today's 14 Siskins

Lesser Redpolls are not so numerous, but have again been present on and off throughout much of the Winter/early Spring.The maximum count so far being 6 present on 2nd April, including this very colourful male bird.

Lesser Redpoll and male Greenfinch

Bramblings were first recorded in mid January, with just 1 present. This built up to 3 birds; 2 males and 1 female, in February, until this afternoon, when I looked out and saw 7 birds, 2 males and 5 females, feeding on the lawn. This is my highest ever count!

Brambling

Bullfinches are the least common finch species in the garden, with just a few sightings each year. So far this year, I've recorded them on just s couple of occasions, including a pair today. Unfortunately, neither bird would pose for a photo.

Along with all the finches, the garden also attracts several other species on a daily basis, including Dunnock (3 today, singing and wing flicking to each other), Blue Tit (2), Coal Tit (1), Great Tit (1), Blackbird (4; 2 males and 2 females, 1 of which was collecting nesting materials), House Sparrow (1 male and 2 females, inspecting the nest box), Starling (4, including 2 nest building in the box), Collared Dove (1) and Woodpigeon (7, including the year's first juvenile bird!).

Juvenile Woodpigeon (complete with downy chest!)

Ringing News- 27th February 2016

I was out ringing yesterday morning with 4 members of the Sorby Breck Ringing Group. We were at the private garden site in Sheffield, an in 3 hours, we managed to ring 33 birds of 9 species (Song Thrush, House Sparrow, Dunnock, Robin, Bullfinch, Treecreeper, Blue, Long-tailed and Great Tit).


My totals were (new/retrap): Robin 1/0, Dunnock 1/1, Great Tit 1/0, Long-tailed Tit 4/1 and Blue Tit 0/1.


On the drive to the site I was lucky enough to see a Barn Owl flying over the road in Jordanthorpe- very nice!

Snowy Garden adds two new species

Last night brought a few hours of snow to the garden, the first proper snow of the winter so far, and meant that I woke up to this lovely, if somewhat grey, scene.

Snow!

As you can see in the picture I went out and cleared a spot around the feeders, filled up the water and put out a mixture of sunflower hearts, suet pellets and soaked raisins for the birds. In the next 3 hours I recorded 17 species of birds for the BTO's Garden Birdwatch Scheme, including 2 "year ticks"; Brambling and Blackcap.

The Bramblings consisted of 3 birds; 2 different males and a female bird. All 3 birds were feeding with a large number of Chaffinches (a minimum of 15 birds), and actually used the seed feeder, something I haven't seen before. I got a couple of photos.

Brambling (male)

Brambling (female)

The Blackcap was a male bird that flew into a Honeysuckle plant in the garden, pecked at a dried up berry, and then flew off again! Somehow I managed to get a photo in the minute it was present! 

Male Blackcap

This isn't the first record of this species in the garden in winter, but my last record was way back in December 2013 (see blog post here). They are a regular wintering bird in the UK now, and the BTO has just published some very interesting research about how garden feeding may have influenced this behaviour (see here).

The other species seen today in the garden were; Goldfinch (c.20), Greenfinch (2), Lesser Redpoll (1 male), House Sparrow (2; 1 male and 1 female), Magpie (2), Collared Dove (2), Woodpigeon (5), Starling (14), Robin (1), Blackbird (11; 6 males and 5 females), Blue Tit (1), Coal Tit (1), Dunnock (2) and Wren (1).

Year List update:
89 - Brambling
90 - Blackcap

Sheffield Ringing

After 3 weekends of wind and rain, which has put pay to any ideas of ringing, I managed to get out again yesterday with 3 other members of The Group, to our private site in Sheffield. The site is a private garden with several apple trees, and the owner lets most of the apples fall to the ground. As a result, of the 45 birds processed, 15 (12 new and 3 retraps) were Blackbirds! Hopefully one of the longer -winged birds may end up in a garden in Sweden next Spring.

Along with these birds we also managed to catch another 30 birds made up as follows (new/retraps): Wren 2/0, Dunnock 3/1, Long-tailed Tit 1/1, Blue Tit 4/4, Great Tit 2/4, Nuthatch 1/0, House Sparrow 1/0, Chaffinch 2/1, Goldfinch 2/0, and Bullfinch 1/0.

In other news, the Shags are still present at Linacre, but have decreased in number from 8 to 3. 5 juveniles, presumably the 5 that have "gone missing" from Linacre, have appeared at The Derbyshire Wildlife Trust's Carr Vale Reserve at Bolsover.

Garden Lesser Redpoll

The number of birds coming to the feeders in my garden has started to increase again in the last few weeks. When I got home from work this afternoon I filled the sunflower hearts and five minutes later spotted this- a Lesser Redpoll!

Lesser Redpoll

This is my first garden record since February, so it'll be a good record for the BTO's Garden Birdwatch Scheme. Other birds seen recently in the garden are: Blackbird, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Magpie, Dunnock, Starling, House Sparrow, Woodpigeon and Collared Dove.

Garden Youngsters

The nice thing about watching the garden birds at this time of the year, is the fact that young birds start to fledge from nearby nests and appear in the garden. So far this year I've seen young Blackbirds, Starling, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Bullfinch,  Woodpigeon, Dunnock and House Sparrow. All records have been entered into the BTO's Garden Birdwatch Scheme.

Here are a few photos.

Blackbird

Dunnock

Starling

Goldfinch

Woodpigeon

Bullfinch

House Sparrow ringing

I've had a House Sparrow terrace nestbox on the side of my house for several years, but have had very little success in attracting birds into it. This year, however, I noticed a pair of birds enetering the box and decied to check the contents.

I looked in last week and saw a couple of  naked and blind chicks. I decided to leave them for another week, and checked them again yesterday to see if they were big enough to ring. Luckily they were, so I ringed them with Ray from the Sorby Breck Ringing Group. These are the first House Sparrows I've ringed in my graden, and I'm looking forward to recording them on the feeders in the near future!

House Sparrow pullus (complete with yellow gape)

The records have been added to the BTO's Nestbox Challenge website.

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.

Garden visitors

Whilst sitting having breakfast, and watching the birds for the BTO's Garden Birdwatch Scheme this morning,  I was lucky enough to spot this beauty. He flew in to the garden, hopped onto the feeders, fed for a few minutes and then disappeared.

Bullfinch

 

Other birds seen this morning were: Blue Tit (2), Great Tit (2), Coal Tit (2), Long-tailed Tit (2), Blackbird (8), Goldfinch (7), Chaffinch (9), Greenfinch (4), Lesser Redpoll (1), House Sparrow (2), Wren (1), Starling (4), Dunnock (2), Robin (2), Magpie (2), Sparrowhawk (1 male flew through), Woodpigeon (3), Collared Dove (2).

Another ringing tick!

I was out at the private site ringing yesterday morning with The Group. We caught 20 birds, and this number included my second "ringing tick" in two weeks, when a young Redwing turned up in the nets!

Redwing

 

As well as the Redwing, we also caught and ringed Blue and Great Tits, a Blackbird, a Treecreeper, a female Great-spotted Woodpecker, a Dunnock (complete with a cloacal protuberance - a sure sign of spring on the way) and a House Sparrow. 

 

To accompany the ringing, we also had a singing Song Thrush along with a couple of Mistle Thrushes, and a Kestrel.

Garden birds in the snow.

We've had a bit of snow here over the last few days, so I've been watching the garden intently to see if we got any different visitors. Luckily today I spotted a Song Thrush and a Brambling, both very infrequent visitors to the garden.

Here are a couple of pictures.

Brambling

Song Thrush

 As well as these two species, I also had all the "usual suspects"; Chaffinch (15), Goldfinch (18), Greenfinch (4), Collared Dove (2), Woodpigeon (1), Magpie (2), Blue Tit (1), Blackbird (8), Dunnock (2) and House Sparrow (2).

Starling

Goldfinch and Greenfinch

 

As always, I'll be sending the records into the BTO's Garden Birdwatch Scheme.

Garden Brambling

Whilst watching the birds in the garden this morning for the BTO's Garden Birdwatch Scheme, I noticed my first Brambling of the winter.

Brambling

This is my 17th record of Brambling in the garden, my first since last winter. Hopefully, it'll hang around.

I also managed to get a decent shot of a male House Sparrow today that I thought I'd share.

House Sparrow

Garden Mega!!

I don't blog that much about the birds in my garden, but today's an exception because I had a "mega" bird in - a Great-spotted Woodpecker!

Great-spotted Woodpecker



Looking back in my BTO Garden Birdwatch notes, the last time I recorded a woodpecker in the garden was in July 2001. Today's bird, as you can see from the picture, was feeding on fat pellets, which I only put out on Thursday, so hopefully, if I keep them topped up, it will return over the winter.

Other birds seen this afternoon, included this female Sparrowhawk, a male Sparrowhawk, that I didn't manage to get a photo of, 4 Greenfinch, 3 House Sparrow, a Robin, 2 Collared Doves, 3 Woodpigeons, 4 Blackbirds, 4 Starlings, 3 Blue Tit, 2 Great Tit 1 Coal Tit, and 15+ Goldfinch. A flock of approximately 30 Redwings were feeding on the Hawthorns behind the house. Hopefully, I can encourage a few into the garden over the winter. Bring on the snow!

 

Sparrowhawk (female)

House Sparrow ringing- new for the year

House Sparrow is a species  that I don't ring very often (my last was in August 2013), so I was very pleased when one turned up in the nets whilst out ringing with The Group this morning at our private garden site in Sheffield.

House Sparrow

 

The bird in question was a bird born this year, which was going through it's "post juvenile moult". In the picture below, you can see that it has dropped all its greater coverts. These will regrow over the next week or so, and will become indistinguishable from an adult bird.

House Sparrow in moult

 

In addition to the House Sparrow, we also ringed a couple of Blackbirds, a Treecreeper, Great and Blue Tits, 2 Goldcrests, along with several Dunnocks and Robins.

 

There were a few other species around the site, including a singing Chiffchaff, 4 Mistle Thrushes, 4 Swallows and several Jays.