Linacre - 1st visit of 2025

With being away in Norfolk, yesterday (4th) was the first time I could get down to Linacre this year. I had a couple of hours in the morning, and, despite it still being very quiet, added a few more birds to the Year List.

I started off in the bottom car park, where my first Linacre record of 2025 was.... a Blackbird. This was followed quickly by overflying Redwing (83). Walking down to the bottom reservoir, it was pretty quiet, except for two men sitting, up to their necks in the freezing water, complete with bobble hats on!! Moorhen (84) was added to the Year List. The first of 4 Cormorants, was also noted and Siskin (85), were heard and seen. Carrying on around all three reservoirs, the following birds were counted: Mallard (75), Coot (2), Mandarin Duck (19 - 86), Nuthatch (87), Mistle Thrush ( 1 by the top reservoir - 88), Tufted Duck (4; 3 males and a female - 89), Treecreeper (90) and Little Grebe (1 on the middle reservoir - 91), Pied Wagtail (1 heard) and, best of all, 5 Teal ( 3 males and 2 females).

Linacre WeBS and Ringing- October and November 2024

 I carried out this month's WeBS count at Linacre this morning. It was 12 degrees, grey and overcast, and, not for the first time this year, very quiet!!. I also realised that I hadn't posted last month's totals either, so here they are too.

October 2024 - Mallard (57), Moorhen (9; 8 adults and 1 juvenile), Coot (3), Cormorant (5 juveniles), Grey Heron (2), Tufted Duck (17), Mandarin (80), Great-crested Grebe (1), Grey Wagtail (2) and Black-headed Gull (2).

November 2024 - Mallard (53), Moorhen (9; 7 adults and 2 juveniles), Coot (1), Cormorant (1), Grey Heron (2), Tufted Duck (0!), Mandarin (16!!), Little Grebe (1), Pied Wagtail (1) and Black-headed Gull (1).

Last weekend, we were ringing at Linacre and managed to catch 25 birds: Redwing (6/0), Blue Tit 7/0, Great Tit 1/2, Coal Tit 1/0, Long-tailed Tit 6/0 and Wren 1/1.

Cornwall Ringing

 Yesterday morning (31st), Luke and I were up early visiting a private ringing site in the Nanjizal Valley in West Cornwall (West Cornwall Ringing Group). Thanks for arranging Luke, and thanks to Kester and Jon for allowing me onto your site.

We arrived at 7am, and got straight on with the ringing. The first bird I ringed was a Chiffchaff (the first of 26 ringed by me that morning!). Other birds ringed were: Blackcap (12), Robin (6), Song Thrush (5), Redwing (3), Blackbird (3), Great-spotted Woodpecker (2;1 new and 1 retrap), Goldcrest (1), Firecrest (3), Cetti's Warbler (3; 1 retrap and 2 new) and, best of all, Yellow-browed Warbler (3 new birds) 67 birds from a total of 80!

The obvious stand out birds were, of course, the Yellow-browed Warblers, the Firecrests and the Cetti's Warblers - 3 new species for me. The Yellow-Browed Warblers were also colour-ringed, as part of a national scheme (see here), to try and find out a little more about their distribution and wintering sites. This site has colour-ringed just over 40, this winter alone!

Yellow-browed Warbler

Firecrest

Cetti's Warbler (10 tail feathers)

The morning was very busy, but we did manage to keep an eye on birds flying over, the best of which was a Merlin (year tick 197).

Linacre WeBS - 19th November 2023

 Today was the day for this month's WeBS walk around Linacre. I had a couple of hours, walking around all three reservoirs, recording just shy of 400 waterbirds of  9 species.

Counts were: Mallard (154), Mandarin Duck (153), Coot (10), Moorhen (19), Tufted Duck (47), Kingfisher (1), Cormorant (1), Great-crested Grebe (3) and Black-headed Gull (13).

Mandarin Ducks

Other birds seen/heard were: Raven (2), Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Nuthatch, Wren, Robin, Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tit and Redwing.

Linacre - 5th November 2023

 I had my first visit of the new month to Linacre this morning. I spent a couple of hours walking around all three reservoirs, and recorded some good numbers of waterfowl.

Birds seen were: Mandarin Duck (170 - my highest count of the year so far, and my third highest ever), Mallard (119), Tufted Duck (67 - the highest count of the year), Moorhen (11), Coot (10), Black-headed Gull (22), Lesser Black-backed Gull (6 over), Goosander (3 females- the first of the winter), Grey Wagtail (1) and Pied Wagtail (1).

Pied Wagtail

Other species of note were: Redwing (2 over) Fieldfare (4 over), Siskin (heard), 1 juvenile Woodpigeon and Treecreeper (1 seen).

Dutch-ringed Redwing at Linacre

 Every year, we try to catch some of the Redwings, that spend the winter months in Britain. This morning, we (Sorby Breck Ringing Group), were at Linacre before light to set up the nets and see if we could get lucky. By the end of the morning, we had ringed 8 birds (of about 30 in the area), including our first ever foreign-ringed bird, a juvenile ringed in Holland. Further details of exactly where and when, to follow when I hear back. UPDATE: the Redwing had been ringed 510km away, in The Netherlands, 8 days before it was caught at Linacre. Fantastic!! 

Dutch-ringed Redwing

Birds ringed were (new/retraps) : Redwing 7/1, Blackbird 1/0, Great Tit 8/0, Blue Tit 7/1, Coal Tit 2/1, Long-tailed Tit 2/0, Treecreeper 1/0, Wren 1/0, Chaffinch 1/0, Bullfinch 1/0 and Goldcrest 5/0.

Whilst there we also spotted a few other birds: Cormorant (1 over), Raven (1 heard), Tawny Owl (heard first thing), Jay ( 2 seen), Skylark (1 heard), Buzzard (1 over) and Sparrowhawk (2; a male and female hunting the Redwing!!).

Linacre WeBS December 18th 2022

 After a week of ice and snowy conditions (maximum temperature of  3 degrees) I went down to Linacre yesterday morning (17th) to carry out this month's WeBS count. I had expected the reservoirs to be frozen, but, apart from a little ice ( c.10 %) on the bottom reservoir, the other two reservoirs were completely ice-free.

I walked around all three reservoirs and recorded the following numbers: 231 Mallard (highest count of the year), 114 Mandarin Duck, 72 Tufted Duck, 16 Moorhen, 8 Coot, c.50 Black-headed Gull, 5 Cormorant, 1 Grey Wagtail and 1 Little Grebe.

Black-headed Gulls

Other birds seen around the site included: 1 Tawny Owl, Siskin (3, the first of the winter), Magpie, Nuthatch, Blackbird, Wren, Blue, Great, Coal and Long-tailed Tit, Fieldfare (heard) and Redwing (10 over).

UPDATE: A report on Derbyshire Facebook Page from 18th recorded 119 Teal (!!!), 2 Gadwall, 1 male Shoveler, 104 Tufted Duck, 8 Goosander, 3 Cormorants and  19 Lapwing!!!

Linacre Ringing - 5th November 2022

 Just two of us managed to get to Linacre for this week's ringing session with Sorby Breck Ringing Group, but we had a fantastic few hours with 46 birds, of 8 species, ringed.

As always, the majority of the birds were Blue and Great Tits, with 18 (15 new and 3 re-traps) of the former and 9 (8 new birds and 1 re-trap) of the latter caught. 2 Coal Tits (both new) were also caught, along with 11 Long-tailed Tits (all new), 1 Blackbird (new), 1 Chaffinch (new), 3 Goldcrests (2 new and 1 re-trap) and, best of all, a young Sparrowhawk - the first to be ringed at Linacre!!

Sparrowhawk!!

As well as the ringing, we also managed to see a flock of c.30 Redwings, c.20 Fieldfares and we also heard Tawny Owls calling.

Linacre - 30th October 2022

 Jayne and I had a couple of hours round Linacre this morning in grey, overcast, but very mild (15 degrees) conditions.

Birds recorded were:  36 Black-headed Gull, 65 Tufted Duck (the highest count since 56 in April), 83 Mallards, 12 Moorhens (9 adults and 3 juveniles), 4 Coots, 1 Kingfisher, 4 Cormorants, c52 Mandarin Ducks,( a low count for this time of the year, and many more were heard in the trees and overhanging vegetation), 1 Little Grebe, 2 Great-crested Grebes (both juveniles), 1 female Goosander (the second winter record after 2 females on 12th October and 1 Pied Wagtail.

Pied Wagtail

In addition, 3 Common Buzzards were together over the middle reservoir, a few Redwings were heard, and singles of Song Thrush and Jay were seen.

Linacre Reservoir - 27th February 2021

 It was a bright, sunny and calm morning this morning, with a temperature of just 1 degree at 7am, as I arrived at Linacre. I spent 2 hours walking around all three reservoirs, by which time the temperature had risen to 5 degrees.

The first birds seen were a flock of at least 30 Redwing (first Linacre record of 2021) feeding in the fields by the main entrance. The woods were alive with bird song, including 2 Mistle Thrushes, 1 Song Thrush, Nuthatch, Green Woodpecker and 2 drumming Great-spotted Woodpecker. No Lesser-spotted Woodpecker or Chiffchaff, despite much searching and listening!

Out on the water, waterfowl numbers were still pretty good, with 111 Tufted Duck, 106 Mallard, 79 Mandarin Duck, 4 Canada Geese, 4 Great-crested Grebe, 4 Little Grebe, 3 Goosander (1m and 2fm), 32 Black-headed Gull, 14 Coots (excellent count!) and 5 Moorhens.

I did a nestbox check on 17th February. I only checked the tit boxes, as I didn't have the ladders for the owl boxes. Most were okay, after the winter, and 1 contained a Shrew species, most likely a Common Shrew.

Common Shrew?

Linacre Ringing - 24th November 2019

Yesterday I was down at Linacre for a 4 hour ringing session with 3 other members of Sorby Breck Ringing Group. We had a steady morning, with 41 birds of 11 species.

Numbers were as follows (new/retrap): Blue Tit 6/7, Great Tit 7/5, Long-tailed Tit 1/2, Coal Tit 3/1, Redwing 1/0, Blackbird 1/0, Wren 1/1, Bullfinch 2/0, Chaffinch 1/0 and Jay 1/0.

Linacre Ringing - 12th October 2019

After a couple of wet and windy weekends it was really nice to get out to Linacre again for a ringing session yesterday. I was there with 5 other members of Sorby Breck Ringing Group, and we managed to catch a ring 75 birds of 11 species.

As usual, the majority of birds ringed were tits, with 24 Blue (23 new and 1 retrap), 24 Great Tits (22 new and 2 retraps), 1 Coal Tit (new bird) and 8 Long-tailed Tits (7 new and 1 retrap). We did however, also ring Goldcrest ( 7 new birds), 1 Wren (new), 2 Robins (new), 1 Treecreeper (new), 1 Chiffchaff ( a new, 1st year bird), Blackbird (4 new birds, including 2 probable continental birds) and 2 Redwings (our first of the year).

Chiffchaff

Treecreeper

In between net rounds we also recorded a Peregrine Falcon (only my third Linacre record, and my first since 2016), Raven (1 over), 1 Cormorant and a lovely skein of approximately 180 Pink-footed Geese flying SE. A Red Admiral butterfly was also seen briefly.

Linacre WeBS - 10th November 2018

During last month's WeBS walk, Luke and I found 2 "female type" Teal. This morning we were down at Linacre again, to carry out this month's count, and one of the first birds we saw was a male Teal. We managed to get quite close and got a decent photo. Later in the morning we found this same bird, and a female, together on the other side of the middle reservoir. We can't be sure, but it would be nice to think that this morning's birds were the same two as last month, and that the male bird has come out of eclipse plumage. This species is less than annual at Linacre, so hopefully, they'll stay around for the rest of the winter, and perhaps into 2019.

Teal (male)

Mandarin Duck numbers were still pretty good, with 88 seen (113 last month). Other birds seen were: Tufted Duck (34), Mallard (70), Coot (4), Moorhen (21, the highest count of the year), Grey Wagtail (2), Pied Wagtail (1, the first record of 2018), Black-headed Gull (47) and Cormorant (2).

Away from the water, there were at least 6 Redwings, 1 Mistle Thrush and several Blackbirds feeding on a Hawthorn bush by the top reservoir, where we also had a Raven fly over, and a confiding Robin.

Robin

Linacre WeBS - 21st October 2018

Yesterday morning Luke and I were down at Linacre to carry out this month's WeBS count. We had a very successful few hours recording our first Teal (2 female types) and Wigeon (1 female type) of 2018.

Teal

Wigeon

In addition, we also had the highest count of Mandarin (113) since October 2016, when 117 were counted, 20 Black-headed Gulls, 1 Grey Heron, 2 Cormorants, 4 Great-crested Grebes, 2 Little Grebes, 76 Mallards, 35 Tufted Ducks, 11 Moorhens, 6 Coots and a Kingfisher.

Other birds seen on site included a single Goldcrest, Siskin (heard), Robin, Chaffinch, Wren, Blackbird, Redwing (4 over) and 2 Ravens.

There were lots of fungi all around the site, including this lovely collection of Fly Agaric.

Fly Agaric

Linacre Ringing - 20th October 2018

This month's ringing session at Linacre started at 6:45am, just before it got light, so that we could set the nets up and ready to try and catch the first Redwings of the autumn/winter period. We were lucky and managed to catch 2 new birds (both adults).

Redwing

We also managed to catch a Brambling (the first to be ringed at Linacre). The bird was a very smart male bird, born this year.

Brambling

The other, slightly different bird was a Coal Tit that was noticeable greyer than our usual birds. We identified this a "continental type" bird, i.e. most likely from mainland Europe! Here's a picture showing the "continental type" (right hand bird) along side a regular bird.

Coal Tits

Finally, we also caught and ringed 2 Greenfinch, another new species for Linacre.

Birds ringed (new/retrap): Wren 3/0, Dunnock 1/0, Redwing 2/0, Goldcrest 4/0, Coal Tit 7/0, Blue Tit 14/6, Great Tit 12/0, Nuthatch 1/0, Chaffinch 1/0, Brambling 1/0, Greenfinch 2/0 and Goldfinch 1/0.

Whilst on site we also noted 3 flocks of Fieldfare (10, 20 and 20) flying over, a lovely skein of approximately 100 Pink-footed Geese flying east and some very vocal (possibly 4) Tawny Owls.

Iceland - Day 1

Jayne and I were in Iceland for 4 days last week. It wasn't a "birding break", but we did get some nice views of the local birdlife, including 2 "lifers" and a darvic, colour ringed Redwing.

The first thing to say about Iceland's birds, is that there aren't that many... at least not in March! The first species we saw was Raven. Up to 6 birds were seen flying around together, and it was the only species of corvid seen during our trip. Having said that, they were very easy to see, and included several birds present in and around the streets of Reykjavik.

Raven

We spent our first day in Reykjavik, and it was here that we found a very noisy and confiding group of Redwing, feeding with a couple of Blackbirds and Starlings.

Redwing

In amongst the Redwing was a darvic, colour-ringed individual, 075. A quick search of the internet, found a project, The Turdus Project (see here), being run by the University of Iceland, and I was able to find out that this bird had been ringed in Reykjavik on 23rd May 2017, as a nestling. It had been reported  10 times in and around the city since then, and had not migrated. This is one of the aims of the project, to see the link between migratory strategy and breeding success, so it'll be interesting to see how the birds that stay in Iceland for the winter, do, compared to those that migrate. Here's the only photo I got of 075.

Redwing 075

A walk along the sea front produced several pairs of Eider Duck, whilst in the harbour we spotted Herring,  Lesser and Great Black-backed Gulls, and then, a couple of distant adult Glaucous Gulls. I tried luring them in with some bread (about £5.00 a loaf!!!), but they weren't interested. 

That's it for the first day. More in a second post.

Linacre WeBS - 16th December 2017

This month's WeBS walk should have been last weekend, but I couldn't get down, so instead, I went down yesterday morning. It was just 1 degree when I arrived and I spent one and a half hours on site recording the following waterbirds: Mallard (81, the 2nd highest count of the year), Mandarin Duck (25), Tufted Duck (20), Teal (1 flew up the top reservoir), Black-headed Gull (24), Moorhen (17), Coot (2), Great-crested Grebe (1), Grey Wagtail (1) and Pied Wagtail (1 - my first Linacre record since April 2015!!)

Pied Wagtail

The woods were quite quiet, but the resident tits (Blue, Great, Coal and Long-tailed) were all seen, along with Jay, Crow, Goldcrest, Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Dunnock, Buzzard, Goldcrest, Blackbird, Redwing, Siskin, Wren and Robin.

Enjoying some free seed

Frozen Leaves

Linacre Ringing - 25th November 2017

Last Saturday saw 5 members of the Sorby Breck Ringing Group down at Linacre for a ringing session. The weather was a bit blustery, with a few rain/sleet showers and a temperature of just 4 degrees, so, as you can guess, the ringing was slow. After 3 hours we'd caught just 9 birds of 5 species, namely (new/retrap): Blue Tit (3/1), Great Tit (1/0), Coal Tit (1/0), Goldcrest (2/0) and Dunnock (0/1).

Other birds recorded on the ringing site were: Redwing (20+ over), Fieldfare (12, the first of the winter), Long-tailed Tit, Bullfinch (heard), Chaffinch, Jay (2 seen), Magpie (1), Blackbird, Song Thrush (1 seen) and Kestrel ( 1 hunting over the site).

Whilst there, my nephew, Luke had a quick walk around the bottom and middle reservoirs were he recorded: c.20 Black-headed Gulls, 12 Mandarin Ducks, Mallard, 1 Great-crested Grebe and 2 Cormorants.

Linacre - 11th November 2017

It's been a while since I was last at Linacre, but today I was down on site for a couple of hours with my nephew, Luke.

We arrived at 7.40am, and walked around all 3 reservoirs. Waterbirds seen were: Mallard (69), Tufted Duck (12), Mandarin Duck (2), Little Grebe (2), Great-crested Grebe (1), Coot (5 adults), Moorhen (16; 11 adults and 5 well grown juveniles), Black-headed Gull (26)and Grey Wagtail (3).

Black-headed Gull

Grey Wagtail

The woods were quite quiet, but we did manage to record Great-spotted Woodpecker, Nuthatch, Blackbird, Robin (singing), Wren (singing), Siskin, Kestrel (1 male), Starling (flock of c.30 flew over), Redwing (17 over), Jay, Magpie (2), Carrion Crow, Blue, Great and Long-tailed Tit.

Linacre Ringing - 15th October 2017

It wasn't a great morning weather wise today, but we (Sorby Breck Ringing Group) managed to get out to Linacre for a few hours ringing.

It was quiet from the outset, but we still managed to ring 35 birds of 8 species, as follows: Dunnock 2/0, Robin 1/0, Goldcrest 15/1, Long-tailed Tit 1/2, Coal Tit 1/0, Blue Tit 5/1, Great Tit 4/1, Nuthatch 0/1.

Long-tailed Tit

Other birds seen/heard during the morning included Tawny Owl (heard on arrival), Jay, Redwing (c.30 over), Grey Heron (1 heard) and Mistle Thrush (1 over). A flyby Red Admiral butterfly was also seen briefly.