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).

Starlings are Go!

My last post about the Starling nest on my house was on 5th May, when the 5 chicks were ringed by me (see here). Since then, the birds have continued to grow, and 4 of the 5 eventually fledged on 12th May, 18 days since they hatched. Unfortunately, 1 of the Starlings didn't make it, and was found dead in the box once the other birds had fledged. The details of the nest have been added to the BTO's Nestbox Challenge Scheme.

The box was empty for a couple of days, before the adult birds started singing around it again, and today there were the first signs of nest number 2.

Starling Nest 2?

Starlings Ringed

It's been a few weeks since I last blogged about the Starling nest on my house (see here). Since then, the 5 chicks have done really well, and today I ringed them for the BTO Ringing Scheme. Details of the nest will also be entered onto the BTO's Nestbox Challenge website.

5 chicks in the nestbox

Starling chick

Starling Nest - We've got Chicks!

This year's Starling nest had 5 eggs back on 11th April. The average incubation period for this species is two weeks, so, when noise was heard from the box on 24th, is was clear this year's chicks had hatched. This was the view of the nestbox this afternoon - 5 naked and blind chicks.

5 chicks on 27th April 2019

I'll update the BTO's Nestbox Challenge site with the details, and leave the chicks for a week or so, before ringing them.

Five eggs

Following on from my last post, the Starlings have now laid a full clutch of 5 eggs.

5 eggs

This should be a complete clutch now, so I'll leave the nest alone for the next couple of weeks, until the chicks are due to hatch. As always, the details will forwarded to the BTO Nest Box Challenge.

Starling Nest 2019 - The First Egg

Last year, due to a spell of cold and miserable weather, the Starlings that nest in the box on the side of my house didn't lay their first egg until 14th April. This year, the first egg was laid today (7th April). 

1st egg

Hopefully, the pair will go on to lay another 4 eggs this week and raise the chicks successfully.