Year List 2022

 Over the last few days I've added the (most likely) last two species to my Year List for 2022, Smew and Scaup.

The Smew, a redhead, was seen at Attenborough Gravel Pits on Wednesday. The Scaup, a male, was seen today at Thrybergh Country Park. These last two species take me to 163 for the year. Whilst in California, Jayne and I also recorded 101 species of bird, 70 of which were lifers!! In total the, my Year List for 2022 stands at 264 species.

Scaup

Whilst at Thrybergh, I had a look at the Mute Swans, and recorded 6 darvic rings (Y835, Y636, Y674, 061Y, 251Y and 252Y). There were 13 Mute Swans present, but the others had their legs covered up!

061Y and Y636

After Thrybergh, I drove across to Rother Valley to see if the Norwegian-ringed Black-headed Gull, JMT9, was still about - it was!!

JMT9

Also present were two darviced Mute Swans, Y178 and 439Y. Interestingly, 439Y had been seen at Rufford CP, in January 2020!

Colour-ringed Coot

I was across at Poolsbrook Country Park in Chesterfield yesterday afternoon, looking for a Caspian Gull (no luck there though!), when I spotted a colour-ringed Coot (FBL), feeding with the Mallards, Canada Geese and Black-headed Gulls.

This is the first ever colour-ringed Coot I've seen, and as soon as I saw it I thought of Kane Brides, of the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, who I know has been ringing Coots this way in the North West of England, for several years. I sent him a picture of the bird via Twitter,and heard back that the ring was in fact from his project. This morning, however, I received a Tweet from David of Sorby Breck Ringing Group to let me know that the bird had been ringed by Dan, a member of our own group at Thrybergh CP near Rotherham just last week, on January 22nd. See details of his recent ringing activities on the his website here.

As well as the Coot, I also managed to spot about 100 Black-headed Gulls, a couple of Herring Gulls, dozens of Canada Geese and Mallards, including this funny looking hybrid. Any ideas?

Mallard hybrid

This winter plumaged Great-crested Grebe put on quite a show as well.

Great-crested Grebe

Black Tern

After a morning's ringing, I drove across to Thrybergh Country Park, with Jayne, to see a Black Tern that had been reported on the Bird Guides website. I haven't seen Black Tern for many years, and this is my first blog post mentioning this species.

The bird in question was "showing well" throughout our visit, but was, unfortunately, too far out to get a photo. It was constantly flying around, picking insects off the surface of the water and being mobbed by the Black-headed Gulls. A great bird to see, and a nice addition to the "Year List".

Year List update:
171 - Black Tern

Ringing Demo at Thrybergh CP -3rd March 2013

I spent 4 hours out with Sorby Breck Ringing Group on Sunday morning doing a ringing demonstration at Thrybergh CP in Rotherham. We managed a very respectable 43 birds with a very good selection of species including Chaffinch, Dunnock, Tree Sparrow, Robin, Blackbird, Yellowhammer and Blue and Great Tits.

Yellowhammer

My personal totals were (new/retrap): Chaffinch 7/0, Blue Tit 2/1, Great Tit 1/0, Blackbird 3/0 and Robin 1/0.

In between net rounds we managed a bit of birding which included a couple of "year ticks", namely:

Year List additions:
94 -Shoveler
95 - Golden Plover

Thrybergh Country Park - 10th March 2012

To say that today's ringing session was slow would be an understatement. We arrived at 7am and by the time we packed up at 10.45am we'd had just 11 birds! Apparently this time of the year can become quite quiet as the birds concentrate on other things!

I managed to process 3 birds: 1 new Blackbird ( 5F, a female born last year), a new male Greenfinch (5M, also born last year) and a retrap Dunnock, which turned out to be a 3 year old bird that had been rung by the group at Thrybergh in 2009. This bird had been recaptured once before last year, so appears to be a resident of the area.

Other birds processed today by the David, Alan and Brian were: 1 new Tree Sparrow, 1 female Reed Bunting, another Blackbird, another Dunnock, 1 Robin and 3 Chaffinches. 1 of the Chaffinches was a lovely male bird which was very bright and was showing black "lips" which they develop when in breeding plumage! You learn something new everyday!

Chaffinch with "black lips"

Out on the water things were also pretty quiet with the number of Black-headed Gulls dropping off. The male Scaup was still present, along with Tufted Duck, Mallard, Mute Swan, Canada and Greylag Geese, Cormorants, Coot and Moorhen. Skylark were singing over the nearby fields as was a Song Thrush and a pair of Lapwing were calling and displaying.

On the way back to the cars we noticed a pair of Long tailed Tits nest building in a hedgerow. Can you spot the half built nest in this picture?

Long-tailed Tit nest

Scaup at Thrybergh.

I'm sorry but I just can't help myself. This morning instead of going for a walk around Linacre I drove back to Thrybergh CP to see the male Scaup, that I missed yesterday. Luckily it was very easy to see and I managed to get a few decent picture as it fed about 10m away. Note the gorgeous grey vermiculations on his back, the greenish tinge to the head and the small black nail on the end of the beak.

Scaup

As well as this bird there were dozens of Tufted Duck, Black-headed Gulls, Coot, Moorhen, a few Pochards, Mute Swans  and Canada and Greylag Geese. One of the Mute Swans was colour ringed (Y326- orange writing on a yellow ring) and is apparantly "one of ours" i.e. ringed by Sorby Breck Ringing Group, according to a local bird watcher. He also said that the bird was an adult male who is resident on the reservoir. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo - d'oh!!

Last sighting of the morning was a winter plumaged Dunlin seen feeding just in front of the Visitors' Centre - nice.

Year list moves on again:

101 - Scaup

Thrybergh Country Park - 25th February 2012

My first ringing trip in two weeks was a return visit to Thrybergh Country Park in Rotherham. We had three nets up and, after a quiet start, managed a total of 23 birds of 10 species (Blackbird, Great and Long-tailed Tit, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Yellowhammer, Wren, Dunnock, Reed Bunting and House Sparrow) . As well as ringing we also held a demonstration which is always good fun. The Yellowhammer was a cracking male and the House Sparrow was aged as a 5 ( born last year) by the greyness of the lores (feathers between the beak and eye).

Yellowhammer

House Sparrow

The juvenile male Scaup that has spent the winter on the reservoir was still present, but I didn't have time to go across and look at it today. A singing Skylark was a year tick (my 100th of the year!) and the other usual suspects (Mallard, Tufties, Moorhen, Coot, Mute Swan, Black-headed Gull) were all present on the water. A small flock of Lesser Redpoll was feeding in the surrounding Alders.

Year List update:

100 - Skylark

Thrybergh Country Park - 5th November 2011

This morning's ringing session took me to Thrybergh Country Park in Rotherham. We arrived at 7am, got 3 nets up around the hide and caught 26 birds.

First bird in today was a Dunnock, which turned out to be a retrap, which meant I could read it's number and get my initials in the book. It also gave me an opportunity to learn the difference between a retrap and a control. Basically, a retrap is when a bird originally rung by the group is recaught, whereas a control is where a bird rung by other ringers is recaught. It turned out that this particular bird had been caught at Thrybergh last November when it was aged as a 3, or juvenile and was therefore just over a year old.

The next few rounds saw a few more Dunnocks, which allowed me to age them as juveniles using the obvious black tips on the primary covets as seen in the picture below.

Juvenile Dunnock

As well as the Dunnocks we also had the first of 6 Blackbirds, which included a mixture of adult, juvenile , male and female birds. Other birds caught today were: Greenfinch (2 super males), Chaffinch (1 female), Tree Sparrow (3), Wren (1), Great Tit (3) and Blue Tit (3, includinga retrap from last year).

Other birds seen or heard on site were: Mistle Thrush, Redwing, Mallard, Coot, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Cormorant, Canada Goose (c200), Black-headed Gull and Pied Wagtail.