Estonian Common Gull!!

No, not at Linacre, unfortunately!! The gull in the title is a coloured ringed bird that I spotted in Southend in Essex in August 2010, whilst looking for a Ring-billed Gull (which I didn't see!).

Common Gull

 For some reason I never got round to sending the details of the bird off until this week. I emailed the BTO the details of the colour ring (left leg, white with black writing P2R7) and was very surprised to get a reply the following day. The email I received was from someone in Estonia telling me that the bird I'd seen was an adult female Common Gull, that had been rung on 29th May 2010 as a breeding adult in a reserve called Matsalu National Park in Estonia- result!

As well as my sighting, the bird has been reported another three times; twice last year in Essex (August and December) and once again this year, back at it's breeding site (May 2011). This is great news, as it shows that it survived last winter's awful weather and made the return journey to breed again.

Getting this information really makes me want to go back to Essex to see if she's back again!

Lesvos - 22nd April 2011

Welcome back to Lesvos! The 22nd April was our second day in Lesvos and my 40th birthday as well. As a result the birding was amazing with another 7 lifers!

First stop today was a walk along the Christou (West) River, a short walk from the hotel. The first bird seen was a Great White Egret fishing in the sea, followed closely by Whiskered, Common and  Gull-billed Tern (3). A Mediterranean Gull (a young bird), was along the shore and several Black-headed Gulls were feeding in the river mouth. Along the saltmarsh and road were Whinchat, 2 Sedge Warbler, a male COLLARED FLYCATCHER, singing Corn Bunting, a pair of Kentish Plover, Great Tit and a Great Reed Warbler. 

Corn Bunting

On the river itself were 3 Squacco Herons, 3 Black Storks along with dozens of  Wood Sandpipers, 2 Greenshank, 1 Little-ringed Plover and a hunting Marsh Harrier.

After a spot of breakfast Jayne and I went for a walk around the hotel grounds where we found and photographed this amazing Spanish Sparrow.

Spanish Sparrow

Next stop on the birding tour was the Kalloni Saltpans. Driving down the west side we had a LONG-LEGGED BUZZARD hovering over the fields. A Black Stork  flew in and landed in the fields as did our first Purple Heron of the holiday. Waders on “the moat” were Avocet, Black-winged Stilt, Little Stint, Ruff, Kentish Plover and Black-tailed Godwit. Black-headed Yellow Wagtail and Whinchat were seen on the bushes as was the ubiquitous Corn Bunting.

 New additions were RUDDY SHELDUCK (20+), 2 Little Tern, a Hobby and a distant kestrel species which could have been either Common or Lesser! A flock of 20+ Glossy Ibis were feeding in the flooded fields, and Little Egret,Great White Egret and Greater Flamingo were also present. On the drive back up a TAWNY PIPIT was spotted on the road with the Crested Larks.

A short drive from the saltpans and we arrived at Achlederi Forest, the

KRUPER’S NUTHATCH site, found “the tree” where they breed and got a view straight away.

We watched the bird return to this same site repeatedly over the next half anhour and even managed to see some display behaviour as the bird sat on the wire with wings quivering!

Krupers Nuthatch

Blue Tit, Chaffinch, Blackbird and Pied Wagtail were also spotted here as was a beautiful male Black-eared Wheatear (black throated form), an Eastern Olivaceous Warbler and another male Collared Flycatcher.

Collared Flycatcher

What a birthday!

Linacre - 6th November 2011

Just managed an hour at Linacre this weekend and only looked at the bottom and middle reservoirs, but I still got some decent counts of the following waterbirds: Mallard (76), Cormorant (4; 2 adults and 2 juveniles), Mandarin Duck (28. including some very vocal male birds), Great-crested Grebe (2 adults and 1 juvenile), Moorhen (7), Coot (9), Tufted Duck (30), Grey Wagtail (1) and Black-headed Gull (4).

Great-crested Grebe

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.

Linacre - 30th October 2011

Two hours spent around the reservoirs this morning produced a great total of 5 Cormorants (2 adults and 3 juveniles), which is my highest ever count here.

Cormorant in trees on the bottom reservoir

In addition, a group of approximately 100 Lapwings flew over the top reservoir, and despite my best efforts to will them to land, they carried on and disappeared! 1 Skylark was heard flying over and 4 Linnets were disturbed feeding on the banks of the top reervoir.This is my first record of Linnet at Linacre. The Wigeon had unfortunately also moved on and for the first time in a few weeks there weren't any Canada Geese present either.

Mandarin numbers were quite low with just 16 spotted today, Tufted Ducks were also present (22), as were Mallard (109), Moorhen (6), Coot (8), Great-crested Grebe (3; 2 adults and 1 juvenile), Pied Wagtail (4) and Black-headed Gull (32).

Black-headed Gulls on the wall of the middle reservoir

Whilst counting the ducks on the bottom reservoir I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye and spotted a small stoat moving along the bottom of the wall. It disappeared down a hole in the wall and then reappeared about 2 minutes later, looked up at me and then ran off into the undergrowth - super!

Stoat

Sheffield Ringing - 29th October 2011

Spent a few hours at a private site in Sheffield with the ringers from the Sorby Breck Ringing Group this morning. Despite a reasonable forecast, when we got there the wind had already picked up which meant the nets were billowing and the birds were keeping their distance. Having said this we did manage a reasonable total of 24 birds and included a new species for me: Lesser Redpoll.

The redpoll were the last birds in the nets today, and we had 3; 1 adult male, 1 juvenile male and 1 adult female. Here's a picture of the male and female adults. Note the extensive red feathering on the male bird, lovely!

Lesser Redpoll

Other birds ringed this morning were: Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Tree Sparrow and House Sparrow.

Other birds seen flying over were: Redwing, Fieldfare, Woodpigeon, Magpie, Crow and Jackdaw.

In addition to the birds I managed to age and sex a Great Tit correctly (juvenile male) and  Ray, my trainer, said he thought it was time for me to apply for my trainee license- hurrah!! When this arrives I'll be able to get even more hands on and begin to ring the birds as well as checking any recaptured birds: recaps. Can't wait!!

Bamburgh and Seahouses - 24th October 2011

Our last day in Northumberland was unfortunately very windy, which meant that the birding was quite difficult to put it nicely! Despite the winds, however, we mananged a quick trip to Stag Rocks at Bamburgh and a look around the harbour at Seahouses.

Stag Rocks is one of my favourite places because, during the winter months, views of Purple Sandpiper are almost guaranteed. Today we managed to find a group of approximately 15 feeding with Turnstones and Oystercatchers. There were also a few Common, Black-headed Gulls, an adult Gannet and a late tern species. I managed to get a few photos of the tern, which had a short, black beak. When I checked Collins, it showed adult winter plumaged Common, Arctic and Roseate Tern all with black beaks, so I can't identify it with 100% accuracy. Any ideas?

Tern species

After about half an hour, we drove down to Seahouses, had some chips(!) and then scanned the harbour for anything blown in by the strong winds. Unfortunately nothing extraordinary was present, but we did see a raft of 10 Eider Duck, a Rock Pipit, Starling, several more Turnstones a Shag, 4 fly past Barnacle Geese (real ones most likely from Svalbard!),and Herring, Great Black-backed and Black-headed Gulls.

Great Black-backed Gulls and a juvenile Herring Gull.