Black - caps and heads

There have been a few bits of interest in the last couple of days. A brief early morning ringing session at Billinge yesterday produced 2 Blackcaps and third was probably present. The Blackcaps were heard calling in the half light, just after I had set up, and must have dropped in overnight or that morning. They are most likely to be birds coming in for the winter given the date but as this has been an exceptional autumn in many ways I wouldn't like to say for sure. I haven't seen any Blackcaps there for 4 weeks with the last being ringed at the site on 20th October. The only other birds caught yesterday morning were 2 Redwings and a Blackbird although a female Sparrowhawk did escape from one of the nets just before I packed up and may have been responsible for keeping some birds away.

A photo of the second of the 2 male Blackcaps. A smudgy shot because of the low light.

This afternoon I nipped across to Orrell Water Park to check out the Black-headed Gulls for rings as a colour-ringed Black-headed Gull had been seen there on Sunday. I am currently in the process of obtaining the ringing details of that bird for the person who found it but I wanted to see if it was still present or if there were any others including returning birds. I didn't see the colour-ringed bird amongst the 70 or so Black-headed Gulls that were there but I soon saw a first winter bird with just a metal ring. I took a series of photographs and luckily it walked around enough for me to photograph the ring all round and get the full ring number. It was a British ring and I will post details of where and when it was ringed when I receive them in a few weeks time.

New kid on the block.

I thought that was the only ringed bird and I had run out of bread to attract them when I noticed an adult that was also wearing a metal ring. Luckily it turned to threaten another bird as I rattled off a series of shots so I was fairly sure I had got the full number. On reviewing the results on the back of the camera I quickly realised that I recognised the ring number. It was the German ringed bird, 1A141745 from the Hiddensee ringing scheme, that has wintered at Orrell Water Park for much of the previous 2 winters. I recorded it 14 times from 27/10/12 to 26/01/13 and 13 times from 27/10/13 to 26/01/14. It is interesting that the first and last recording dates in both of those winters were the same and it was an accurate reflection of its presence over those winters. I haven't been checking out the gulls as often this time so it could have been back for a while.

It was nice to see that this German ringed bird had returned for its 3rd winter. This bird was originally ringed as an adult on 29/04/12 at Bohmke und Werder, Mecklenburg - Vorpommern, Germany, 1,102 km to the east (see map below).

 Recovery map for  Black-headed Gull IA141745