Unexpected Blackcaps

I had a bit of a lie in today because the forecast was for heavily overcast conditions and little or no breeze that would last throughout morning. Luckily the forecast looked like it was going to hold true and I headed off to the baited site at Crawford at 8:00am under a completely grey sky and with little or no breeze to speak of. I didn't go earlier as there doesn't seem to be any advantage in setting up at dawn at this site now the days are much longer and had I thought the conditions would have remained the same throughout the day I would have opted for another afternoon visit.

First job was topping up the feeders and judging by how much the food had gone down since they were filled on Friday they were still being well used. I quickly set up the usual 18m net and I didn't have long to wait before the first bird was caught. There were a few Goldfinches and Tree Sparrows around but the first bird caught turned out to be a Blackcap. One had been singing while I was setting up and I assumed it was the bird I had first heard a few days ago (on the 3rd). A pair normally breed at the site so a singing Blackcap wasn't unexpected and nor was catching it. However, I didn't expect that 5 of the total of 20 birds caught over the next 3 hours would be Blackcaps (4 males and 1 female).

Male Blackcap

Female Blackcap

Looking at other blogs and sightings reports there appears to have been a bit of an influx of Blackcaps into the region overnight and it is likely that some of the Crawford birds fall into that category. The glut of ivy berries in the hedge by the feeders probably helped by providing a good refuelling point for recently arrived migrants.

The rest of the catch was pretty much as expected in terms of species but wasn't without interest. Two of the Goldfinches were fat with the heaviest weighing 19.7g which was 5.3g heavier than the lightest Goldfinch caught. The retrap Tree Sparrow was interesting as it was the first one from a previous year and was originally ringed as a breeding female on 9th June 2016. It was also interesting because of the state of its plumage. It basically looked like it had been attacked by a mad hairdresser for want of a better description. Many of the barbs of the feathers of the underparts appeared to have broken off and other feathers were similarly affected to a lesser degree. As to the cause I have no idea but I have caught Blue Tits that were similarly affected in the past.

Female Tree Sparrow S144976

A close up of the junction between the affected and the seemingly unaffected feathers.

Many of the wing feathers had a ragged edge.

The tail was in a poor state, the breakages didn't follow any fault lines and appeared to be quite random. It is as if the feathers have become brittle and the breakages happened during preening and that is perhaps why the head and neck appear to be the least affected.

Ringing totals (retraps in brackets) for 07/04/2019 were: Blue Tit 1; Great Tit 1; Blackcap 5; Blackbird 1; Tree Sparrow 3 (1); Robin 1; Chaffinch 1; Goldfinch 4(2).

Crawford: 24/02/2019

Fog delayed the start of the session and strong sunshine brought it to a close but in the two and a half hours the tall hedgerow provided shade for the 18m net a decent total of 41 new birds and 5 retraps were caught. The catch was dominated by Goldfinches but a few more Tree Sparrows appear to have found the seed and 9 were caught along with a couple of House Sparrows. There was no sign of farmland species like Yellowhammer but they may still be finding enough food in the surrounding fields. It appears to be a similar story with Corn Bunting with birds thinly scattered across the adjacent farmland and some appearing to be back on territory.

Tree Sparrows have increased in this area in recent years but their distribution is patchy and they are still absent from some of their former haunts.

House Sparrows don't seem to be doing very well anywhere and while the steep decline in their numbers may have levelled off to some extent there doesn't seem to be any indication their numbers are likely to recover anytime soon. 

The current spell of unseasonably warm weather is clearly having an effect with a Linnet back on territory and singing at the ringing site; Chaffinch, Goldcrest and Song Thrush were also in full song. Spring was in the air for Dunnocks too with a lot of singing, wing flicking and chasing going on while a pair of Long-tailed Tits was prospecting for a nest site in the brambles. A reminder that we are still in winter came in the form of a male Chaffinch and a male Blackbird that were caught and found to have long wing lengths. Both of these birds were likely to be winter visitors from the continent with the colour of the underparts of the Chaffinch also pointing to a continental origin.

Ringing totals for 24/02/2019 were: Blue Tit 6 (4); Great Tit 2 (1); Blackbird 2; House Sparrow 2; Tree Sparrow 9; Dunnock 1; Chaffinch 2; Goldfinch 17.

First outing in a while.

I obviously I haven't posted anything on the blog for a couple of months and that has been due to a number of factors, not least two more deaths in the family, but I have been keeping my hand in by doing a bit of ringing in the garden and keeping a look out for ringed gulls on Orrell Water Park.

However, I started baiting the farmland ringing site a Crawford a couple of weeks ago and decided to make my first ringing visit this morning. I knew there were plenty of birds coming to the feeders from the numbers I had seen on my last visit to top them up and by the rate the seed was being eaten so I only set up one 18m net.

The catching rate was brisk, as can be the case when you haven't ringed at a site for some time, and 18 birds were caught within 20 minutes of the net going up. The catching rate remained fairly brisk despite a bit of a breeze developing and a total of 50 birds were caught in a little over two hours. Not bad going for my first ringing session away from the garden this year.

This looks like a fairly standard male Goldfinch from this angle.

However, its chin was pure white and bisected the red bib.

This patch of white feathers wasn't quite symmetrical but certainly made for an interesting looking bird

Only 2 Tree Sparrows were caught but there was a flock of about 15 feeding near the net and more are likely to be caught on subsequent visits.

Ringing totals for 18/02/2019 were: Blue Tit 8; Great Tit 2; Long-tailed Tit 2; Song Thrush 1; Robin 3; House Sparrow 1; Tree Sparrow 2; Dunnock 6; Chaffinch 2; Goldfinch 23.

Billinge: 25th to 29th August 2016 and a couple of recoveries.

I have managed to get out every morning recently and the results can be seen in the table below. Only 3 nets were deployed each time but there was some chopping and changing between the net rides used each day depending on the wind speed and direction and, just as importantly, the forecast cloud cover.

Retraps in brackets.

Monitoring the movements of Tree Pipits at the site has been the main reason behind these daily visits with counts being as important as the numbers caught. There was a decent movement on the 25th when at least 18 went south; counts for the following days were 5+ (26th), 10 (27th), 5 (28th) and 1 (29th).

The 10 Tree Pipits ringed over the last 5 days brings the total ringed in August to 48.

While the autumn passage of Tree Pipits usually extends from early August to late September, in this area, the bulk of migration takes place in the last 3 weeks of August and generally peaks in the 3rd week of the month. Many people think of Tree Pipits as being a September migrant but most will have left our shores by then.

Willow Warblers continued to outnumber Chiffchaffs during the period as a whole, only just, but that should change once we get into September. Both Chiffchaff and Blackcap have been present in relatively low numbers during August and there is no sign of that changing at present so it will be really interesting to see what happens with them next month.

On the other hand Goldcrests have been caught in higher numbers than usual and the 20 ringed over the last 5 days brings the total for the month to 36 which is more than double last August's total. If that is replicated in September and October then we could be in for another bumper Goldcrest autumn without any influx of birds from the continent.

Male Goldcrest

Goldcrest

Less usual captures over the period included 2 Tree Sparrows 25th, single Spotted Flycatchers 25th & 29th and a Redstart 29th. To put the capture of the 2 Spotted Flycatchers into context a check of the BTO online ringing reports revealed that only 3 were ringed in the whole of the recording area of Lancashire and North Merseyside in 2013 followed by 7 in 2014 and just 3 again in 2015, so a very infrequently ringed bird at a county level.

First year Spotted Flycatcher

First year male Redstart

Recent recoveries included a first year Willow Warbler ringed at Billinge on 6th August that was controlled 8 days later on the south coast at Durlston Country Park in Dorset. This site in Dorset saw some large arrivals of Willow Warblers in early August with the largest fall being on the 5th when 210 were ringed. Details of the ringing totals for Durlston Country Park can be found on the Trektellen website (link here).

JTA193         Willow Warbler
Ringed          06/08/16   Billinge Hill, Merseyside
Controlled    14/08/16   Durlston Country Park, Dorset. 329 km S, duration 8 days.

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Details were also received of a Siskin that was ringed in the garden in February and caught by a ringer in Drummond, Inverness, Highland in July.

S144547        Siskin
Ringed          25/02/16   near Orrell, Greater Manchester
Controlled    03/07/16   Drummond, Inverness, Highland. 448 km NW, duration 129 days.

A few more Tree Pipits

It was back to early starts at Billinge yesterday following a break that had been enforced by wet and windy weather. The first Tree Pipit was seen heading south at sunrise and the morning was punctuated by the calls of others passing over. A total of 19 were logged making it the best count of the autumn so far. Unfortunately a better movement didn't translate into more being caught and only 2 were ringed.

Tree Pipit

Willow Warblers put in a reasonable showing with 11 ringed but both Chiffchaff and Blackcap were present in lower numbers than is usual for late August. Blackcaps have been thin on the ground throughout August, after a very good showing in July, and some other ringers are also reporting lower numbers of Blackcaps than expected at their sites. It will interesting to see how the season pans out for this species.

Blackcap

Coal Tits are starting to get more vocal and mobile now and they can give the impression of being on passage but most probably don't go very far. The supporting cast of less frequently caught species included another Willow Tit (6th of the year) and more surprisingly another Nuthatch (3rd of the year).

Male Coal Tit

Willow Tit

Nuthatch

Ringing totals (retraps in brackets) for 23rd August 2016 were: Blue Tit 1; Great Tit 2 (2); Coal Tit 2; Willow Tit 1; Chiffchaff 1 (1); Willow Warbler 11; Blackcap 3; Whitethroat 2; Nuthatch 1; Robin 1; Tree Pipit 2; Chaffinch 7; Bullfinch 1; Reed Bunting 1. Total 37 new birds ad 6 retraps.

This morning started off a bit breezier than expected and it forced me to set the nets in a different configuration and further apart than usual to get the best shelter from the north westerly breeze. The extra walking between the nets and rapidly rising temperature made for a real Betty Swollocks of a ringing session. The breeze did drop off a bit as the morning went on but by the time it did it wasn't worth moving any of the nets back to the usual setup so I just had to sweat. 

There were fewer Tree Pipits on the move with a total of 10 recorded but more found their way into the nets and 5 were caught. It seems the Tree Pipit gods have limited me to a maximum catch of 5 in any one session this autumn, regardless of how many are moving through or how much effort I put in. That is the way it goes sometimes but I have still managed to ring 38 so far this month and I will keep up the effort until passage fizzles out.

Tree Pipit

The remainder of the catch didn't include any real surprises although the juvenile Tree Sparrow is fairly unusual if not unprecedented for the site. Small parties of Tree Sparrows are occasionally recorded passing over in autumn but they are rarely tempted to drop in.

Juvenile Tree Sparrow

Ringing totals (retraps in brackets) for 24th August 2016 were: Goldcrest 2; Great Tit 2; Chiffchaff 4 (1); Willow Warbler 7; Blackcap 4 (1); Whitethroat 3; Blackbird 1; Song Thrush 2; Dunnock 1; Tree Sparrow 1; Tree Pipit 5; Chaffinch 8; Total 40 new birds and 2 retraps.

Hotchpotch

This post is an assortment of things that I have photographed over the last week along with a short summary of recent ringing activities.

Woodpigeons have caught my attention again but this time it was birds that were in the top of an Ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) across the road from the garden. I had noticed birds spending a lot of time there and hadn't really thought much of it as seeing Woodpigeons in a tree is hardly unusual. However, when I got my bins on them and had a proper look I could see they were eating the leaves and that was a bit of a surprise, to me at least. I knew Woodpigeons were partial to the flowers of Ash but I didn't know they also ate the leaves and they have really thinned out the leaves in the top of this particular tree.

This bird is about to swallow a piece of a leaf and you can also see that some of the smaller branches have been stripped of many of their leaves.

In this image you can easily see some of the leaves that have been partially eaten against the birds upper breast..

Another leaf is about to be eaten.

I am not into flowers in a big way but the meadow areas at the Billinge ringing site have some of the most impressive areas of Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) that I have ever seen and they are at their best at the moment. A few orchids are also flowering and while I hadn't gone looking for nests I found a Meadow Pipits while photographing the flowers.

Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) 08/06/2016

Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) 08/06/2016

Marsh Orchid spp. 08/06/2016, probably Southern Marsh Orchid or Southern hybrid.

Meadow Pipit nest 08/06/2016

Back at home the moth trap hasn't produced anything out of the ordinary but variety and numbers are slowly improving.

Lime Hawkmoth 08/06/2016

Ruby Tiger 08/06/2016

Green Silver-lines and Miller 10/06/2016

Pebble Hook-tip 12/06/2016

Peach Blossom 12/06/2016

Scorched Wing 13/06/2016

On the ringing front a very short ringing session at Crawford on the 9th and another there on the 12th produced combined totals as follows (retraps in brackets): Tree Sparrow 20 (4); House Sparrow 2; Greenfinch 17 (2); Goldfinch 9 (2); Chaffinch 2; Robin 3; Dunnock 2; Whitethroat 1; Great Tit 5 (1).
Tree Sparrows seem to be having a good breeding season as I have now caught 33 at Crawford in the last 10 days with 30 being juveniles.

Juvenile Tree Sparrow

Adult male House Sparrow; an increasingly scarce sight these days.
Studies have shown that individuals with larger black bibs are more dominant.

Juvenile House Sparrow 12/06/2016.
While Tree Sparrows seem to be doing ok the same can't be said for House Sparrows. They have virtually disappeared from my garden.

Juvenile Greenfinch 12/06/2016.
The extensive areas of yellow on the tail and outer webs of the primaries mean this bird can be easily sexed as a male.

I am still catching quite a few new Starlings in the garden (mostly juveniles but a few new adults too) and I have now ringed 287 juveniles over the last 5 weeks. Numbers visiting the garden should tail off rapidly now, as birds disperse and form post breeding flocks, so I don't expect to ring many more this breeding season.

Crawford: 4th June 2016

I resumed baiting the farmland site at Crawford recently as it can attract good numbers of juvenile Tree Sparrows in the period just before the first crops of winter cereals start to ripen. It is also a good site for Goldfinches and catching adults at this time of year allows me to confirm their sex by the presence of a brood patch or a cloacal protuberance. Sexing Goldfinches from their plumage characters is a long standing interest of mine but I am also interested to see if there is much, if any, change in their appearance as birds age. This site gives me the best chance of retrapping known sex adults that I have photographed in previous breeding seasons.

Another reason I like baiting this site at this time of year is that I don't have to get up at daft o'clock to get a good catch so I only set the first alarm for 5am and eventually set off just after 6. The drive to the site is usually uneventful but I hadn't gone far before I encountered a Woodpigeon that was suicidal or playing a game of chicken very badly. I slowed right down and nearly had to stop such was its ambition to become another avian road casualty. It wasn't the only one and every few hundred metres there were Woodpigeons in the road, presumably all taking grit, and it wasn't long before I came across a freshly exploded Woodpigeon lying in a wide halo of body feathers. However the most unusual sighting along the route was Roe Deer as it was the first I had seen in that area. At least it showed some road sense and went back through the hedge on my approach.

On getting to the site I was greeted by the calls of Tree Sparrows and it didn't take long to set up a couple of nets in a line by the hedge and feeders. The first net round produced 7 Tree Sparrows, 2 Great Tits and a Chaffinch with only one of the Great Tits being a retrap. In between some of the quieter net rounds I checked out some of the adjacent fields and it was nice to have 3 Corn Buntings singing in the usual spots and the recent large influx if Diamond-back Moths was much in evidence with dozens being disturbed along every few metres of some of the field margins.

Diamond-back Moth

Reports from the south and east coast suggest that many millions of these tiny migratory moths have come into the country in the past few days with upper estimates in the low millions coming from the recording areas of just two two coastal observatories.

11 of the 13 Tree Sparrows caught were juveniles like this bird.

Adult Tree Sparrow

I packed up at at 10am having caught 29 new birds and 2 retraps. Species totals (retraps in brackets) were: Tree Sparrow 13, Greenfinch 6; Chaffinch 4; Goldfinch 2; Whitethroat 2; Robin 1; Great Tit 1 (2).

I was disappointed that I only caught 2 Goldfinches on this visit but every adult caught at this time of year adds to my collection of photographs of known sex birds and my understanding of the variation the sexes can display. As you can see the red on the face of this bird doesn't extend very far behind the eye but blowing back the feathers of the vent confirmed it was a male.

The lesser coverts of the same bird had narrow and well defined brown fringes which is typical of many males.

Crawford: 11th January 2016

Scraping frost from the car was a bit of a novelty this morning as it was only the third or fourth time I have needed to this winter. Having defrosted the car I headed off to Crawford a little later than planned but that was largely due to my reluctance to get up and need for large quantities of caffeine rather than the time taken up by clearing the thin layer of frost from the windscreen.

I had three nets set up at the feeders by 08:30 which was early enough as it was still ahead of the main arrival of birds. A good number of finches and a few Tree Sparrows started to arrive after I had set up and the first round of the nets produced 17 birds. The change to more normal temperatures seemed to have sharpened their appetites and by late morning a total of 46 birds had been caught.

Goldfinch was still the dominant species but there was a noticeable, if slight, increase in the number of Tree Sparrows and Greenfinches coming to the feeders and this was reflected in the numbers caught. On the other hand Chaffinches continue to be in relatively short supply and only one Yellowhammer was seen coming to the seed all morning. There are still plenty of stubble fields around and Chaffinches and Yellowhammers are presumably taking advantage of them, not that I have seen many doing so. It may take a covering of snow or the action of the plough before more need to take advantage of my seed offerings, although I suspect there are simply fewer around following last year's poor breeding season.

Adult male Goldfinch.

Adult male Greenfinch.

Tree Sparrow

Adult female Yellowhammer.
This was the only Yellowhammer seen at the feed this morning and turned out to be a retrap when caught. It was originally ringed at the same site on 17th February last year.

Ringing totals (retraps in brackets) for 11/01/16 were: Woodpigeon 1; Blackbird 3 (1); Robin (1), Dunnock (1); Blue Tit 1 (1); Great Tit 1; Goldfinch 16 (6); Greenfinch 4 (1), Chaffinch 3 (1); Tree Sparrow 4; Yellowhammer (1). 

When I got home I heard the sad news that David Bowie had died and while I couldn't class myself as a huge fan he has produced some great music. Like many people of my age his music has punctuated a large part of my early life so here is one of my favourite tracks by way of a small tribute -