More Ducking

Sunday 27th November saw 4 group members arriving at Hickling for another duck session.
The normal nets were erected on the same pond as before. Sharon was home in time from a Wash Wader weekend to see and take part in the mad antics of mist netting ducks !

From the left two 1st. Winter male and an adult male Teal, being held by Dave,Sharon and Gary.


About 50/60 Teal were flying around and about a dozen Mallard, again the Mallard came and went early.

Fortunately some of the Teal came down and  we managed a record catch for the site with 23 new birds ringed with only one 'bouncing'. With 10 being females and 13 males.
The first winter males showed quite a variety of plumages, some were almost adult looking while others were just gaining their head pattern, another had no head patterning but had some vermiculated feathers on the back (see below).

Adult Male Teal

Adult male wing

1st Winter male Teal with head pattern just coming through.

Another 1st Winter male Teal showing a few vermiculated feathers.

A Woodcock was seen at dusk over the pond and several Pinkfeet went noisily over in the dark.

Yellow delight.

In balmy conditions we erected some nets in the cover crop at Ludham on Saturday morning. A mixture of single and four shelf nets were put out in anticipation.
Good numbers of finches have been using the mixture of Kale/Quinoa and millet, with up to 100 Chaffinch and good numbers of Linnet/Reed Bunting and Yellowhammer. A few  Song Thrush are also present, we seem to think they are getting Slugs from under the Kale.
27 new birds were ringed, with a retrap Wren and a control Greenfinch making the total up.
Best bird being a Yellowhammer which gave Sharon the opportunity to extend her knowledge to another species.

Sharon and her Yellow delight.

Wren;  2 (1) originally ringed 19/12/2009

Dunnock; 2

Robin; 2

Blackbird; 3

Song Thrush; 3

Blue Tit; 3

Great Tit; 1

Chaffinch; 6

Greenfinch; (1) Control, possibly a bird from the Eccles ringing course.

Yellowhammer; 1

Reed Bunting; 4

Adult female Yellowhammer.

Birds in the area also included a fly over Buzzard being mobbed by a couple of Jackdaws, a flock of 22 Skylark in the neighbouring field and some noisy Pinkfeet across the road.

Sharon also expertly extracted a Migrant Hawker from one of the nets, seems a little late to still be on the wing.    

Winter is here again.

Its that time of year again, Snow Buntings are arriving and ducks are increasing.
The first Snow Bunting turned up at Caister on 6th November a good 2 to 3 weeks later than normal with 8 being present, these quickly increased to about 30 on the  9th and up to 40 on 18th. They soon found the food we are providing much to their liking. With strong southerly winds forecast for Saturday morning we decided to have a go for these instead of mist netting.
We managed a goods catch with 38 new birds, another 4 were flying about managing to evade the net.
All were first Winter's (3) with 21 females and 17 males, it was interesting to find that we had more Nivalis birds than Insulae (18 and 10 respectively , with 10 intermediates. ) No retraps were caught, we always find it incredible that they seem to find the food so easily.

1st. Winter (3) Female Snow Bunting, Insulae race 

1st. Winter Male Snow Bunting, Nivalis race

While we were there several flocks of Brent Geese went past as well as several Gannet, also 3 Shelduck and a lone Red Throated Diver.

2 Grey Seal were also seen offshore. 

On Sunday 13th we ventured to Hickling for a duck session, James had kindly been feeding the pond up and had reported a few duck had arrived and been feeding there. Nets were erected in the normal pattern and we waited patiently, it was quiet at first but then they eventually turned up. About 25 Mallard at first but they were having none of it and proceeded to fly off! Luckily Teal began to arrive and land on the water, using mist nets to catch these is always a bit hit or miss and eventually we managed to catch 8 out of about 100+ flying around! Still a worth while catch and enabling us to increase our knowledge of this species.

Adult Male (4) Teal

1st Winter Male (3) Teal

 Teal tail feathers, all adult type bar two on the  right being juvenile type. 

4 Drakes and 4 ducks were caught, with all bar one being first Winter's

Thanks must go again to James for his enthusiastic support for this project.

Winterton 29th October

Winterton was again the venue on Saturday 29th Oct. It was very slow to start, the woods being very quiet, but it picked up a bit mid morning when the Tit flocks started moving about.
The net in the dunes again produced 5 new Reed Bunting, 21 so far!
 A few more Redpoll were seen with a flock of 25 flying about. We eventually caught 11 more with 2 being controls, L916247 and X157963.

Adult male Lesser Redpoll

It was a busy morning with a few bird watcher's dropping in and seeing what was being caught, this was due to an Isabelline Shrike being present up the road at Horsey.

53 new birds, 12 retraps and 2 controls were caught making a total of 69 birds handled. Retraps in brackets.

Meadow Pipit 1

Wren  2 (1)

Robin 2 (1)

Blackbird 3

Song Thrush 2

Goldcrest 7

Long-tailed Tit 12  (7) with one from 12/09/2009 and 3 from 19/09/2009

Blue Tit 6 (3) one originally ringed 27/09/2008

Great Tit 1 (2)

Chaffinch 3

Lesser Redpoll 9 (2) both controls

Reed Bunting 5 

Woodcock were again present early on when Dave flushed 3 out while opening the nets.

Dave decided to stay a little longer and do a bit more while the rest of us had to go, he was soon on the phone telling us of a Rough legged Buzzard flying over the dunes giving superb views.

On the 6th November a quick walk down Caister North beach produced 8 Snow Bunting  (no ringed birds) feeding on the food, these being the first of the Winter here. Hopefully numbers will build up in the next few weeks. 

Winterton Ringing

Ringing continues at Winterton this Autumn with mixed catches. The last two Saturdays have produced 74 new and 8 retraps on the 15th and 31 new and 9 retraps on the 22nd. 
The highlight has been  the number of Reed Bunting we have been catching in a net ride of small bushes out in the middle of nowhere, 16 so far this October with no retraps! Also on 22nd an 'Abietinus' race Chiffchaff was caught.  

 1st. Winter (3) female Reed Bunting

                             15th Oct                    22nd Oct  
                                   (Retraps in brackets)

Meadow Pipit          1                                2

Wren                       8 (1)                          5 (2)
                                                                  one from 29/09/2007

Dunnock                 1 (1)

Robin                    12                                1 (1)

Blackbird              13 (2) one ringed as a 1st Winter 30/09/2007

Song Thrush            3                                2

Redwing                                                    1 

Blackcap                 3                                1

Chiffchaff                1                                 2 including 'Abietinus' 

Goldcrest              11                                 3 (3) All recent

Long-tailed Tit        3                                 2

Coal Tit                                                     1

1st Winter (3) Coal Tit 

                            15th Oct                                 22nd Oct

Blue Tit                 2 (2) one from 20/09/2009       2 (1)

Great Tit               6 (1) one ringed 17/09/2006        (2)

Treecreeper          1

Chaffinch              2 (1)  17/10/2010                     1

Bullfinch                1

Siskin                                                                   1  

1st Winter (3) female Siskin 

                             15th Oct                                 22nd Oct

Lesser Redpoll                                                          1

Yellowhammer          1

Reed Bunting            5                                              6

Some interesting tail patterns were seen;

1st. Winter male Blackcap

Quite an assortment ! Reed Bunting

A flock of at least 20 Siskin are present in the area but Redpolls have declined, two of 'our' Redpolls have recently been re trapped at Waxham a journey of 4km. On the morning of the 22nd Tony flushed 3 Woodcock out of the woods while opening the nets.

Common darters are still about and in the sunshine of the 15th both Comma and Red Admiral butterflies were seen sunning themselves.

Little Auk

On Friday 21st  we arrived at the beach car park as normal to erect the nets for the following morning, on returning to the cars we found this unfortunate Little Auk dead! It's breast bone was prominent so we assume it had starved to death.

  

   

Winterton again...

Winterton was again the venue for ringing on Saturday 8th October. The nets were erected on the Friday night in 25mph NW 's with the hope it would calm down for the morning. Luckily the wind had eased to a more manageable 12mph Northerly, it was much cooler of late only managing a cool 11 degrees C.
Sadly it seems most of the Lesser Redpolls have moved on, there were however a few Redwing and Song Thrush going over.

'Continental' Song Thrush (3)

A bit of a mixed bag in ringing terms with the Warbler numbers dwindling now, but still Meadow Pipits on the move in the dunes.

40 new birds were ringed and 5 retraps, the highlight being a Yellow-browed Warbler, the first since 2007. Among the retraps was a Chiffchaff that was originally ringed in the Spring on 23rd April 2011, where has this been hiding all this time ?

Goldcrest and Yellow-browed Warbler

Meadow Pipit 4

Wren 1 (1) originally ringed 06/09/2009

Dunnock 1

Robin 1

Song Thrush 1, very grey looking, 'continental' type

Blackcap 1

Yellow-browed Warbler 1

Chiffchaff (1) ringed 23/04/2011 as 1st. summer female (5F)

Goldcrest 4
Long-tailed Tit 8
Blue Tit 6 (2) one ringed 14/09/2008
Great Tit 2
Chaffinch 4
Greenfinch 1
Lesser Redpoll 2
Reed Bunting 3

Yellow-browed.

2 Swallow were seen battling against the wind and another fly-over Grey Wagtail, Siskins and Brambling were seen flying over the tree tops. Common Daters were still on the wing considering the cooler temperatures with a pair seen in tandem.

Redpoll fest.

Saturday 1st October we were again at Winterton, the day started very mild with very light winds, by the time we packed up its was a glorious sunny day with temperature up to 23.5 degrees C.
It was a very good day's ringing with 97 new birds, 1 control and 2 retraps ( both from the previous week).
Redpolls had increased significantly and these produced most of the interest, with 37 Lesser's ( including a Belgium control ) and 1 Common being caught amounting to our best day tally ever.

Both ends of the spectrum.

1st Winter (3) female left and Adult male (4) right, Lesser Redpoll

Belgian (Brussels) ring

Belgian ringed adult male Lesser Redpoll

The catch also included the first Meadow Pipits of the Autumn, there were up to 20 in the area.  Also a late juvenile Bullfinch.

Meadow Pipit 4                                                 

Wren 7 (1)

Dunnock 2

Robin 1

Blackbird 1

Blackcap 4

Chiffchaff 2 (1)

Goldcrest 5

Long-tailed Tit 3

Blue Tit 9

Great Tit 13

Chaffinch 5

Goldfinch 1

Lesser Redpoll 36 (1 Belgian control)

Common Redpoll 1

Bullfinch 1

Reed Bunting 2 


The Common Redpoll was only the second we have caught at Winterton. The first one was ringed 14 November 1995, it's been a long wait !

1st. Winter (3) Common (left) and Lesser (right) Redpolls

1st. Winter (3) Common (left) and Lesser (right) Redpolls

Juvenile (3) male Bullfinch

Other birds seen on the day included 2 Brambling, a fly-over Grey Wagtail and several Pink feet.

Common Darters were still very much in evidence and a Small Copper butterfly was seen.