Rain stops play

The weather forecast for Saturday was absolutely awful, heavy showers and strong NE winds. 
No good for mist netting or the breeding season.
We had a trek over to Haddiscoe to see if there were any Lapwing about, lucky for us we could stay in the car and watch from there, not so good for the birds.
In between the showers we saw several sitting Lapwing but no chicks, they are later than normal.
 Dave spotted a pair of Mipits carrying food and soon found the nest with 4 pulli that were duly ringed.

Meadow Pipit pulli doing there best to hide.

Sightings included several Whimbrel, Little Egrets, Wheatear and a smart male Yellow Wagtail. 

There were also lots of Hares about, some still boxing and looking bedraggled in the rain. 

Even the cattle looked fed up !

A trip to Lound Lakes

This Wednesday saw the group return to the Lound Lakes nature reserve to give the yearly ringing demonstration as part of the annual dawn chorus event held by the Broads Authority in partnership with Essex & Suffolk Water. Our trainee Justin has recently been appointed in the post of Conservation Hydrology Officer and being the site warden at Lound Lakes was particularly keen to see what birds were caught. After leading the dawn chorus walk he eventually arrived at base camp with 21 visitors and immediately jumped into help with the ringing as Tony and Gary returned across the boardwalk with the results of a bumper net round.

A crowd gathers

They were hoping for blood!

At the end of the session 27 birds were ringed and 5 retraps processed including a pair of coal tits that were ringed at the same demonstration in 2008. Our many visitors left feeling privileged at their close encounters with some of Britain's well known bird species.

Ringing list, retraps in brackets

Great Spotted Woodpecker 1

Wren 4

Dunnock 2

Robin 1

Reed Warbler 1

Whitethroat 2

Blackcap 3

Long-tailed Tit 2

Coal Tit (2) both ringed 04/05/2008

Blue Tit 4

Great Tit 4 (3) all ringed 04/05/2008

Chaffinch 2

Reed Bunting 1

First reed warbler ringed for the site

And still she sits tight after all the goings on.

More Tawny Owls

One of the Owl Boxes

Monday 3rd May saw us doing the rounds and checking some more Owl boxes. This resulted in 2 broods of 2 and 2 broods of 3 being found, one brood of 3 being ready to ring. The other broods were about 6/7 day's old.

Cute Tawnies

The ringed brood averaged about the same size as the one's on Saturday, fortunately the land owner and his daughter were able to attend the ringing and were delighted to see the chicks.
Gary's camera was again deployed with great effect.

On the journey 6 Red Deer  crossed the road in front of us, 2 of them being young stags in 'velvet'.

Annual Martham reunion

Nets were erected on Friday night at Martham ready for Saturday morning so there was no excuse not to turn up.

The group met at 5.30 am to be greeted by a heavy shower, so we sat it out in the cars for half an hour. Then it was bright sunshine and a light NW. This site is mostly mature woodland with scrub in places, we only net it at most, twice a year and this was the first visit since May 2009.

All set up and ready for action !

When the sun came out it was a 'bootiful' day with Speckled Woods flitting about and the first Large Red Damselfly seen, Swifts flying overhead and a Cuckoo was giving it the big'un!

Speckled Wood

A good selection of birds were ringed with the first Bullfinch and Tawny Owl's of the year.

42 new with 2 pulli and 4 retraps were processed.

Ringing list, retraps in brackets,

Tawny Owl 2 (pulli)

Wren 6

Dunnock 2

Robin 4

Blackbird 1 (1) ringed 28/04/07

Sedge Warbler 2

Whitethroat 1 (2) one ringed 02/06/2007 and the other 04/05/2009

Blackcap 6

Chiffchaff 2

Willow Warbler 3

Long-tailed Tit 5

Marsh Tit 2

Great Tit 3 (1) a bird originally ringed in 2008 at Tony's garden

Bullfinch 3

5M Bullfinch

6F Bullfinch

5M Marsh Tit

Gary or should I say inspector gadget, has built a camera on a pole to view nests and box contents. This has cheered our human 'Chimp', Tony, up no end as he no longer needs to climb the trees to find nothing there!

We tried it out on a Wood Pigeons nest, Tawny Owl box and several other contenders and it worked very well.

Gary and his telescopic camera

The resultant picture of nest and contents.

The first Owl box checked this year contained 2 Tawny chicks with FM so were ready to ring. One of the adults was seen nearby the night before. This was a good result as the box was replaced this year and you never know whether they will like the new one.

Tawny Owl pulli

On the way home we went to Tony's and ringed 2 Collared Dove and 5 Robin pulli which rounded of a good days ringing.

Collared Dove pulli

Not so cute at this age!  Robin pulli

Better Than Work

On Sunday/ Monday we had a lot of Wheatears moving through our area ( 51 reported) and a few Ring Ousel. So on Tuesday I made the great sacrafice and took time off work to try and catch a few. Unfortunately the Ring Ousels had moved on but I managed to trap 3 Wheatears, the only 3 I saw ( 100% catch rate, how good is that?) With wings of 108mm (Male) & 100mm (Female) made them the more striking Greenland race, very good birds to catch. I must make an effort to take more time off work!

Woody

A text message from John on Wednesday night alerted us of a Woodchat Shrike in Winterton Valley.
A superb bird seen hunting Bumble Bees, it was still present Thursday morning at least.

Record shot of Woodchat

In the garden a Turtle Dove was seen on Monday night and Wednesday morning but not since. A special bird at any time and a welcome change from the normal Collared Doves.

Several Jackdaw and Rooks are coming in now feeding in the whoosh net area.

6F Jackdaw

Also caught was this female Chaffinch with 'bumble' legs, She had a  brood patch so is doing ok and breeding in the area.

.

Female Chaffinch

Blackcaps and Browncaps

Saturday 24th saw the whole group eventually meeting at Winterton at 5.30am or there abouts! Derek was again on his travels.
There was no frost forecast for the morning , so the nets were again erected the night before.
 The day did not start well with Arthur not hearing his alarm clock, not enough poles being brought and a distinct lack of birds about. Tony and Justin came to the rescue by felling a Birch to make another pole. Justin cut it down with a penknife saw and Tony then tidied it up using an axe, Ray Mears has nothing on us!

 Ray Mears impersonator

We had several visitors during the course of the morning, Ted popping in on his bike looking for Treecreepers  and Pete just having a look to see what was going on . Pete then went back along the dunes and later rang on his mobile saying a Red Kite had just flown over our heads, unfortunately we were not lucky enough to see it!

We did have a flyover Yellow Wagtail and caught  our first Whitethroat and Sedge Warbler of the year.

5F Whitethroat

4 Sedge Warbler

15 Birds were ringed and 10 retraps, all from 2010.

Ringing list, retraps in brackets;

Wren 1 (1)

Dunnock  (4)

Stonechat 1

Sedge Warbler 1

Whitethroat 1

Blackcap 11 (1 Control from Belgium)

Chiffchaff (2)

Long tailed Tit (2)

5M Stonechat

The morning will be remembered for a small fall of Blackcaps, with one bearing a Belgian ring, also one with pollen around its bill suggesting a movement from a warmer climate. The total number of Blackcaps present in all the woods at Winterton would be mind boggling.

'Sherbet Dip'