Winterton blues

With the fine weather of late and a few early migrants being recorded we thought we would have a change of scenery and give Winterton our first go this year. We arrived bright and early Saturday morning to open the nets, 8 x 60' and 1 x 50' were erected on Friday night.
The morning was cold (6.5 °C) and a light Easterly, however this strengthened through the morning to a moderate Easterly and started to rain steadily from 8.20 am. Luckily due to lack of birds and the weather we had already taken the nets down and missed out on a drenching!

Sharon, The Guvnor and Mr. Fix it with the 'logo bird '

13 new birds and 6 ( retraps ) were processed, with the first Chiffchaffs and Goldcrest of the year being ringed. At least 3 Chiff's were heard singing in the morning.

The ENRG logo !

WREN ; 1 (1 ) One originally ringed 14/09/08

DUNNOCK ; 0 (3)  One ringed 12/09/09 and another 21/04/07

ROBIN; 3

BLACKBIRD ; 1

CHIFFCHAFF ; 2

GOLDCREST ; 1

LONG-TAILED TIT ; 0 (2) One from 19/09/09

CHAFFINCH ; 1

GOLDFINCH ; 4

Male Goldcrest

A Sunday afternoon stroll down Winterton Valley produced 2 Black Redstarts, 2 Goldcrest and a hunting Kestrel.

Garden hat-trick and more Linnets

The weekend started well with Mel ringing me on Friday while I was at work to say there was a Hawfinch in the garden ( at Ormesby St. Margaret) feeding on the seed in the whoosh net area !!!!! After a few expletives I calmed down and said are you sure, the answer was a positive yes. I should not have doubted her as we have had 2 in the garden before and Mel has seen and identified them on her own before I had seen them !
Luckily I managed to get home early and the net was hastily set, after about an hour's wait that seemed an eternity the Hawfinch turned up.  I had made earlier phone calls to the other members of the group to try and get some one over to ring it as I had done the last one, sadly no one could make it so I had to ring it myself !

Female Hawfinch

Female Hawfinch Tail

Unfortunately no full frame photo's were taken , the bird was very active and brutally inflicted pain with its large bill ! 

This is the hat-trick for the garden with a Female ringed in May 2000 and a Male ringed in June 2006.

Only another 5/6 years to the next one then boy's !

Also present in the garden was a male Reed Bunting, only the second ever seen and caught (rarer than the Hawfinch !). On Saturday a Female Brambling and 3 Siskins (first of the year ) were seen but not trapped.

Also seen on Saturday was a Brimstone butterfly.

A trip to Caister beach on Saturday morning produced another 17 Linnets with 15 new, 1 control and a retrap from last week.

Male Linnet, control L692066

Adult (4/6) type tail feathers.

The only other birds of note were 32 Red throated Diver flying North offshore.
Also we may have a clue to where some of the seed is going, there were several tracks in the sand leading to the food and from it, we followed one back which led to a hole in the dunes with half eaten seed near the entrance. Obviously the work of some Vole/mouse species.

Trail of the seed thief 

Been busy. 

Return of the Linnets

All but one of the Snow Buntings have gone North on their travels now, this has left the seed free for some Linnets to feed on. 19 were seen feeding the weekend before so we thought it was worth a go on Saturday.
We arrived at Caister for 5.45am, as we approached a Snow Bunting could be seen feeding on the seed.
The whoosh net was set and then we waited for the Linnets to arrive.

5M Linnet

5M Linnet, Red starting to come through.

5M Linnet , White (persil white) on the inner primaries nearly reaching the shaft.

1st Winter (male) Linnet tail feathers with the centre pair and right feather being replaced adult type.

21 were caught, all being new birds. 11 were Males and 10 Females with 4 adults and the rest 1st. Winter's (5).

There was probably another 10/15 in the area, they are hard to count as they don't fly around in one big flock, but arrive in 2's and 3's.

5F Linnet

5F Linnet, much more bolder streaked.

5F Linnet, less white (dull white) in wing not reaching the shaft.

1st. Winter Linnet (female) tail feathers, all juvenile.

The only other birds of note seen were 'squadrons' of Cormorants, at least 400 were seen flying from the West and landing on the sea.

Snow Bunting again...

Sunday morning saw the team arriving at Caister  for 6am , it was still dark with a moderate NE blowing making it feel quite chilly.
 The local Blackbirds were very vocal, proclaiming there territory's. 
The net was set, then the wait began, unusually there were none about at dawn !
60 have been seen on and off for the last couple of weeks but have been very jumpy.
After about half an hour 26 turned up and then proceeded to fly around for the next half an hour  and when they did land they were very unsettled.
Eventually after several feeding flurries they settled enough to catch a few.
15 Were caught comprising of 7 new, 6  retraps (all from this Winter) and 2 controls (one from Kessingland, Suffolk,the other control was VE82059 ringed right leg any takers?)

1st. Winter (5) Female Insulae race.

1st. Winter Female Insulae Tail. 

10 were of the Insulae race , 4 Nivalis and one unraced. All had a fat score of at least 2 so presumably are getting ready to move on soon.

1st. Winter (5) Male Nivalis race.

1st. Winter Male Nivalis wing & tail pattern.

The net was taken in as it was felt we would not get another opportunity, however 10 minutes later the rest of the flock turned up, another  34 ! You can't win them all. 

10 Linnet were in the area and several flew over the seed to investigate. Also seen was a very lost Brent Goose that landed on the sea then twice  flew inland .

First ringing of 2011 !

At last we have blown the cobwebs away and done some ringing for 2011 !
Various things have stopped us in the last few weeks, with people being ill, hardly any birds about, the weather... 
I could go on, but enough is enough.


For our first outing we ventured down to Caister beach for the Snow Bunts, Gary saw 44 on Wednesday.
We have had problems over Christmas and new year with the seed being covered over intentionally again, high tides and masses of dog walkers ! This has made them very sporadic in appearances at Caister.


14 were on the beach at first light with another 11 joining them later in the morning, they were playing very hard to get. After a couple of hours we eventually fired the net.

The boys surveying the catch.

In the end we had caught 14 birds with 5 new, 8 retraps and one control. The retraps were all this Winters apart  from one being originally ringed on 28th December 2009. The control was a colour ringed bird from Kessingland, Suffolk ringed on 9th January 2011. 

Mrs DS.

Another look Sunday produced 46 feeding on the seed, oh well you can't win them all !

Also CONGRATULATIONS!!! to our leader, Arthur , who is 75 on Monday 24th.

More snow and ice

A quick look down the beach at Caister Saturday afternoon produced 60/70 Snow Buntings waiting to be fed !
All the food had gone, the remains were being cleaned up by 4 Carrion Crows (2 very startling birds with 'zebra striped wings' ) and a Common Gull. As soon as the seed was put out they were on, about half being ringed.
Another look Sunday morning produced 45 birds eagerly feeding, it doesn't seem fair to catch them at the moment so we will let them feed up ready for a go over Christmas.

A frozen Rollesby Broad

A quick look down Rollesby and Ormesby Broads to see what the Coot numbers were produced about 100 on two small areas of open water, also packed in were 10+ Tufted Duck and 30+ Pochard and a superb 1st.Winter female Goosander.

Amazingly it got out of the water,preened for a while then walked across the ice  to the other stretch of open water.

The ice man cometh

Snow Bunting numbers during the week were fluctuating again between 12 to 50 birds being present on and off. The tide had been high and washed some of the food out. So we decided to concentrate our efforts elsewhere.
I had a quick look Sunday morning and counted 64 with most feeding on the seed, at least two thirds of them were unringed!!! with no colour ringed birds present. So it goes to prove they are still coming in and moving about, we have ringed about 100 this Winter so far, where have they gone?


James kindly invited us back to the duck pond, it had thawed out a bit with a few Teal and Mallard using it during the week. We arrived at the pond 3pm Sunday afternoon, the gear was unloaded and the car parked, unfortunately I parked in the wrong place and duly got it stuck!

Oh dear

Luckily reinforcements were on the way, with the help of Dave, Justin and Gary driving, we managed to get it out, although it was now caked in mud after my first attempts of moving it.

With half the pond still frozen some energetic stomping was needed so we could erect the nets. Only 4 were put up, so it was the least number of nets we have had here.

The ice man

About 30 Teal and 30 Mallard were flying around, with 7 Teal and a Robin ! caught. These comprised of 5 males with 3 of them being adults.

Adult male top, 1st.Winter below

Adult left, 1st Winter right

Adult male left and 1st Winter male

1st Winter left, adult right

Adult top, 1st Winter bottom

7 Whooper Swans flew over the pond, with 2 Barn Owls and a Marsh Harrier hunting over the marshes.

Cranes and Pinkfeet could be heard in the distance. While waiting for the ducks at least 7 Woodcock were seen flying out of the woods.

We were standing under some Birch trees that had growths (broom's) in and amazingly watched at least a dozen Wren's enter the broom's to roost !