Haddiscoe Island 2011

On Saturday evening Dave and Justin went to check out our reed bed ringing site on Haddiscoe Island. Rides were cut, nets erected and birds were caught. After ringing the small catch before darkness descended the team left well bitten by an army of mosquitos and midges.

Dave and Justin returned to the Haddiscoe Island reed bed to open the nets early on Sunday morning.

Birds quickly responded to the tape lures and Bearded Tits were soon heard 'pinging' around the net rides. The first round, however, consisted of juvenile Reed and Sedge Warblers with the Bearded Tits finding the nets later on. Most birds caught were juveniles but a few adults were nice to see including a fantastic male Bearded Tit.

 

Male Bearded Tits - Juv (left), Adult (right)

One juvenile Reed Warbler had a particularly warm rump and an unusually light eyes for a juv but any dreams of Blyth's were quickly dispelled with only the third primary being emarginated.

Juvenile Reed Warbler

Dave had a pleasant surprise when he pulled a juvenile Starling from the last bird bag of one round. Justin had seen a flock fly over the reed bed and finding two in a net he managed to extract them before Dave came along ensuring that their identity remained a secret. Both birds were juveniles in post-juvenile moult with one already having much greener feathers suggesting a probable male.

Juvenile Starlings

Despite the gusting wind it was a good catch with 62 new birds being trapped and 1 re-trap Reed Warbler having been originally ringed at the site in August 2007.

Sedge Warbler - 17

Reed Warbler - 26 (1)

Bearded Tit - 15

Starling - 2

Reed Bunting - 2

House Martin 'RASing'

Over the last couple of weeks due to work commitments and the weather the only ringing we have managed has involved House Martins during some evenings.
Three sites have been visited, a new site at Hickling, with Horning Hall and Waxham being revisited for the second time this year.
The new site at Hickling involved 7 houses with an estimated 35 occupied nests, Dave had done the hard work and managed to get permission from all 7. 
21 new House Martins were caught together with a male House Sparrow that baled out of one of the nests.

Sharon explaining the niceties of flat flies!

At Horning Hall 19 were caught with 7 new and 12 retraps, these consisted of one from 2009 and 2010 and surprisingly one originally ringed on 31/07/2007.  This is our oldest House Martin to date.

Also the Barn Owl has produced 2 chicks, the Spot Fly is having a second brood in another box nearby and contains 3 eggs.

Also seen here on the river were 2 juvenile Bar Headed Geese! Soon to be a new feral species?

Juvenile House Martin.

The second trip of the year to Waxham Great Barn proved a success with 38 being caught, 29 of which were new and 16 of these being juveniles. 5 of the 9 retraps were last years' birds.

For a brief spell Sharon equalled the record of 6 being caught at once but was eventually beaten by Gary later on in the evening when he netted 7!

Sharon and her half dozen, Dave thinking I've got to get this lot out!

This brings the grand total so far this year of 125 new birds, 30 retraps and 1 control.

On a more serious note, is this what Gary and Kev get up to in their spare time? No wonder ringing has been slack the last few weeks. 

Perhaps Kate can enlighten us. 

Recent update

We have been fairly busy recently checking Barn Owls and doing some more House Martins.
Also a couple of trips to the new Little Tern colony at Caister. 


Little Terns bred at Caister for the first time last year with 3 pairs present, this year with the fragmentation of the Gt. Yarmouth colony about 40 pairs have settled to breed. They are again being looked after by the RSPB, who must be congratulated on doing such a sterling job.

Little Tern nest

Two visits have been made with 23 pulli ringed on the first trip and 9 new with 14 retraps on the second trip.

The retraps are very important for the ongoing 'growth rate' in sea birds survey being carried out. Also on the second trip a young Ring Plover was picked up. The colony was doing well up to a few days ago but the local Kestrels have now found them to their liking.

Little Tern pulli

Two recent Little Tern recoveries have come to light, both birds being originally ringed at the Gt. Yarmouth colony as chicks.

The first ringed 24th July 1998 and recaught 4695 days and 454km later, on 1st June 2011 at Point of Ayre on the Isle of Man.

The second ringed 29th June 2001 and the ring read in the field! 3618 days and 208km later on 26th May 2011 at Den Helder, Netherlands.

It would be interesting to know whether they are breeding in their new locations. 

Barn Owl pulli

Most of the Barn Owls have now been checked with only a couple left to return to. They have not faired very well, a lack of prey being the obvious reason. Some sites started well but have then gone on to only produce one chick! Out of 60 odd sites checked , prey (a House Mouse ) has only been present at one site, most of the pellets have been on the small side, indicating a lack of prey.

14 Adults have been caught with 4 retraps, 2 controls and 8 new and 23 new pulli. The largest brood being 5 chicks. This is well down on previous years.

Adult female Nightjar

A recent excursion to Winterton with Nightjars in mind  produced an adult female being ringed, unfortunately the male 'bounced'! At least 2 pairs were present. Luckily the local midges decided to stay away!!

The House Martin RAS scheme continues with another 2 sites, Caldecott and Filby each producing 9 new birds, 10 occupied nest's were at each site. This brings the total up to 65 new birds, 9 retraps and a control so far this year.

House Martin part 2

On Tuesday 21st we were out again, this time at Waxham Great Barn for part 2 of the RAS project.
There were several flying about when we arrived, with at least 80 birds flying around.
A quick count of the nests produced 11 at the front and 46 ! at the back, most looked occupied.

Some of the nests.

A Hobby came through and caused pandemonium for a brief spell, but they soon settled down. 

28 were caught with 23 new, 4 retraps all from last year and 1 control.

Dave has found out that the control, L568614 was originally ringed as a 3 (bird of the year) on 25th September 2010 at Icklesham, Sussex.

Sharon was chief catcher on the night with the aid of Dave's net.

Superb bird !

Also during the week the Spotted Flycatcher nest was revisited, fingers were crossed in the hope it had survived the recent downpours .

 When we arrived the adults were seen taking food in , so we knew at least something was there.

Spot Fly nest box

On inspection 4 pulli and 1 cold egg were found in the nest, so the chicks were duly ringed. There was no sign of the other Spot Flys that were present on the last visit.

Spot Fly pulli.

House Martins

This year we are catching House Martins for a RAS Study and need to catch around 100 birds ! Our first session was on Thursday 16th at Horning Hall, this has been a very productive site for this species for a number of years now.

Nets at the ready !

This technique was first shown to us a number of years ago by the late Sandy Hill, who was ' Mr.House Martin' . He had written several papers on the subject and also compiled the House Martin entry for the BTO Migration Atlas. A very knowledgeable and informative gentleman.

Adult House Martin

Adult House Martin

29 House Martins were caught, 24 were new and 5 retraps, 12 proved to be females and 17 males, no youngsters were caught.

Of the retraps 4 were originally ringed as adults in 2010, the other was ringed as a juvenile on 13/07/2009.
A very good start for the RAS project.

The business end.

The Spotted Flycatchers nest was checked and found to have 3 recently hatched chicks and 2 eggs, hopefully the weather won't put them off and should be ready to ring mid week.

On Wednesday night the lure of a 1st. Summer male Red Footed Falcon at Horsey proved irresistible. It was present at the beach end of the Nelson Head track and was seen hawking for Dragonflies over the fields.

Also present in the same area was a Hobby doing the same thing.

I need to win the lottery to get a bigger lens !

1st. Summer male Red Footed Falcon doing what it does best, catching Dragonflies.

Its still present at the moment, Friday, but maybe finding it hard to catch Dragonflies in the rain and strong winds we are now getting !

Not 5 but 6 !

Ormesby Kestrel site, very apt !

Last night (Monday) the Kestrels were visited again to ring the chicks (see last post ).
As the chicks were extracted  for ringing to our surprise the box contained not 5 but 6 chicks ! The adults have been seen regularly sitting on the nearby  bales and seem to be finding plenty of prey.

Still can't get them all to look !

Out of the 6, three were males, two females and one to small to determine. 

Male with grey upper tail coverts.

 Female with brown upper tail coverts.

Some more Swallow pulli and another Stock Dove pulli were also ringed. At another Barn Owl site 3 adult Stock Doves came out of the box and on inspection contained 3 nests, 2 with one egg the other 2 eggs !

We also had a Hobby hurtling past as we left the site.

Females gone?

It's been a busy few weeks recently, checking boxes takes a lot of time!
All the tit boxes are finally finished, they have done quite well this year. Blue Tits seemed to be on average a week earlier than Great Tits, this is unusual for us as its normally the other way round. Most fledged well and there seems to be a lot of young ones about now.
One box at Ormesby contained an unfortunate individual with a swollen head, the rest of the brood (9 others) were fine. We did check the box later after fledging and it had gone, so may have fledged after all.

Not looking too good!

We are now checking the larger boxes for Barn Owls and are finding that some areas are doing well  while others not. The Caister/Ormesby areas seem to be struggling while Potterheigham/Martham /Hickling areas are doing well.

The usual suspects have been found nesting, if Barn Owls are not present, Jackdaws and Stock Doves are all too ready to move in.

Fed up Jackdaws!

Stock Dove squab

Adult Stock Dove

Two of the Barn Owl boxes have contained dead female Kestrels, both long dead, we assume they starved in the Winter. One was ringed and is a control EL44851 (any takers?)  On a brighter note we have at last had a pair of Kestrels nest in a purpose built box with 5 chicks present.

5 Kestrel pulli (one is camera shy).

The Barn Owls have been interesting to say the least,  no young have been ringed yet as they are too small at present.  Largest clutch being 2 young and 5 eggs, another having 6 young. Several have 5 eggs. Interestingly none of the boxes have contained any prey items, Gary has been collecting the pellets at all sites to try and find out what they are eating and what mammals are present in each area, this will take some time!

At four sites the females caught proved to be different birds from last year, so where have all last years females gone? Two controls have been caught so far GC68232 and GF65522, also a  retrap female proved to be a chick that was ringed  at another site nearby last year.

Barn Owlets

At some sites Swallows have been present and several broods ringed so far, these also seem to be a week or so earlier with some already on the wing, however others are still on eggs.

3J Swallow

More good news at Horning was a nest of Spotted Flycatcher with 5 eggs, historically this has been our only reliable site for the species with 3 or 4 pairs breeding up to 5 years ago, but now has become quite a scarce breeder. We have not found any for a couple of years now, this year there may be 3 pairs present, fingers crossed!

Several species of Dragonfly have been seen on our travels; Black Tailed Skimmer, Norfolk Hawker, Four Spotted Chaser and Hairy Dragonfly. Butterflies have included Red Admiral, Wall Brown, Small Tortoiseshell and Common Blue.

Common Blue