and still they come ...

Two more visits to the Ludham cover crop have produced yet more Yellowhammer and Reed Bunting.
 For a change we decided to have an afternoon session, so on 4th we arrived at 2pm to set the net.
There were a good number of Buntings in the hedge, small groups of 5/6 birds kept landing on the seed and then were duly chased off by the territorial Blackbirds !
10 new and 2 retrap (one originally ringed 14/02/2009 ) Reed Bunting, 3 new Yellowhammer and a retrap Blackbird were processed.

Brrrrrrrr !

The second visit on the 11th was as usual in the morning, when we arrived at 6.45 am it was a cool -8 degrees C ! When we packed up at 11.45 am the temperature had risen to a balmy 0 degrees C !

About 50 Bunting were in the hedge with the Blackbirds again holding court on the seeded area.

Female Yellowhammer

The catch was similar to the week before with 10 new and 1 retrap Reed Bunting, 8 new Yellowhammer and 4 new Blackbird being caught.                           

More yellow snow

More Yellowhammers were on the menu when we revisited the cover crop at Ludham.
James and Gary have been doing a sterling job in keeping the seed topped up, the ravenous hordes of Wood Pigeons have been taking their toll!
At least 50 Hammers and the same amount of Reed Bunting are still in the area, a few Linnets are still about as well.
21st January dawned and was very windy, we also had to batten down the hatches when a rain squall hit and made a dash for the cars. Luckily we had a wind-break that gave us some limited cover.

Not much cover here !

Considering the conditions we were able to catch 17 new and 1 retrap.

Chaffinch 2, Yellowhammer 7 and Reed Bunting 9 including a retrap from a couple of weeks previous.

On 28th January we arrived at Caister pre dawn, the weather for once was quite favourable with a light NE but quite chilly with no frost.

The Snow Bunt's had not been seen for a while but the seed had been disappearing fast, so we assumed there was still a few about. During the morning about 120 were seen, we managed to catch 46, they were playing very hard to get.

Of the 46, 19 were new, 7 colour ringed and 20 retraps (19 from this Winter and one originally ringed 27/11/2010). Most were 1st Winters with only 4 being adults and 37 were of the Nivalis race. 

The colour ringed birds were made up of 4 originally ringed at Kessingland, Suffolk and the other 3 originally ringed at Caister  then colour ringed on their travels to Suffolk.

Of note 2 colour ringed birds were reported at Salthouse, Norfolk on 25/01/2012, one from Caister and the other Kessingland. Thanks to Colin again for his colour ring project, it seems to be paying dividends now.

New homes

Recently we have spent some time in providing some new homes for Barn Owls. We have also took a couple down as one had not been used at all since erecting it and the other one was in a building that is to be demolished this year.
All boxes have been expertly built by Gary, our chief carpenter and gadget man.Some have been in tree's and are always a challenge to erect !

Gary, where he likes to be, up a tree !

Another recent erection has been in  barn to replace an old box that has been attracting Jackdaws in recent years. The old box has been left up and the new one erected nearby. there are Barnies present in the area so hopefully this will entice them to stay and breed.

The new box left and old'n right.

We have an exciting gadget for this box.Gary has developed an infra red camera which is located inside the box and with the aid of a cable running to the outside of the barn we can attach a LCD screen and view the contents without causing any disturbance.

Dave and Gary deploying the screen.

Hopefully we can look forward to a decent Barn Owl season this year, the last 2 or 3 have been very disappointing for one reason or another. 

Yellow snow.

Snow Buntings at Caister were again the target on Christmas Eve.
There had been counts of 80/90 birds coming the the seed and quite a few seemed to be new birds.
They were being very cagey but we eventually managed to catch 21 birds, 12 new, 7 retraps and 2 from Kessingland, Suffolk.
The 6 of the retraps were birds that had been originally ringed by us at Caister in November but in the mean time had gone to Kessingland and been caught there on 22/12/2011 by Colin who had then colour ringed them, then returning to Caister on 24/12/2011. So there seems to be plenty of movement between the 2 sites.
A high percentage of the catch were again Nivalis birds.

One of the colour ringed birds , HP

All the Snow Buntings caught at Kessingland are being colour ringed as part of Colin Carters project, please report any sightings to the BTO colour ring scheme. They all have a BTO metal ring on the left leg and a Yellow colour ring on the right leg with 2 digits, either numerical or alphabetical. 

Male Yellowhammer

The new year started with the group ringing at the Ludham cover crop again on the 2nd.

The Yellowhammer numbers have been fluctuating drastically over the last few days, but Reed Buntings seem to be increasing.

James had been keeping and eye on them and kept the food topped up, Dave had also been checking to see if it was worth having a catch. About 30 Reed Bunting and 20 Yellowhammer had been seen in the area.

Male Reed Bunting

8 new Yellowhammer, 16 new Reed Bunting plus 4 retraps and a Chaffinch were caught.

The retrap Reed Bunting were 2 from 19/11/2011, 1 from 12/11 2011 and the other originally ringed 14/02/2009 , all from the same site.

The morning proved to be quite a raptor fest with Little Owl calling when we first arrived and Barn Owl, Marsh Harrier, Sparrowhawk and a pair of Kestrels hunting nearby.

Also about 15 Whooper Swan were seen flying over Ludham airfield. 

Yellow Buntings this time.

We have been feeding an area next to the cover crop at Ludham for a few weeks now with the intention of catching some Yellowhammers.
 22nd December was our third attempt at catching any, the first was a non event when for some reason or another we decided not to fire the net when there were birds in! The second time, the net was set, birds began to arrive and then it sleeted down!

Some of the team with their Yellow Bunt's 

The third time proved much better. Numbers had been building up nicely with estimated counts of 40+ on first trip, 70+ on second trip and a staggering 100 in the area on the third trip, by far the largest number of Yellowhammers any of us had seen in recent times.

Adult male, 1st. Winter Female Yellowhammer's

However, they were proving to be very wary, sitting in nearby hedges most of the time and only coming down briefly to feed in small numbers. Finally after about 3 hours our patience paid off and we managed to catch 14 Yellowhammer and 1 Reed Bunting, all new birds to ring. Since the formation of the group in 2006 we have only ringed 10 Yellowhammer up to this year, so we were well happy with the catch.

Adult (left) and 1st. Winter Yellowhammer tail feathers.

Hopefully we can get another session in soon.

Also in the area were several flocks of Pinkfeet, Fieldfare and Golden Plover going over, 31 Skylark in the adjoining field and a Common Buzzard was hunting over the fields.

Bunting bonanza and another Teal session

Snow Bunting numbers at Caister have been fluctuating quite a bit recently.
The mild weather up to a few days ago has seen plenty of people walking on the beach, recent high tides have also played there part in washing the food out on a number of occasions, this all adding up to sporadic appearances by the birds.
Also there seems to be 3 or 4 different groups of birds turning up to feed, but only rarely being there all at the same time. This is why sometimes 10/15 get counted and then later 60 + etc. 
However with the weather turning a lot colder and Gary counting 80 birds we decided to have a go on Saturday (17th December).

'Processing the catch'

The net was set before first light and 3 releases later  we managed to catch 88 Snow Bunting. 

85 new birds, 2 retraps from 12/11/11 and  one from the previous winter 22/01/2011. While we had the birds another 30 turned up, making a grand total of at least 118 birds in the area.

Of the birds raced 57 % were Nivalis, which is quite high as most of the birds that winter here are normally of the Insulae race. Only 4 were aged as adults the rest being 1st winters.

A superb adult female nivalis bird was quite an unusual occurrence for this site. 

Adult female nivalis Snow Bunting.

We have also just received news of a Caister bird  with the aid of Colin's colour rings being reported at Cuxhaven, Germany on 02/12/2011. It was originally ringed at Caister, Norfolk on 12/12/2009 then retrapped at Kessingland, Suffolk on 17/01/2010 (colour ringed ), 30/01/2010 and 13/02/2011.

18th December saw the final duck session of 2011. It was 3 degrees C when we arrived at Hickling, no rain was forecast but as soon as the nets were set it started sleeting! Thankfully it was only short lived. Bird numbers had dwindled slightly with about 40 Teal and 10 Mallard coming over the pond.
 We still managed to catch a respectable total of 5 Teal and 2 Mallard all new birds. The Mallard were the first of the year.

One of the Teal ringed at Hickling on 15/11/2009  was shot just over 2 years later on 19/11/2011 at East Putford, Devon, a movement of 734 days and 453 km. 

Mr and Mrs Mallard.

Also on a nearby pond there was recent evidence that an Otter had been feeding,a small tench was found on the bank with its head eaten away. We have also been informed today that he has been back and had a 2lb Perch from the same pond!

Otter prey.

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.