Quick visit

With Dave celebrating a certain birthday, Gary on holiday and Arthur going to watch the Canaries it was left to Tony and I to have the last visit to Caister for the Linnets.
We met at 6.45am on Saturday 14th  to find a sharp frost and bright blue skies, the net was set then we waited and waited and waited.........
During the week there had been at least 50/60 in the area with up to 50 coming off the food on Wednesday night in one flock !
Eventually some went down and we managed to catch 10 new and another control, Y081630. The males are now looking pretty dandy in there finery.

Mr Dandy.

The only other sightings during the morning were of a Red Throated Diver flying north and 2 Sanderling on the beach, amazingly these were the first we have seen here this Winter. They normally occur all Winter and are usually quite common here.

2 Grey Seals were offshore, these seemed to give much excitement to a couple of holiday makers who were intent on getting a photograph.

With the sun up, the birds having other things on their mind and people everywhere we packed up early and headed for home.

5M Linnet (As above)

Cold, damp, windy Easter!

We were all looking forward to a nice Easter weekend with a bit of ringing, however it turned out to be cold, damp and windy with Easter Monday a complete washout .
We did manage a few bits and pieces, starting at Caister for the Linnets on Good Friday.
We arrived just before sunrise to be greeted with a hard frost, even the sand was frozen and a temperature of -4 ºC!
20 new and 5 retraps, 4 being recent and one from 12/03/2011 were caught.


Saturday morning we were hoping for some migrants at Winterton, unfortunately the day dawned with a cold NW putting a stop to any new arrivals.
Luckily some had already arrived and the first Blackcaps and Chiff's were duly caught, but not much else was going on.

Male Blackcap

Female Blackcap

Ringing consisted of only 16 birds with 13 new and 3 retraps.

Dunnock; 2 (1) originally ringed 04/04/2010

Robin; 1

Blackbird; 2

Blackcap; 2

Chiffchaff; 2 (1) This bird was ringed as a 3 on 10/09/2011, had it been here all winter ?

Goldcrest; 1

Great Tit; 1

Goldfinch; 2

Monty with 'his' Dunnock

Later on in the morning Arthur arrived with his Son and Grandson to explain the ringing, they both seemed at home with the birds and became very interested in them.

Dave explaining to Monty how to measure a Goldfinch wing.

As we took the nets down 3 Adders were seen basking in the sun?! They must have been desperate for a bit of heat.

On arriving home a Chiff was heard calling in the garden so one 40' net was quickly erected, resulting in it being caught with 2 Blackcaps, a nice end to the weekend as the weather deteriorated.

On Tuesday it was back to work, so of course the sun came out and the wind dropped!!! A phone call was received mid morning from Winterton to say a few more corvids had been caught. Luckily for us but not him Tony was at home instead of work as his car had broken down, so he was quickly deployed to go ring them. This resulted in another 27 Jackdaw and 2 Rook being ringed.

Linnets at Caister

Two recent sessions at Caister, on 24th and 31st of March have produced the goods.
At least 40 Linnets are present in the area at any one time and  find the feeding area to their liking, but most of the time only come down in 2's or 3's. However on both dates a flock of 15 were caught at once, all being new birds.

Male Linnet

Over the 2 sessions we have ringed 50 new linnets and had 1 control, Y081931, any takers? 

There still appears to be plenty of unringed birds in the area so another visit is planned soon.

Male Linnet (same as above)

The only other birds of note were a fly over Grey Wagtail and a Grey Plover flying north offshore. 2 Ringed Plover are now resident on the beach and displaying well.

*****

Saturday 24th also saw the last Ludham visit, with another afternoon visit. It was very quiet with only 2 birds seen and caught, a new male Yellowhammer and a recent retrap Reed Bunting.

Its been a fantastic site for us this winter with 50 new Yellowhammer and 73 new Reed Bunting being ringed.

The Yellowhammer total far exceeding what we have ringed before.

Thanks again to James for letting us ring there and for his enthusiasm for the project.

Also a Crane flew east while we were there.

It's a start

With the recent increase in Linnet numbers at Caister an early morning start on Saturday 17th March was the order of the day.
We arrived at 05:30 to find a cool cloudless pleasant morning, however by 08:30 it was overcast and raining. Luckily we had packed up by then as the birds were not playing ball!
Surprisingly there were still 8 Snow Bunting on the beach, they seemed a bit reluctant at first , but eventually 5 were caught. 3 were new and 2 were colour ringed birds, one of ours that had been to Kessingland and one from Kessingland, Suffolk.
All were Nivalis birds, and were probably the last of the Winter here.

5 Male Nivalis Snow Bunting.

Same bird as above, showing wing and tail pattern for  5 Male Nivalis Snow Bunting.

There was a lot of Linnet activity in the area behind us and several small parties flying over the food but only one group of 5 landed. These were duly caught and resulted in 4 new birds and a retrap from 02/04/2011.

At least it's a start and hopefully there will be more to follow.

Male Linnet

While we were there Dave had a probable Woodlark fly over with 2 Skylark and a Red throated Diver flew north offshore. Also during the course of the morning several flocks of Starling were flying south.
At least 7 Grey Seals were patrolling  offshore in the breakers. 

Surprise return.

After the last blog we thought the Ludham cover crop had finished for the year. James and Gary however persevered in putting the seed out and Dave kept an eye on what was happening. Eventually to our surprise the Bunting numbers began to pick up, Dave estimating 60 birds present with most being Reed Bunting.
An afternoon session was decided upon, so Sunday 11th March we arrived at the site for 3pm.

 Adult male Yellowhammer.

29 birds were caught, 8 new Yellowhammer, 21 Reed Bunting of which 3 were recent retraps and one a control. The control was originally ringed at Holme BO in North Norfolk on 10th Nov 2011, quite a good movement.

With the nearby fields now ploughed up we could be in for some more in the coming weeks.

As we packed up a Barn Owl was seen hunting over the adjacent fields.

***

During the week a couple of phone calls from Winterton created the opportunity to ring  15 Jackdaws  and a Rook on the first date then another 7 Rook on the second date, fantastic! Close up these birds are superb with their purple and blue glossy plumage. 

(5) 2cy Rook.

(6) Adult Rook.

Caister beach still has some Snow Buntings present with at least 21 there on Wednesday, Linnets are also increasing with 21 seen last weekend.

Buntings disappear but Ducks hold on.

Is it all over?
Dave and James had visited the cover crop Friday afternoon and had seen 40/50 Bunting sitting in the hedge. So with this in mind Dave and I met again Saturday 18th at the same time as last week, the temperature had risen to 9.5 degrees C, incredibly 17.5 degrees warmer than last week!
This probably reflected the number of birds in the area, a maximum total of only 15 Bunting were seen, perhaps at last they have moved on.

Male Reed Bunting.

Only 8 birds were caught, these being 6 new Reed Bunting  plus a recent retrap and a Yellowhammer from a couple of weeks ago.

A superb Male Peregrine was seen belting over the fields, perhaps another reason the Buntings were in hiding.

Waiting in anticipation.

The recent cold spell has increased the Teal population enormously. With the continent freezing up a lot of birds had moved over here. James had been feeding a couple of ponds and had over 400 Teal feeding on each one, the largest number he had seen in a long time. Unfortunately for us the temperature was rising throughout the week and mean't that some had moved on.

Some of the team with their prizes 

We arrived Sunday afternoon at Hickling to erect the nets, there was a brisk Northerly wind blowing. The normal zigzag pattern of nets were put up, the birds were late arriving but then kept on coming for what seemed ages.

At least 250 Teal tried to land on the pond and we managed to catch a creditable 15. The catch comprised of all new birds with 7 Male and 8 female Teal.

In addition at least 5 Woodcock were seen in the area  at dusk.

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.