Mere Ringing and LBJs

This morning I went along to Andy’s local patch and joined him for a ringing session. 

Marton Mere is a mere (lake) and Local Nature Reserve in Blackpool, Lancashire. It is recognised as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (1979) and supports various habitats such as open water, reed beds and grassland as well as pockets of woodland and scrub. The area provides home to a good variety of birds both resident and migratory. Over the years the mere and its surrounds has turned up a good number of rare birds including American Bittern, Whiskered Tern, Short-billed Dowitcher, Hoopoe, Barred Warbler, Little Bittern, Wryneck and Savi’s Warbler.  In doing so the mere attracts good numbers of bird watchers and twitchers hoping to see the current or next rarity.

Marton Mere - geograph.org.uk

Our focus this morning was on catching resident birds and where possible proving breeding. The mere went for many, many years with no breeding bird surveys or bird ringing on which to formulate an environmental management programme for the area - a sad state of affairs. 

In very recent years, and thanks to the cooperation of Blackpool Borough Council, Andy has been allowed and encouraged to undertake a bird ringing project in a small and secure area. We spent 5 hours there this morning during which we caught 44 birds of 14 species including a good number of warblers. As we might expect in early July, all of the species we caught were either in breeding condition as adults or recently fledged local juveniles. 

Totals - 17 Reed Warbler, 6 Blue Tit, 5 Whitethroat, 3 Sedge Warbler, 2 Cetti’s Warbler, 2 Blackcap, 2 Dunnock, 2 Robin, 1 Blackbird, 1 Song Thrush, 1 Chiffchaff , 1 Treecreeper, 1 Reed Bunting. The phragmites reed is now very extensive and now good enough to hold many pairs of Reed Warbler and even regular wintering Bitterns and sometimes, Bearded Tits. 

We work just a small area of the reed perimeter so our catch of 11 new Reed Warblers and 6 recaptures from 3 weeks ago was very worthwhile.

Reed Warbler - first year/juvenile

Cetti’s Warblers first appeared at Marton Mere in the early 1970’s following their colonisation of the southern England in the 1960’s. Because Cetti’s Warbler is very elusive, more regularly heard than seen, breeding is difficult to prove. Today we caught a female with a good sized brood patch and so in in breeding condition. The juvenile was not noticeably young but clearly a local bird, and by now the female could be on with a second set of eggs. 

Cetti's Warbler - first year/juvenile

Just three Sedge Warblers caught - all adults. The area we worked is not absolutely suited to Sedge Warbler, added to which, habitat changes in recent years across the whole site have caused the species to decline since the 1990’s. 

Sedge Warbler - adult

A Chiffchaff sung all around us most of the morning so it was not a surprise to find that we caught it. 

Chiffchaff - adult male

The Whitethroat is another species to have suffered an on-site decline due to habitat changes with species being somewhat replaced by the Blackcap, a more strictly woodland bird. The Robin is a species of mainly woodland, the Treecreeper almost exclusively so, and a species unheard of at Marton Mere in the past. 

Blackcap - female

 

Whitethroat - first year/juvenile

 

Whitethroat - first year/juvenile

Robin - first year/juvenile

Treecreeper - first year/juvenile

Forty five little brown jobs kept us pretty much occupied with little or no opportunity for birding, but other species noted included Sparrowhawk, Grasshopper Warbler, Common Tern and Goldfinch. 

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday.

CES Menorca Style

During my recent Menorcan fortnight I spent a morning with Javier Mendez helping out at his Constant Effort Ringing site near Mahon. It was the first visit of the 2014 Constant Effort regime whereby a comparable ringing session is carried out every 14-21 day period. The site is a working farm of crops and animals managed in an ecologically sustainable way.

Menorcan farm gate

Not only is Javier an extremely nice guy but he is very knowledgeable about Menorca and its flora and fauna. His website Menorca Walking and Birds offers tours of all sorts to experience the sights and sounds of Menorca. 

Javier Mendez

Javier Mendez

Javier and I caught 45 + birds including a good number of everyday “UK” birds like House Sparrow, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Great Tit and Chaffinch, and also included more exotic fare like Turtle Dove, Nightingale, Cetti’s Warbler and Sardinian Warbler. We didn’t catch the resident Woodchats or a Hoopoe, and certainly not the Stone Curlews which provided a backing track to the morning’s work, but we did catch a migrant Redstart and a stunning Wood Warbler. 

Redstart

Wood Warbler

There are a good number of Turtle Dove in Menorca. Generally they are a shy species and keep a very safe distance, but in some resorts where pines and gardens flourish they seem to have lost their natural aversion to man and happily walk the footpaths with almost total disregard for passing tourists. 

Turtle Dove

Turtle Dove

The Spotted Flycatcher we caught was of the subspecies Muscicapa striata balearica, paler and smaller than the nominate race that migrates a long way north of the Balearic Islands of which Menorca is part. 

It is much harder to tell the two races apart in the field in early May when large numbers of migrants pass through Menorca on their way to Northern Europe. 

Spotted Flycatcher - Muscicapa striata balearica,

Spotted Flycatcher

Pied Flycatcher

Pied Flycatchers are strictly migrants on Menorca although they have been known to hang around nest boxes in the Spring until evicted by the Great Tits. There are no Blue Tits or Long-tailed Tits on Menorca. Apart from Ravens on the rocky outcrops and the single mountain El Toro, there are no crows on Menorca and the commonest birds during the summer months may well be the Nightingale, Sardinian Warbler and Cetti’s Warbler, which inhabit every clump of suitable habitat plus more besides. Menorca’s Cetti’s Warblers are not found exclusively in their normal reed and waterside habitat, but also in very dry areas which have the necessary impenetrable cover they require. 

Nightingale

Nightingale

Sardinian Warbler

Cetti's Warbler

My thanks to Javier for inviting me along to his CES session. I hope to catch up with him and his colleagues in 2015. 

In the meantime recent posts on Another Bird Blog feature Menorcan birds (click the tag "Menorca" or "Menorca birds") and there are still a number of photographs on my PC for a Menorca posting soon, so stay tuned.

Linking today to Theresa's Run A Round Ranch.