Opportunity Knocks

It was an opportunity too good to miss when the wind dropped a little overnight, so I planned a visit to Out Rawcliffe to ring the nest of Willow Warbler chicks and if the wind allowed, put a few nets up. I looked in my notebook to recall my last mist netting session before the holiday in Menorca and the later spell of atrocious weather back home and found it was exactly a month ago on 25th April. So with a couple of nets up and a little luck I might catch a few birds missed in the intervening period, new and late arrivals both.

Newly in since our early May visits were Garden Warblers, with 2 singing loudly from the ideal for them, more wooded part of the planation, and I caught one of the two. Other new birds caught were 2 Whitethroat and 2 Sedge Warbler plus a fine male Blackbird.

Recaptures were 3 Willow Warbler, 1 Sedge Warbler and 1 Whitethroat, all the Willow Warblers with previous histories from 2008, 2009, 2010 and early season 2011.

The Garden Warbler is probably a bit of a birder’s bird and a favourite of mine, so subtle in its shades of green, grey and yellow, so always immaculate, untroubled and calm in the hand. It is a difficult species to see well in its woodland habitat, and in bird books and guides it is often cruelly described as best recognised by its lack of field characteristics! Also because of what are to some people its unremarkable looks, the unfortunate Latin name Sylvia borin can become a source of jokes. However, to those in the know the Garden Warbler is anything but boring.

Garden Warbler
Garden Warbler
Sedge Warbler
Willow Warbler
Whitethroat
Blackbird

The Willow Warbler nest had 6 chicks of an ideal size to ring. Ringing nestlings gives so much more information than ringing full grown birds. With nestlings, and particularly when a nest record is completed, we know their precise age, exactly when and where they were born, the number of siblings, and sometimes the identity of their parents.

Willow Warbler chick

Earlier in the morning when I arrived on the farm I disturbed 2 Little Owls hunting around the farm machinery and buildings. Both used high perches and watched for prey items on the ground below, occasionally dropping down when they saw something of interest. Unfortunately I didn’t have more time to spend, so took a couple of hurried shots before heading up to the ringing spot, then I left them to their hunting.

Little Owl
Little Owl

Sanity Prevails

After my inglorious trip to Fleetwood yesterday I regained my sanity this morning after an uneventful but peaceful ringing session on the moss whereby the only person Will and I met during the couple of hours was George the gamekeeper. We all had a laugh together about a local chap who got married and changed his name to that of his new bride who just happens to come from a wealthy family. We all agreed that the chance would be a fine thing but that we’d rather be poor and happy, as George drove off in his ancient, creaking Daihatsu and Will and I settled down on our plastic chairs then tucked into our breakfast of lukewarm Thermos coffee with cheese & tomato and peanut butter sarnies respectively.

We took a chance on last night’s weather forecast that suggested marginal ringing speeds of 10mph and met at 6am to a clear, breathless morning. Once again visible migration was quiet with birds high overhead. Moving wagtails numbered one or two albas and 3 Grey Wagtails, with a noticeable but meagre movement of about 35 Meadow Pipits heading south. Tree Pipits featured again with at least 5 overflying birds, one or two dropping in to the netting area but today we failed to catch any.

Once again Chaffinches proved the most numerous but somewhat inconspicuous migrant as reflected in our catch. We think that many drop into the north end of the plantation before working their way through to our nets, and whilst their origins are something of a mystery at the moment, they appear to be birds of the British race with a preponderance of females. We have now caught 70 Chaffinches here in the last 30 days, a movement of Chaffinches a little earlier and stronger than expected. Here’s a picture of a Chaffinch that didn’t want to leave us.

Chaffinch

We caught 39 birds today, 35 new of 25 Chaffinch, 2 Wren, 2 Willow Warblers, 2 male Blackcaps, 1 Dunnock, 1 Blue Tit, 1 Whitethroat and 1 Garden Warbler. We had 4 recaptures with 1 Dunnock, 2 Whitethroat both adult males with completed moult and a female Blackcap that was first captured on 22 August.

Willow Warbler
Blackcap
Garden Warbler

Other birds seen this morning: at least 4 Grey Partridge, 1 Kestrel, 10 Linnet, 18 Goldfinch, 5 Reed Bunting, 6 Tree Sparrow and 3 Skylark, the first for some weeks and maybe the beginning of the true autumn birds.

Tree Sparrow
Skylark
Here's a good quote for all ringers and patch workers: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results - Albert Einstein.

Knowing The Score

I’m sure the car was on autopilot this morning, instinctively heading east towards Out Rawcliffe and the moss lands where Will and I met up again on a fairly calm morning but with a BBC prognosis of worse to come. But as ever optimism is the key, and if we believed everything the experts said about the weather and waited each time for the perfect forecast we would hardly ever get out. Besides which our other philosophy and guiding principle is, “If you don’t go, you don’t know”.

We certainly knew today that it was going to be a quiet session with “phyllloscs” calling at first light but not much else. The Sedge Warblers that until two days ago had sung their hearts out in mimicking Goldfinch, Whitethroat and sundry others, were now silent with not a one caught. Even the Whitethroats dried up this morning. In fact, let’s not prolong the agony; we caught 12 birds only, 7 new and 5 recaptures. Although to be fair to ourselves we did put up two less nets as a safeguard against the likely increase in wind strength, then soon after incoming rain forced an early termination of our efforts.

Consolation for the lack of numbers came in the form of two birds always sought after when we captured a juvenile each of Garden Warbler and Lesser Whitethroat. Other new birds were singles of Robin and Whitethroat. 3 fresh Willow Warblers completed the “new” and 5 other Willow Warblers were recaptures. One of these, an adult male AVC159 had avoided us on our visits since 23 April the previous date of capture – unless of course it had been elsewhere throughout May, June, July and the first few days of August? But on the other hand we first ringed it as a juvenile on 11th July 2009, so we could reasonably expect it to be active around the plantation and find our nets during these summer months. Oh what mysteries these birds provide.

Lesser Whitethroat - juvenile
Garden Warbler - juvenile
Robin
Here Comes That Rain Again

“Others” seen today before the rains came; 100+ Swallow, 6 Stock Dove, 2 Buzzard, Great-spotted Woodpecker and a Snipe.

Finally I must mention the positive feedback from readers of the blog a few days ago when I posted a picture of a Wren. So for those troubled souls, Wren Groupies, who have probably never had to extract one from a mist net, here is another picture of the infamous Wren.

Wren