Showing posts with label Goldfinch nest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Goldfinch nest. Show all posts

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Balaclava Days

Another starry, starry, Van Gogh sky last night and a morning frost meant donning my old woolly balaclava this morning for the 0630 start at Rawcliffe Moss. It was pitch-black when I drove past the open barn as the roosting Barn Owl made a ghostly exit through my headlights then waited on a post for Will to see when he drove past a few minutes later. Alright, the photograph isn’t the actual bird, but is as they say “One I did earlier” and taken in daylight.

Barn Owl

My trusty old Hooligan Hat kept ears and face warm from the chilled air as Will and I put up our usual quota of nets whilst listening to Redwings seeping over. Each time we’ve been to the moss in recent weeks we caught both Redwings and Fieldfares in the dark. This morning we caught 15 thrushes before 8am, 7 Redwings and 8 Fieldfares, a catch that kept us mobile for a while but stopped us grabbing a warming coffee. All the Redwings were juveniles this morning and one only of the Fieldfares an adult. As usual at least four Fieldfares escaped from our nets by virtue of their size and weight by having the knack of almost bouncing out of the pocket, especially where four or five are together in the same run of net.

Fieldfare

Fieldfare

Redwing

Redwing - juvenile

After yesterday’s total of 44 birds we caught another 36 new birds today of 7 species; the above 8 Fieldfare and 7 Redwing, plus 9 Reed Bunting, 6 Goldfinch, 4 Chaffinch, 1 Blue Tit and 1 Tree Sparrow. Needless to say, nil recaptures.

Reed Bunting – juvenile male

Goldfinch

Tree Sparrow

Unlike yesterday the visible migration was unremarkable with many birds arriving from a southerly direction, travelling into the wind, although most of the early thrushes came from the west or north west. In total we counted circa 235 Fieldfares, 100 Redwing and 10 or more Blackbirds, with one flock of Fieldfares numbering approximately 100 birds. Finch movement was also less noticeable with single figure numbers of Brambling, Siskin and Redpoll, but about 50 Chaffinch and 40 Goldfinch.

Apart from thrushes, the most numerous and obvious migrant was Reed Bunting again, and while we caught another 9 today, we estimated at least 45 birds moving through and over the site, some in small groups of fours and fives, with one party of seven individuals.

“Others” today: 2 Yellowhammer, 4 Tree Sparrow, 1 Sparrowhawk hunting thrushes at dawn, 1 Whooper Swan flying west, 20+ Snipe. 1 Stoat heading into the potato field via the ditch.

My old woolly balaclava is showing signs of ageing, wearing thin in the manner of fault bars on the tail of one of the Fieldfare we ringed, so a new warm woolly hat is on my Christmas wish list. This might just make a marginally better gift for me than the surprise the moss gamekeeper plans to present to his wife for Christmas - a new blade for her chainsaw! We still don’t know if he was joking but just in case I’m not calling by to watch her carve the Xmas turkey.

Wear and Tear - Fieldfare tail

Wear and Tear – Woolly Hat

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Quality Street

That’s what Will and I called one of our net rides at Rawcliffe this morning when two 60ft nets especially kept catching warblers and finches. In fact it was a very successful morning’s ringing after a slow start at dawn but better once the early morning dampness cleared and the temperature rose.

We caught 49 birds, 35 new and 14 recaptures of 8 species. New birds were:
Willow Warbler 10
Sedge Warbler 3
Whitethroat 10
Goldfinch 8
Blackbird 1
Treecreeper 1
Dunnock 1
Great Tit 1

Recaptures came as:
Willow Warbler 4
Whitethroat 4
Sedge Warbler 6

We caught our first juvenile Sedge Warblers of the year, fresh and yellowish, looking so different from the whitened adults with plumage now worn by their travels in the early year and the demands of a breeding season.

Sedge Warbler-juvenile

Sedge Warbler-juvenile

”Quality Street”

We also caught a few Goldfinch which appeared barely out of the nest, short winged, short tailed youngsters but obviously independent enough as they flew off strongly in small parties of adults and juveniles. Whilst this went on around us we found Goldfinches at a different stage with a nest containing five eggs.

Goldfinch-juvenile

Goldfinch

Goldfinch nest

Treecreeper

Two juvenile Whitethroats with consecutive ring numbers we recaptured this morning had actually been originally ringed in a nest in the plantation on 9th June.

Whitethroat-juvenile

The actual birding as distinct from the ringing was very quiet this morning with no visible migration and the new birds caught today can be ascribed to post breeding dispersal of juvenile birds and moult dispersal of adult birds.

On the lepidoptera side of things we did find a cache of eggs on nettles this morning. A quick trawl of the Internet identified these as Small Tortoiseshell - Aglais urticae I think.

Small Tortoiseshell?

Another Dawn-Out Rawcliffe

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