Martins And More

Sand Martins arrived late from North Africa this year. Cold northerlies and cool temperatures throughout April and May saw few at the Cockerham colony and those that did find their way didn’t seem to hang around long. 

The quarry faces north and the Sand Martin’s tunnels look out in the same direction whereby there is no warming sun until late in the morning. Insects might be in short supply and perhaps this site is not a favoured one when newly arrived birds are free to fly off and find a more suitable location? 

Whatever the reasons, probably a combination of many, the land owner Chris phoned me mid-May to ask “Where are my Sand Martins?” Although I was in Greece at the time I was able to reassure him that the martins would be along soon but warned of a late breeding season but one where a “proper” summer might enable the birds to catch up somewhat. 

During the last week we waited for a suitable morning which finally arrived on Saturday. I met up with Andy and Will at 0630 at the colony where we set a single net to see how the martins were doing. We estimated around 80/100 birds present of which we managed a catch of 41 new ones and 1 recapture from 2021. All of the catch were adult birds, 23 males and 19 females.

The catch included "8911708 Museum Paris", a Sand Martin bearing a French ring. Almost certainly this was ringed in the vast reed-beds of Loire Atlantique. 

Sand Martin

Field Sheet - 4 June 2022

Museum Paris 8911708

We’ll visit again at the month end and see if the Sand Martins caught up with their late start and to estimate how many young they rear. Other birds this morning - Kestrel, 2 Great Crested Grebe, 2 Pied Wagtail, 3 Oystercatcher. 

Great Crested Grebe

Meanwhile Friend Steve has both Kestrels and Barn Owls at his home. While the Kestrel camera is working fine, the Barn Owl camera is on the blink, which means a trip up the ladder to determine where the owls are at.

Kestrels

Back home there’s a Dunnock in the garden sitting on five eggs that are probably quite close to hatching. 

Dunnock Nest

There's more news, views and photos soon at Another Bird Blog. 

Linking today to Eileen's Blogspot and Anni in Texas.

 

A Packet Of Smarties

I met up with Andy for our first Sand Martin ringing session of 2018. Like me, Andy had been on holiday, me in Menorca, and he in Turkey. Birders and ringers are ultra-competitive and as we swapped tales of sunny days his Eleonora’s Falcon was pretty good but I reckon I smashed him with 5 Golden Orioles, a European Roller and a Red-footed Falcon. 

There was no such exotica today. It was back to the bread and butter of Cockerham, the piping of Oystercatchers and the steady buzz of Sand Martins all around us as we waited to catch. Last year was very poor for our catches here as the so-called summer kept thwarting our planned visits. 

This year the colony is more tightly packed and so far at least, the weather is much better. We counted 200+ Sand Martins in attendance with most of the occupied nests in the softer strata layer of the quarry face with at least 75 holes in use. 

Sand Martin colony 

Sand Martin

We caught 68 Sand Martins. The catch was made up of 63 new birds, 3 returns from previous years (all from June 2015) and one bearing a quite old ring. The ring series beginning D350 told us that this bird had been ringed a number of years ago as our own series beginning “Z”, finished last year. We are now on the newer series of rings with a three letter prefix and four numbers. 

We also caught a male bearing a Paris Museum ring - “Click the pic” below. After these records are entered on the BTO database Demography Online, we will find in due course find out where both the French ringed and British ringed D350512 Sand Martins visited during their extensive travels. 

Paris, French Museum bird ring 

Sand Martin 

On the way home I checked out the Oystercatcher nest mentioned here on the blog on May 3rd, the day before I set off to Menorca.  I really didn’t expect to see the Oyk still sat after the attentions of the local crows. But there she was large as life, with a little vegetation cover, and now hopefully just a day or two until those chicks hatch. 

Oystercatcher 

Stay tuned. there's more birding soon from Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday Blog.