Jan Ringing - Swanwick & Beechcroft

Last week was one of the more busier weeks ringing wise for a little while. In total we managed to squeeze in three sessions across the week, and although the species were not all that rare or spectacular it was great to get lots of ringing practice, learning lots along the way. 

Dunnock at Swanwick

On Wednesday lunchtime we raced down to Swanwick lakes. We first thought we'd just recce the site for a bird ringing event in April, but after seeing a few birds using the feeders we threw up a net. After 5mins we had caught 15 birds - more than enough for a quick session so we got the net down sharpish. We caught Blue tit (11), Great tit (3) and a Dunnock. The most exciting thing was one of the Blue tits was a retrap, first ringed as a chick in back in May.

Nuthatch - Female (left) Male (Right)

Friday we swapped sandwich eating for a quick lunchtime ringing session in the office garden. We caught a good selection of birds; Great tit (1), retrap Firecrest (1) and Nuthatch (2). As you can see we caught the two Nuthatch at the same time which gave us a chance to compare males and females. The males clearly have much darker brown underparts in the lower tail coverts and flanks.

Great tit - Female (Left) Male (Right)

Saturday we started early and put a net up around the feeders at Swanwick Lakes in the same place as Wednesday, but with more time we had the net open for a couple of hours and caught 65 birds; Blue tit (39), Great tit (17), Robin (3), Nuthatch (3) and Coal tit (1). It was a great session for getting plenty of extraction practice and comparing sexes and ages of Great & Blue tits. Also it was the first time I've ever ringed a Coal tit.

Great tit - Adult (left) Juv (right). Line indicates moult break with dull juv feathers to right of line. 

Coal tit

Gulls for Lunch

Today was a bit of an office day so to break up the screen time, Trev suggested heading to a local piece of estuarine habitat to see what birds might be loitering about. The area in question was Curdbridge - one of the many tidal creeks of the Hamble river, which conveniently is just the road from the office - perfect for a lunchtime dash!

The tide was unfortunately in, hiding all the good grub filled mud so there weren't all that many waders on offer. However as soon as we got out of the car we did catch a quick glimpse of a Common sandpiper. What made the trip worth it was going through a group of gulls and picking up the differences between the Common and Black-headed gulls. I find gulls both interesting and confusing in equal measure. In the picture below its possible to pick out the black-heads with no black head (winter plumage) just a black spot behind the eye, with a peachy coloured bill which will darken with age. The Common gulls have a winter brownish tinge to their head (turns white in the summer) with a yellow bill and are comparatively bigger in size.    

11 Black-headed (one on the far left) & 5 Common gulls (one second in from the right)
(iPhone dodgy digi-scoping)

We also went through some ageing characteristics such as a black terminal bar on the blackheads tail indicating its a first winter bird along with a few other nuggets of information. Its safe to say it was the most informative lunchtime I've had in a long while! Long may it continue!

Ringing Sunday - Manor Farm

The first ringing session of 2015 got underway today at Manor Farm. Our main target species was the Scandinavian ninja - the Redwing. My bird ringing trainer Trevor & fellow trainee Chris had already set and furled five sets of nets yesterday so getting them open this morning pre-dawn was a doddle. We set another two nets in the morning in the garden of the victorian farmstead targeting Sparrows for Trev's RAS (Re-trapping Adults for Survival) Project.

'Scandinavian Ninja' - Redwing
(Canon 5dmk2 50mm f/2.8 1/50sec iso160) 

It was a slow start but we soon had what we came for; a net at the far side of the farm produced a Female Bullfinch & a Redwing. Unfortunately that was the only Redwing we managed to catch today but we did have a great mixture of birds in our nets; Blackbird (4), Bullfinch (1), Redwing (1), Great Tit (2), Wren (2), Magpie (1), Blue tit (6), House sparrow (3), Wood Pigeon (1), Song thrush (1), Robin (1) & Goldcrest (2).

Female Bullfinch - Manor Farm Jan 2015
(Sony rx100mk2 18mm f/3.2 1/60sec iso2000)

Juv. Magpie - Manor Farm Jan 2015
(Sony rx100mk2 23mm f/3.5 1/80sec iso1600)

Soon it was time to pack down the Sparrow nets before the public started to come into the Farm and we soon closed up the others as there, strangely, didn't seem to be that many birds around. The conditions were great - overcast and not a whisp of wind but the birds just didn't want to play ball.

Comparison of Male Firecrest (left) & Female Goldcrest (Right) - Manor Farm Country Park Dec 2014
(Canon 5dmk2 100mm f/4 1/80sec iso250)

We got all the nets down from the Farm and moved up into the woodland area of the parkland to target some Firecrests. Before Christmas we had great success in this area ringing two Firecrest and three Goldcrest within 30mins of getting a net up and a tape lure playing. This time we tried a new area over the other side of the road and caught two male Goldcrest and two Blue tit.

Look at things a little closer & Number 52

When looking at our more common garden birds I often think; if this was a rare bird people would be going crazy for them! Look at the colours on a Blue or Great tit they are far more fantastic than anything found on some of our rare birds that drop in to our country and make twitchers travel the length of the country (cough - rare warblers - cough).

The Humble Robin - Eyeworth Pond 2014

Some people who don't take the humble European Robin for granted are these guys - http://birdingfrontiers.com/2014/12/06/an-exotic-robin-in-china/ Perhaps taken a little out of context but you get the idea.

Yesterday we headed to Blashford Lakes, mainly because it was on our way back from Lymington but it was also great to see a few birds and add them to our 2015 list... 

Firstly we dropped into the Woodland hide, the usual Great, Blue, and Long-tailed tits were on the feeders, along with some 10's of Chaffinches, Collard doves and a rogue Greater-spotted woodpecker.  The highlight however was a single Siskin. The great thing about the Woodland hide is how close you can get to the birds without them even knowing. Through the winter sunshine the colours of the small passerines simply shone! 

Greater-spotted woodpecker - Blashford 2015

Male Nuthatch - Blashford 2015

Check out those colours! Male Great Tit - Blashford 2015

Colours shone in the winter sun - Chaffinch - Blashford 2015 

Siskin - Blashford 2015

We then headed to the Tern Hide over looking Ibsley water to refresh our duck and gull ID. Luckily we were shortly joined by Ed, the reserves officer, who kindly pointed out all the interesting stuff with his scope. Highlights were the Long-tailed duck, Black-necked grebe & numerous Goldeneye - the reported Glaucous & Ring-billed gulls proved allusive. 

Gadwall - Blashford 2015

Pied Wagtail - Blashford 2015

By the end of the day we had clocked up 52 bird species - not bad for a couple of non-birders..... 

A little introduction....

Well what is this all about then? Throughout 2014 I was writing for my work blog (108ft Blog - if you would like to google it) but I could only really blog about things that happened in my work time or, more importantly, things that happened on Wildlife Trust's (my employer's) nature reserves. Lots of other exciting things were happening in other places that I couldn't really write about on the work blog so I thought I better create another. Cue the creation of the Nature Stuff Blog.

Im hoping to fill these pages with plenty of 'nature  bothering' - the adventures of a keen amateur naturalist, constantly learning new things and finding new (to me) species. I can already guess that the majority of the posts will be either about bird ringing or butterflies and moths - but there will, of course, be the odd sprinkling of other interesting nature stuff.

So there we have it. Its just a space for me to ramble some nature tales with plenty of pretty pictures along the way. I hope you enjoy it.

Rob

What is blog post without a pretty picture - Marbled White at Badbury Rings, Dorset (2014)