Nocturnal ringing

It's that time of year again. No, not the annual glut of courgettes from the allotment, it's time to head to the beach in the middle of the night to trap storm petrels.

We had our first session on Friday evening/Saturday morning.We were joined by a few local birders keen to see these marvelous birds at-close-hand.

We were all set up by 10.30pm and then just had to wait. The tides weren't ideal, they're spring tides at the moment and big ones, so high tide was very high and low tide, which was at 11.40pm meant the sea was a very long way out, would it be too far for the birds to hear our calls?

After a long wait and much to the delight of those that had joined us we finally caught a storm petrel at 12.45. As usual, those that had never seen storm petrels in the hand were amazed by how small they are.

Storm petrel

We caught another bird at 01:10 and decided to call it a night at 2am.

Two birds is about our average for our visits to Druridge and over the last five years we've caught 27 individuals. We've never failed to catch any...yet - that's jinxed it.

Hopefully we'll get some more sessions this autumn. Ringing storm petrels is good value as we get both recoveries and sometimes catch birds that have been ringed elsewhere all helping to piece together a picture of these strange sea-faring birds. You can read about a couple of recoveries from 2018 here.

Stormies to Ireland and the Faroes

We only caught two storm petrels in 2017, both on the same night  - 12th/13th August.

We've heard from the BTO that both of them been cauught again this summer - 100% return!

The first one we heard about was caught 328 days later at Copeland Bird Observatory, off the coast of Northern Ireland on 7th July - a direct distance of 260km.

The second control was a bit more exciting, our first from outside the UK. The first bird we caught last August was ringed by Sasha, a trainee ringer and it was caught again 363 days later on 10th August at Fleygarheyggjarnir, Dalur, on the island of Sandoy, one of the Faroe Island - 780km away


You can read about the night we ringed them here 

Much of the science behind bird ringing lies in the ring being found again, whether read by another ringer who has caught the bird, read in the field (for bigger birds) or found on a dead bird. Only a small percentage of the birds we ring are cuaght or found again, most of them are caught again by us in the same place, some are 'controlled' away from our site.

By precentage (of birds ringed) we've have had more revoveries of storm petrel than any other species we catch. This means they are good species to target for study as they generate valuable data.

Sea-watching and Stormies

With reports of a movement of seabirds from coastal watchpoints, I headed to Druridge for a sea-watch on Saturday afternoon.

I arrived at quarter to five and it was quite quiet a first with a few distant manx shearwaters beyond the pot flags. There were a lot of fulmars and a few roseate terns were flying by and feeding. I had my first of two sooty shearwaters, which was about two-thirds out, at about half five, the second one was later and closer. 

The manx shearwaters kept coming, some very close and a couple of arctic skuas went through together in line with the flags. Just after 6.15 I got onto a pale skua about half-way out - a very pale adult pomarine skua 'with spoons'  - bonus! It was interesting that this bird hadn't been seen at Newbiggin so presumable had been sat on the sea somewhere before flying past Druridge?

Just after the 'Pom' a Fea's petrel was reported past Whitburn. It would take it at least and hour and a half to get to Druridge and the light would be fading but I thought I would hang on. I had lots more manx, another arctic skua but not much else. When the Fea's hadn't been seen at St. Mary's or Newbiggin it was time to head home  - It was a chilly night and I was freezing!

The evening forecast was light winds and no rain so we decided to have a last try for storm petrels. We've never tried to catch any this late in the year before, our previous latest session was 8th August, but worth a try.

When we arrived on the beach and got the nets set up, there was big, bright full moon - it was almost like daylight! Not good for catching birds as they would see the net. The forecast predicted increasing amounts of cloud as the night went on. 

We were joined by Laura Shearer, Paul Stewart, Irene Ajo and the Farooqi's and to our amazement we caught a storm petrel just before half-past ten, the earliest we've caught one by a whole hour - and in what we thought were impossible conditions. We had the nets up until 12.30 and didn't catch anything else so we packed up and went home.

Storm Petrel (Photo: Laura Shearer)

That will be our last session for this year. We've had two sessions this year and caught four storm petrels and one Leach's petrel.

Ringing at both ends of the day

This blog post could've been called 'Burning the candle at both ends' as that is exactly what I did yesterday.

We've been keen to get the nets up at Druridge to do some ringing since we got back from Galloway, but the actual weather or the forecasted weather, which are rarely the same thing, has prevented us.

The forecast for yesterday morning was for the wind to drop by 7am and to be overcast. So not a really early start, but early enough, to let the wind drop, which it did a bit but the cloud cover was zero. We had the nets up by 7am and there seemed to be a lot of warbler activity, with lots of willow warblers or ciffchaffs feeding in the sunlight on the upper branches of the bushes. They must've stayed there as we didn't catch many. A fly-through collared dove was my first on the patch this year - it's common species like this that excite the patch-worker.

It was warblers that we mostly caught;

Willow Warbler -3
Blackcap - 3
Whitethroat - 1
Sedge Warbler - 1
Reed Warbler - 1
Garden Warbler -1

The garden warbler is indicative of migration as this species doesn't breed at Druridge and is a species that we have rarely caught in recent years.

We only caught 17 birds all morning, so there was some time between checking the nets to have a play with my new macro lens, which is also good a good 'portrait' lens for birds in the hand.

juvenile willow warbler

Juvenile whitethroat

Juvenile sedge warbler

Juvenile garden warbler - a scarce visitor to Druridge

I had a go at some insect photography between net-checking. I'll post some photos later inthe week when I've identified them all, but here is a taster...

Small copper butterfly

So, I mentioned burning the candle at both ends... whizz forward 12 hours and we were back at Druridge, just as it got dark to try to catch storm petrels on the beach. We were joined by Laura Shearer and Jenna Berry.

This is the fifth summer we've tried to ring storm petrels at Druridge. Touch-wood, we've never failed to catch birds and last night was no exception. We've only ever caught one bird before midnight and that was last summer, so it was a surprise when Janet checked the nets at 11.40 and found our first storm petrel of the evening.

We were even more surprised by the next bird, which we caught at 12.20... This one was bigger and it had a wing bar on the upper wing - a Leach's petrel.

We controlled a Leach's petrel in 2016 (read the story here) that had been originally ringed on the Isle of May and been caught again on the Farne Islands before we caught it. Last night's bird was un-ringed. 

Leach's Petrel - They have an incredibly 'steep' forehead.(Photo: L Shearer)

Janet processing the Leach's  - you can see the wing bar in this photo.(Photo: L Shearer)

We went on to catch another two storm petrels at 12.40 and 01.20. As we were about to pack up, just before 2am we heard singing from above our heads - was sleep deprivation kicking in, had we heard too much petrel noise - no, it was a Leach's petrel flying above us singing back to the tape. It didn't go into the net, but it begs the question - was it the same bird we'd caught earlier or a different bird, and if so, how many are out there?

All in all, a long but enjoyable day (and night...)

Hard to spot crake

In case you missed it, it's been Birdfair weekend down at Rutland Water. I'm normally there with my work, in fact I haven't missed a Birdfair since 1999... until this year that is. It was becoming like groundhog day, same people,  same places, same conversations... So I took a year off.

Quite often, when I've been down at the fair, there's been a fall of birds on the east coast, so it is about right that the year I don't go we have wall-to-wall strong south-westerlies. It wasn't all bad though, I took Friday off work and we were lounging about at home when a message came through that ADMc was watching a spotted crake in front of the little hide at Druridge. I was quickly on the scene and saw the bird for all five seconds through my bins before it darted left into thick grasses and wasn't seen again until much later that evening, by which time i was in the pub. Piss-poor views but enough to year-tick it.

Luckily it was picked up again this afternoon by Hector and I had much better views, brief as they were though as it crossed open ground between the clumps of soft rush.

This is my third 'patch' spotted crake. My first was in September 2002 which was found by Steve Taylor on the edge of the big pool. My second was found, but not identified, by a photographer who has snapped it on the old boardwalk in April 2013, it hung around for a week or so.

Offshore this afternoon there were 10+ red-throated divers, many still with red-throats, three arctic skuas but little else of note.

These butterflies were on the path...

Wall on knapweed

Peacock on teasel

We did some nocturnal ringing last Saturday for storm petrels. We caught one at 11.25pm - our earliest ever catch so we hoped for great things but it wasn't to be, it was another two and a half hours before we caught the second and final bird of the night. A few folk came down for a look, so it was nice to share these amazing little birds with them. Thanks to Cain Scrimgeour for this photo - if I had known I was in the shot, I might have smiled :-)

Storm petrel (Photo: Cain Scrimgeour)

Nocturnal ringing

I am guilty of abandoning my blog a little lately. My camera has been off to get mended, the camera wasn't reading the CF card. It's back now and I am £220 lighter. A blog shouldn't need photographs, but I found it harder to get motivated to write posts without them. It is also a busy time of year with barn owl boxes to check.

Last night we decided, a bit on the spur of the moment, to try a storm petrel ringing session. The weather forecast looked a bit dicey all day, but a quick check at 9.30pm when the wine/ringing decision needed to be made, showed that the showers had cleared and the wind was going to be light.

So, by 10.30 we were all set up on the beach, but it was still quite light in the western sky. By 11.30pm it was dark and we caught our first storm petrel at 11.45. We caught three more before 1.30am, when I was ringing the last of these, Janet returned from the nets with a 'bigger bird'.

The bigger bird was a Leach's Petrel. It was already ringed so it will be really interesting to see it's history. They are much bigger than stormies - almost twice the weight, there is certainly no mistaking them.

Leach's Petrel

This is our third year of petrel ringing at Druridge and we've caught storm petrel on every occasion but this was our first ever Leach's. I've never seen this species anywhere so it was great to have a close look at one.

We caught another two storm petrels, bringing the total to six, before we packed up 2.30am. Whilst we were ringing the last two, we had Leach's petrel calling over our heads and over the net.

Hopefully we will be able to have a few more sessions before the end of the summer.

Recovered Stormy

We only caught two storm petrels in a single session this summer, the weather getting the better of us.  One of them was already ringed (a control in the language that ringers speak).

We've just heard back from BTO with details of where it was ringed; Eilean nan Ròn which is off the Kyle of Tongue on the north coast of Scotland, only 26 days before we caught it.

A distance of 403km. It is amazing the distances these tiny seabirds travel!

Here is a google map of storm petrels we've 'controlled' 

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z4Qkjic5Jjcs.kEcXq64P2UoA&usp=sharing


Nothing much to report from Druridge today. The long-staying 'Cresswell' long-billed dowitcher put in another appearance on the Budge fields again this morning before heading back south to it's favoured spot. It obviously doesn't think much of Druridge - it doesn't hang around for long.

There are now six pochards on the big pool, a handful of goldeneye and a red-breasted merganser - there were 15 'mergs' on the sea.

Stormies

Not much to report, spent the weekend pointing brickwork and watching football, but before all of that we went to Druridge on Friday night to try and catch storm petrels.

We set the nets up on the beach at by 11pm and had caught two bird by 11.40, one new bird and a control. By 1230 a big, bright half-moon appeared on the horizon and the mini-rave/beach party further up the shore was louder than our set-up so we packed in and went home.

The French Connection

Not much news from the patch as I haven't had time to go there. I did manage an hour on Saturday and added oystercatcher and pintail to the year list.

We've had some details of some ringing recoveries back from the BTO lately. One of which was blackcap, which we ringed on 27th August 2014, as a juvenile male. It was caught by ringers in Landes, France only 29 days later. It had covered a distance of 1251km.

Link to Google map


We had another French recovery, a sand martin, ringed at Lynemouth Sewage Works. It was one of only two we caught this year, we ringed it as  breeding female with brood patch on 20th May 2014 and it was controlled by a ringer at Etang de la Horre, Lentilles on 24th August.


We also had details back of three storm petrels we controlled at Druridge during the summer.

15th August 2012 - Isle Of May
8th July 2014 - Kilnsea Clays
22nd July 2014  - Eyemouth

Link to Google map

Most of the other recoveries predictably came from Hauxley. A great-spotted woodpecker we caught at Druridge on 17th October was caught at the Bamburgh Ringing Station only 12 days later on 29th October.

A great-spotted woodpecker, ringed at Druridge on 17th October and caught at Bamburgh on 29th October.

Stormies

On Thursday night we attempted to ring storm petrels for the very first time at Druridge. Having finally got the right sound equipment, some good Mp3 calls and some new poles (big thanks to Paul Stewart) we were just waiting for the right weather.

So, the weather was good, but the tides not weren't as good with low water at 01.30, but we gave it a go and were successful, catching seven birds in total.

One of seven storm petrels caught overnight

It was still quite light until 11.30, so all of the birds were caught between midnight and half past one. We caught the last one as we were about to take the nets down, so could well have caught more if we had been prepare to stay up longer, even though the sea was a mile away by this time.

One of the birds was already ringed, so it will be interesting to find out where it has come from. We will certainly be having some more attempts if the weather is good.

We had a wander around the patch in the evening before ringing. Two spoonbills were back on the Budge fields and there were at least two little egrets, but there weren't many waders - about ten snipe, four dunlin and one whimbrel.

grey heron the Budge fields

There is a decent number of yellow wagtails both on the Budge fields and around the edge of the big pool. The stonechat pair near the concrete blockhouse have successfully fledged another three young, I make that three broods for that pair this year.

Offshore the common scoter flock numbered about 350.

144 storm petrel

PWC Score 190