A bit about ringing

You wait for ages for a blog post and two come along together ( or maybe not...)

The ups and downs of ringing...

A week past Tuesday, it was late September,  the wind was out of the east, but light and there was fog on the coast, should've been great condition for ringing birds so I took the day off and I ringed 15 birds all morning.

It's been either windy or wet ever since and the wind has been constantly out of the west. Not one to be deterred, the forecast for today predicted light westerlies, so we decided to ring. We weren't going to be inundated with birds so we put six nets up. Janet and I were joined by one of Phil Hanmer's trainees, Sasha. Skeins of barnacle geese flew overhead at first light as the nets went up and about 2000 pink-footed geese lifted off the Budge fields.

Catching was steady, with robins, wrens and blackbirds early on and a female bullfinch and a couple of tree sparrows, which are always nice to catch.

Tree sparrow

Reports came in of yellow-browed warblers elsewhere on the coast and on the next net-round we caught one. We caught another soon after which came in with a flock of twelve long-tailed tits. I think these birds may have just arrived on the coast.

One of today's two Yellow-browed warblers

Yellow-browed warblers are now more common on the patch than both pied and spotted flycatchers, garden warblers, redstarts and even lesser whitethroats.

Tom Cadwallender arrived and we chatted, I was going to pack up the nets then, but he came with me to check them so I decided to wait until next time around - I'm pleased I did.

Tom went and I started to take down the nets, there were a few birds in the second net including a warbler, which, to be honest, at first had me flummoxed - I thought I knew it what it was, but the bubblegum pink legs had me confused. I phoned Tom, who was still on site and took it back to the car.

Tom and I quickly agreed the ID of the warbler and Janet (who had gone to ride the horse) was summoned. We'd caught a Cetti's Warbler! (I'd never taken much notice of their legs before)

Cetti's warbler

Cetti's warbler is a recent colonist to the UK (first breeding in 1973 - the year I was born!), it's range is expanding northwards but is still a very rare bird in the north and even more so in Northumberland with only a handful of records.

I've put my neck on the line and said that Cetti's will be breeding at Druridge within five years - even more reason to keep on top of our coppicing efforts as they like a scrubby habitat. Not that we should need a reason as we know it benefits breeding warblers and other songbirds.

Blackbird's nest in coppiced alder stool

We ringed 69 new birds today.

Cetti's warbler is my 246th species for the patch and my sixth new species for the year and my second new species of the weekend. Happy days.

Woodchat believe it - A Patch Tick!

I was woken from an afternoon snooze by Tom Cadwallender on the phone, telling me there was a woodchat shrike at Druridge, before I could wipe the drool from my cheek I was in the car and on my way.

Directions from Birdguides were vague and I was frantic. '400m in front of farm buildings', I checked all of the farm buildings, nobody about. As I drove into the pools to meet Janet, a chap comes up to me with a with a Yorkshire accent and says "are you looking for't shrike?"...."yes"...." I found it, I'll show you, follow me". We drove down towards Hemscotthill Farm and there it was, perched on the fence, the fence which forms the patch boundary.

Poor iPhone-scoped record shot

Patch tick - in the bag. This takes the patch list to 233. I don't think it is a patch bird though, according to old reports there was a woodchat at 'Druridge' on 31st August 1966.

The chap was called Nigel Jones, from Leeds. Seemingly his local bird club booted him out, accusing of him of being a stringer (so he told me), he certainly hadn't strung this one!

It looked like a female bird (having ringed a few in Malta last week) and was of the nominate race. Seemingly Woodchat was a blocker for some of the County 'big listers' so there was soon a sizable twitch (by Northumberland standards). I saw the last one in the County, in 1997 at Hadston Scars Boat Club, I was working at the Country Park at the time and didn't even need to leave the park van.

Decent twitch for a good county bird

One elderly birder was having trouble with is 'new-fangled' iPhone adaptor thingy, Alan Tillmouth had to turn away, laughing, "I can't believe he fell for it"

I was ringing this morning at Druridge (hence the afternoon snooze). It was quite slow-going, I only managed to ring six new birds with only four nets up. Highlight of the session was this long-eared owl though, an adult female. This is the second long-eared owl we have caught at Druridge. I also caught four whitethroats, so it seems that last years big increase in breeding pairs wasn't a one-off. lets hope so.

long-eared owl

Also of note, the great white egret is still present and there were at least 25 whimbrel on the fields. Five dunlin dropped into the Budge fields, a greenshank flew over calling, common tern and house martin were both seen and the first lapwing chicks are out and about.

Yesterday, I added grasshopper warbler to my year-list with two reeling males and had a very impressive count of 49 whimbrel on the Budge fields.

119 grasshopper warbler
120 common tern
121 long-eared owl
122 greenshank
123 house martin
124 woodchat shrike

PWC Score = 159