One in a ?

After a bumper Sand Martin year at Bishop Monkton, we had high hopes for ringing a reasonable turnover of Swallows too. But, they’ve not played ball and have chosen to roost elsewhere - Vice-versa to last year!

In Wharfedale, with Andy, we’ve had more success ringing up to 100 birds in an evening. Somewhat remarkably, with about 300 Swallows caught we’ve managed to control three consecutive ring numbers. What’s the chance of this happening? It’ll be interesting to see how local we are to their ringing location.

Oh I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside

For a chance to ring some impressive birds we had a trip over to Long Nab (just north of Scarborough) yesterday evening where we were joined by local birders to have a go at netting Storm Petrels. While Storm Petrels are abundant on say the west coast of Scotland it’s a much harder proposition to net them on Yorkshire’s coastline. At just gone midnight and after a lot of patience luck was on our side. In the space of about half an hour we caught 2 Storm Petrels and a Leach’s Petrel – A bird rarely ringed in Yorkshire.

Storm Petrel – Ringed on 18 July 2010

Leach’s Petrel – Ringed on 18 July 2010

Sand Martins Are Go

I’ve been a bit slack with my blogging lately but that’s largely down to the amount of ringing our groups done over the past few weeks. Sand Martin season is well underway and we’ve already surpassed our hope of 1000 birds and have now ringed 1186 Sand Martins in total. Our large roost of Sand Martins hasn’t gone unnoticed and we now have two Hobbies regularly using the site as a fly through for an evenings snack!

Sand Martins perched on our net - Dave Bowes

Sand Martin totals for the last few weeks have been – 24/6 15, 25/6 30, 28/06 74, 30/6 82, 1/7 81, 2/7 190, 8/7 374, 9/7 116, 12/7 224.

In addition, we also ringed – Swallow 7, Reed Warbler 11, Sedge Warbler 7, Pied Wagtail 6, Reed Bunting 3, Dunnock 1.

Looking better for the weekend

It’s been a wet and windy week but I still got out with Andy one evening. The disappointment of fledged Redstarts soon passed when I got to ring a brood of 5 Kestrels and a brood of 3 Long-eared Owls. It seams to have been a good year for Long-eared Owls.

With a bit of luck I should get the chance to ring Red Kite and Buzzard this weekend so fingers crossed.

Kestrel – Ringed on 7/6/2010

Long-eared Owl – Ringed on 7/6/2010

Turtle Power

Over the past few weeks we’ve had the soft purr and occasional glimpse of Turtle Dove down our ringing site. Finally, we were lucky enough to catch one of a pair and with it being such a rare opportunity to ring this bird we drew straws - I had luck there too.

14 New birds and (13) retraps – Wood Pigeon 1, Turtle Dove 1, Chiffchaff 1, Willow Warbler 1 (1), Dunnock 2 (2), Sedge Warbler 2 (4), Goldfinch 1, Lesser Whitethroat 1, Chaffinch 2 (1), Whitethroat 2 (2), Yellowhammer (1), Reed Bunting (1), Grasshopper Warbler (1)

Turtle Dove - Ringed on 25/5/2010

Cheeky Chaffinches

Whilst up in Scotland Munro bagging I found myself, on an afternoon packed with heavy showers, parked in the top end of Glenesk that’s situated in the Cairngorms National Park.

Now I’ve often seen birds hop around in the hope of the odd crumb or two but this is the first time I’ve been actively harassed to feed them. Shortly after I parked up a flock of around ten Chaffinch descended onto my car – Eyeing me up from my wing mirror and tapping on the windscreen whilst sitting on my wipers. Winding the window down didn’t bother them (it became just another perch!) and neither did me getting out of the car to reward their persistence with a treat from my car boot. Incidentally, one female Chaffinch was ringed but didn’t quite come close enough for me to read the number.

Chaffinches

Long-eared Owl Chicks

Yesterday, we had good views of Long-eared Owls hunting at dusk. Whilst heading back to the car we heard their chicks calling so we followed their calls to a rough position but by now it was too dark to pinpoint their exact location. Today we returned and after a short search and some tree climbing we were rewarded.

Long-eared Owl - Ringed on 15/5/2010