First Ffynnon Gro ringing session 2014

For once there was some calmer weather today which I took advantage of, for a couple of hours in the garden. A few days previous I noticed a marked increase in the number of Siskins after they disappeared a few months back. Also there has been an increased number of Goldfinchs feeding on Nijer seed and plenty of Chaffinchs, Tits, House Sparrows Dunnock and the odd Woodpecker as well. Strangely enough now the Blackbirds have consumed all the fallen apples from my trees they seem to have disappeared.

First round there were plenty of tits and a very nice male Siskin which was an adult bird.

 Subsequent rounds produced 4 female Siskins.

This Chaffinch was a little difficult to remove from the net because it was badly wrapped around the Viral papillomas on its right leg which is one of the worst I have seen for some time. This bird was not ringed, just photographed and then released.

The research I have done on FPV is written below for information relative to this horrible disease. Hygiene is extremely important and after handling I thoroughly washed my hands and then applied anti-bacterial hand hygiene gel. Whilst out in the field I would advise taking this gel with you as a precaution.

Warts: (Viral papillomas)

Agent: The Fringilla papillomavirus (FPV)

Epidemiology: The epidemiology of the disease has not been studied.

Species susceptible: Chaffinches and, to a lesser extent, bramblings. In a large survey of birds captured for ringing in the Netherlands, papillomas were found on 330 (1.3%) of some 25,000 chaffinches examined and both sexes were affected. However, cases usually occur in clusters and quite high proportions may be affected in outbreaks.

Clinical signes: The disease causes warty outgrowths on the foot or to tarsometatarsus (the bare part of the leg). Usually only one limb is affected. The growths vary from small nodules to large irregular shaped and deeply-fissured masses which almost engulf the entire lower leg and foot and which can distort the toes. Affected birds usually seem in otherwise good health but some may show signs of lameness and hop mainly on the unaffected food and digits may be lost. The warts grow slowly and may progress over many months.

Pathology: The growths have a similar structure to warts in mammals and are due to excessive growth of the keratinised layers of the skin.

Impact on populations: It seems unlikely that this disease has an impact on population densities.

Risks to human and domestic species: None known.

Back on 26/10/2011 was the last time I caught and ringed a Redpoll in the depths of Cannock Chase in Staffordshire. These were the days when I was a Trainee.

This beautiful adult male is the first Redpoll I have seen in my garden in the village of Llanfynydd since I moved here nearly 2 years ago. This bird brings my total number of species ringed in my garden to 22.

Dazzling

I went out dazzling again tonight to a site near where I live in Carmarthenshire. I planned tonight because the wind was forecast to be strong and with chances of rain. This would put the odds in my favour, reducing the chances of the Woodcock hearing me stealthily walking around. As it happened the weather improved, it was calm with plenty of stars about.
I never spotted a Woodcock all evening but did see a Snipe which flew off before I got anywhere near it. The only bird of the evening was this Meadow Pipit.

The hind claw was 12mm aged 3 with a wing length of 83mm and a weight of 22.3 grams. A few pictures and it flew off into the night.

Dazzled by Woodcock

This is not my first Woodcock of the season but my first ever Woodcock thanks to Paddy Jenks of the Pembrokeshire Ringing Group. This time of year, being the start of the Woodcock season I was keen to understand how they are are caught. After chatting to Paddy at the Pembrokshire bird conference last week end he kindly offered to take me out dazzling one evening to one of his sites in the county, to show me how it is done and how to use the fisherman's landing net . 

The conditions were was not ideal because there was no wind, no rain, no cloud cover which all increased the risk of the Woodcock knowing we were there. Although Paddy expected us to see birds he also expected them to be be a bit jittery and the chance to actually catch one would be slim.

In the end we spotted twenty birds. Three of them we nearly caught, but they spotted the net as it got close to them and they managed to fly off. Sixteen lifted off the ground and flew away before we got close to them, but, this bird we got lucky with. So out of twenty birds we caught one. Paddy said, in ideal dazzling circumstances when the odds were stacked in our favour instead of the birds we may have caught 12 or 13 of the birds we had seen.

The bird was ringed and then we had to age and sex it. The wing feather clearly tells us this bird is a juvenile. The main characteristics are:-

• There was abrasion to the tips of the primaries giving uneven profile. Adults have very little wear.
• The inner 3 or 4 primaries had rounded tips. The adult bird has a more flattened tip with a step between the inner and outer webs.
• The primary covert had rounded tips and the terminal tip colour being the same as the rest of the feather. In the adult the tip of the feather is flattened and its colour is paler going towards grey/white
• The underwing secondary coverts have a pointed tip and there are some signs of barring. In the adult bird the feather is again flat tipped and barring is more distinct.

So this was my first bird aged 3. Sexing is more difficult, plumage is the same but there is a large overlap in measurements. The male tends to have a longer tail and shorter bill so the tail/bill length can also be used, again there can be overlap. No conclusion made to the sex yet but if analysis of the results are proven for one sex or the other I will update the blog.

Garden Ringing

Had a session in the garden this morning, put a 40ft net up by my ringing shed for 07.30am. Had a cup of tea and went to do the first round. Got to the net and thought OMG, it had to happen to me sometime, it was full of birds, a lone ringers nightmare. A quick count came to 35. I used my 20 bags I had on me but had to go back to the house to unload the birds and took another 25 bags back with me. As I was extracting the other birds new ones were coming in behind me even though I had cleared the top shelf and bottom shelf and closed them up. In the end I extracted 45 birds.

Whilst it is an experience you do not need regularly, it was an experience nevertheless that was worth having. I felt I coped well with the situation and all birds were processed without any trouble.

A lot of the birds in the net were Blue tits but there were some nice ones as well. Where I live in South West Wales there seems to be a nucleus of Marsh tits. I am currently trying to assess there numbers and have had discussions with the BTO to see if the population numbers are high enough to consider the possibility of starting a RAS. See link for further information. 

http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/ringing/surveys/ras

RAS, Retrapping birds for Survival is a national scheme where the ringer aims annually to catch 50 adult birds of the designated species during the breeding season. This will give us an indication of the survival rates of these adults

This Marsh tit is the first I have ringed for a while which was a little worrying because for a couple of months now numbers coming to feeders had reduced. I also caught a retrap last week a bird originally ringed by me last winter

Once the net was up this morning I played the Goldcrest call on my MP3 which brought two birds to the net.

This bird is a male The crown patch is yellow which often conceals the bright orange feathers of the male as in this case and on the top picture some of the bright orange feathers can be seen. Ageing is primarily done by assessing the shape of the 4th and 6th tales feathers. In this bird the tail feathers were neither rounded or pointed so I aged it as a 2.

Another bird, the Goldfinch has started to appear again on my feeders after none during the summer months. They seem to prefer the nijer seed at the moment but can be a little fickle and change to sunflower hearts and occasionally peanuts.

Quite easy to sex, this one being a male because the red goes slightly behind the eye. The female does not. Also it has black nasal hairs whereas the female has grey ones. On some adult males, tale feathers 4, 5 and 6 each have a white spot. 5th and 6th tail feathers are useful for ageing, the adult having more rounded feathers compared with pointed ones of a juvenile bird. Comparion of the outermost three greater coverts can also indicate the age of the bird. The tips of the GC's on the adult being predominately yellow whilst juveniles the colour is a buffish white or white colour.

The breakdown of birds caught today are:-

Blue tit 28 new, 1 retrap

Great tit 6 new, 1 retrap

Chaffinch 2 new

House Sparrow 1 new

Goldcrest 2 new

Goldfinch 2 new

Marsh tit 1 new

Dunnock 1 new

Robin 1 new

Portuguese Ringing

I have just returned from a two week ringing session in Portugal with my wife Helen and Heather Coats. We stayed at A Rocha near Alvor in the Algarve. A Rocha Portugal is involved in the study, monitoring and conservation of the Ria de Alvor which started back in the 1980's. They are devoted to scientific research and to conservation and environmental education.

The plan was to be there for the Autumn migration, ring from daybreak and finish at lunch time when the ringing slackens off. Heather has been to A Rocha annually for many years and knew the layout very well. We had eleven 60ft nets set up which were left set up but furled at the end of ringing each day. Winds from a northerly direction were needed but unfortunately they came from the south and were holding migration back. It was nice and warm though.

As expected because of the wind direction ringing was slow and remained like this throughout the first week and for most of the second week.

The birds we did catch were good quality birds and during the week I got to ring and process three new species. The bird above is a Sardinian Warbler. We processed six of these.

This bird is a Short Toed Treecreeper, my first new ringing tick. It is so similar to the Eurasian Treecreeper but has a longer bill and distinct whitish diamond shaped tips on the primaries.

The Kingfisher is one of those birds that always lifts the spirits. This female was the first of three we processed.

My second ringing tick. In fact this was the first time I had ever seen a Nightingale. It is a bird that is more often heard than seen and when in the hand is surprisingly plain looking. To the inexperienced, care has to be taken to ensure it is not a female Redstart. The obvious difference is the Redstart tail feathers are a red rusty colour with centre feathers dark and the Nightingale like the picture above.

The Waxbill a member of the finch family is a native of sub Saharan Africa but now resides in many other parts of the world with a warmer climate like Portugal. It is a bird that has been kept in captivity and its spread is partly due to birds escaping or being deliberately released.

Kingfisher number 2 a male.

This is not my first aquantence with this bird a Melodious Warbler which was quite unexpected. My first was when I was ringing on Skokholm Island off the SW coast of Wales.

The Melodious Warbler held by Guy who is a bird guide at A Rocha.

Not all birds but thought I would include this picture of this Preying Mantis. There are approximately 2000 species in the world. They feed on other insects and the female will often eat her mate.

I have photographed many Little Owls over the years but this is my third new birding tick and to photograph it at close range and to hold it in the hand was absolutely wonderful.

Every morning Little Owls were screeching before daylight, so we put the MP3 Little Owl call on, and placed it on nets 6 and 7. We were hopeful but not confident and eventually one morning on the first net round we extracted it from net 7. Those eyes!!!!!!!!

On the last week end of our stay was the IV Sagres Birding Festival. Sagres peninsula is the only place in Portugal where soaring birds can be observed It was organised by SPEA (Portugese Society for the Study of Birds) catering for the young and old alike. Of particular interest to me was the soaring birds and bird ringing. The male Redstart above was caught and ringed at Sagres by the A Rocha Bird Ringing Group who spent everyday of the festival doing Ringing Demonstrations which was well attended..

Birds of the Night

Last night we decided to spend a few hours in pursuit of Nightjars on "Sarn Helen" a former Roman road connecting Nidum (Neath) with Segontium (Caernarfon). These nocturnal or crepuscular birds with bristles around their mouths (to perhaps assist them in the capture of insects whilst in flight) are an endangered species and the conservation status has been given a Red Alert. The Nightjar season is from May to September spending the rest of the year in Africa so we really had left our visit very late in the season to try and catch these elusive birds

Anyway we had two 60ft nets set up and ready to go for about 8.30pm. The nets were about 150 metres apart and as it got dark it wasn't long before the trill of the male bird could be heard as he flew around our heads. Not long later it flew into the net. Just as the male ws being processed the female also flew into the net. Since in a square kilometre is probably only one mating pair we decided it was probably wise to pack up rather than run the risk of catching the same birds a second time.

The bird above is the female. The male bird has white tips to its outer tail feathers

Head shot of the male.

CES10 WWT Llanelli

Cedwyn Aaron, Ben and I completed CES 10 at WWT Lanelli today. It felt very Autumnal first thing with temperatures around 11 degrees C at 05.30am. Last year CES 10 produced 10 birds and today we caught 15. We had Wren x 3, Blackcap x 5, Robin x 3, Chiffchaff x 2, Dunnock x 1 and a Blackbird. 12 of the birds were juveniles, which was encouraging but the total birds caught is still very worrying. One of the Blackcaps an adult male was part way through its complete summer moult in preparation for its migration albeit a lot do over winter in the UK. It was a good opportunity to examine and record the wing moult of the primaries, which were 5554210000, a total score of 22. Both wings were checked and they mirrored each other. The head and body were also in heavy moult and 8 tail feathers were missing.

Maybe not the highlight, but the most exciting moment of the day was a buzzard that had been calling for most of the morning and then landed a few metres from the ringing station. It flew off low in the direction of nets 1,2 and 3 and I have never seen Cedwyn move so fast in anticipation of it being caught in one of them, only to be disappointed.

Downloading the pictures this evening to produce this blog I was very surprised to see someone had been busy using my camera. As you can see the early start had got the better of me.