Countryfile, Reed Warblers & adult Sand Martins

We've been busy! This post will cover 3 sessions......

Firstly, on Wednesday 4th June a Sand Martin monitoring & pulli ringing session was carried out at the Sand Martin cliff. This would normally have taken place on the Thursday, but was brought forward to fit in with the Countryfile filming schedule. The episode features several activities at the Wetlands, including the Group's work at the cliff. Countryfile visited the Wetlands back in 2013 and featured Matt Baker discussing the construction of the cliff with Doug. Matt & Doug re-convened to cover the current Sand Martin activity, including a demonstration of monitoring by means of an endoscope, and the ringing of 4 broods of young. 

The presenters & crew were all very friendly & it seemed to go quite well....we'll find out how it actually went when they air the episode on Sunday 22nd June!

The Mallard family was the centre of attention as it lashed down!

Doug & Matt chatting behind the cliff

Robin & Miriam (the ringing Team) with Sammi Kinghorn. 

On Tuesday 17th June we had the first mist netting session on the Wetlands since 12th Jan. We planned to put up 6 nets in the vicinity of the Discovery Hut. However, having put up 4, a surprisingly large number of birds blundered into the nets & we didn't get around to putting up the last 2. 

We set up base on the picnic bench below the Discovery Hut, & were joined by Mariana, a researcher from the Zoological Society of London. Mariana is part of the 'VB-RADAR' project (Vector-Borne Real-time Arbovirus Detection & Response), which aims to improve understanding of diseases of wild birds which are spread by mosquitoes & which may in rare cases transmit to humans. In particular, Mariana was sampling for Usutu virus & West Nile virus. There are particular species being targeted, including Blackbirds which are susceptible to Usutu virus with a resultant decline in infected populations. A later post will go into more details of the project, but it's great that the Group is getting involved in such important research. 

Ringing & sampling base

Mariana taking samples from a Reed Warbler

Our nets were set up behind the Discovery hut, with 3 around the reed bed. We were amazed at the number of adult Reed Warblers we caught from such a small area, with only 6 of the 25 being this year's birds, and they were all caught quite late in the session. Of the adults, 2 were re-traps, with one having been ringed as a a young bird on 31/7/2018, making her almost 7 years old! Not bad when the average age is 2 years. 

We did have plenty of other juvenile birds that will have bred nearby, with Chiffchaff, Cetti's Warbler, Dunnock, Blackbird and a large family of recently fledged Blue Tits. 

Young Reed Warbler (Age code 3J)

Young Dunnock (Age code 3J)

We also caught a Sand Martin....just the one. 

Adult Sand Martin (Age Code 4)

	Ringed	Re-trapped
House Sparrow	2
Reed Warbler	23	2 (3/7/18, 19/5/22)
Blue Tit	12
Chiffchaff	2
Dunnock	1
Sand Martin	1
Cetti’s Warbler	1	1 (9/1/25)
Blackbird	1
	43	3

We wondered if we'd see the Sand Martin again at our next session planned for 2 days later, when we were going to attempt to catch adults at the front of the Sand Martin Cliff. After taking down the nets, we spent quite a long time making plans & preparing for the attempt, something we'd never tried before. 

On Thursday 19th June we re-convened at the Discovery Hut at 5am. We put up two 30m nets on the grass near to the Sand Martin cliff, and walked them in open. As we walked in front of holes, the birds started to fly out straight into the nets. Ensuring that the net was kept tight & the birds held well above the water, we used umbrella bases to hold the poles upright on the concrete path that runs in front of the cliff.  

The nets being erected in front of the cliff.

Sand Martins being extracted after the initial catch.

Sand Martin adult (Age Code 4)

Sand Martin juvenile (Age code 3J)

Comparison of heads, Juv at top.

We were surprised by how few ringed juveniles we caught considering how many pulli (nestlings) had been ringed in the cliff....230 to be precise.  All the youngsters were caught quite late in the session, and of the 5 young birds we did catch, 3 were ringed during the filming of the Countryfile episode! The others were ringed on 25/5 & 29/5. 

We also caught 2 ringed adults, and were very excited to find that they were both controls ie not ringed at the Wetlands, & in fact both had been ringed in France! The details of when & where they were ringed will be posted when we know. 

Unsurprisingly considering that both females & males incubate,  most of the adults had brood patches, although the female brood patches are more comprehensive.

Female Sand Martin brood patch

We did continue to catch a few birds in the net after the initial catch. The net was only left up for an hour so as not to prevent free access to the cliff for too long. The net was far enough from the wall that birds could continue to access the holes even with it open by going over the top, & they even used the net as a perch!

Birds perching on the net strings! A few occasionally toppled in & were quickly extracted. 

It had been a very successful 1st attempt to catch the adults!

Sand Martins	Ringed	Re-trapped	Control	Total
Adults (4)	50		2	52
Juveniles (3J)	9	5		14
Totals	59	5	2	66

The happy Team!

Sand Martin Project

There have been no posts for some time as Avian Flu on site prevented any ringing. However, we've been given the green light to resume activities, which have started with work on an exciting new Sand Martin project. 

The artificial Sand Martin cliff was built in 2013 when Doug Rudge was employed by EDDC to manage the nature reserve's creation. There are 252 nest chambers arranged in 7 blocks (A-G), which are accessed by the Sand Martins from the front wall via tunnels. 

The Sand Martin cliff under construction (Photo: Doug Rudge)

The Sand Martin cliff now

Doug is now leading the project to monitor & ring the Sand Martins using the wall, in his capacity as a volunteer with the AERG. The wall was first used by the Sand Martins in 2023, when there were about 10 nesting attempts, and in 2024 about 38 nest holes were used. So far this year, 116 nest holes are being visited by adults, and the nests within the chambers are in various stages of use ranging from nest building to fledging young.

We know this because the wall has been monitored at least twice a week since 1st May, every Thursday & Sunday, with a camera being used to record which holes are being visited at the front of the cliff, whilst a team has been using an endoscope to monitor the nest chambers from the rear of the wall. 

The rear of each nest chamber is covered by a removable wooden plate. The plates of all chambers that are being visited from the front have had a hole drilled in them to allow the use of an endoscope to monitor activity within the chamber. When not being checked, the hole is blocked with a bung to prevent light entering the chamber. 

Doug using the endoscope to monitor activity in the nest chambers

The nests vary in their comfort, with some being crammed with feathers whilst others are more minimalist! 

A sparsely feathered nest showing an unhatched egg (the young were removed for ringing)

An endoscope photo of young (pulli) that are too small to ring (Photo: Doug Rudge)

Once the nestlings (pulli) are sufficiently well developed, the wooden plate is removed, and the young are briefly removed from the nest & fitted with a metal BTO ring bearing a unique number. The tunnel is blocked whilst the pulli are away from the nest to prevent the adults from returning to the nest & finding it empty. 

A pullus that's just been ringed

The numbers so far:

	Number
Nest chambers being endoscoped	137
Nests chambers being visited from the front	128
Chambers with nests/eggs/pulli/fledged young/adults	66
Chambers with new nest material (no eggs)	7
Chambers with eggs or pulli	54
Chambers where juveniles have fledged	5
Total confirmed eggs + pulli + fledged juveniles	258
Total broods ringed	29
Total Pulli ringed	124

We've also already seen a couple of interesting behaviours. Birds were seen repeatedly entering a tunnel from the front, although the tunnel was still blocked with sand before the nest chamber. The endoscope was used to look up the tunnel from the front, and a nest complete with an egg was found in the tunnel itself. Several more eggs have now been laid in the tunnel. It will be interesting to see how this progresses. 

Four pulli were ringed in box D3 on 15/5/25. On 25/5/25, Box G11 was opened & the pulli removed for ringing. Five pulli were ringed from the brood, but much to our amazement, there was one much larger youngster, which turned out to be one of the birds ringed in D3 on 15th! It will be interesting to see if this is a one off or a regular occurrence. 

Sand Martin youngster from the wrong nest! (Photo: Guy Hayden)

The Sand Martin cliff will be monitored throughout the summer, and more updates will follow. As this is the first year that the wall has been used in earnest, and the first time the Group has monitored & ringed the birds, it's a very steep learning curve! Systems are being developed & monitoring & processing of the birds is becoming more efficient.  Soon,  mist netting of the adults will begin. Watch this space!

A change of management.....

I took over from Mike Tyler as the Leader of the Group at the Annual General Meeting and  have been asked to provide something about myself and my plans for the group.

I began ringing informally at about the age of 12.  My father was an honorary head warden for the local nature reserve where I grew up in Warwickshire, and was asked if the reserve could be used for ringing activities to support a local evening class.  He replied that this would be fine as long as he could come along!  I went too and so my ringing began.  I started training properly at around 14 and got my C permit just before I left for university at 18.  I have held a ringing licence, since my first trainee permit, for 46 years. 

In recent years I have been ringing on the Axe Estuary and on various sites in Devon, primarily, in recent years, working with Peter Bennett on the Pebblebed Heaths looking at Dartford Warblers and Nightjars.  These projects unfortunately ended about 2 years ago.   

I have been living in Cornwall for 7 years but have now retired from work as a Chief Examiner of A level Chemistry and can devote more time to ringing.  My daughter lives in Newton Poppleford which means I can combine ringing activities with visits to her and to use my season ticket for the Exeter Chiefs!

I see the group having four main roles.  

One is to provide a measure of general population on the Wetlands over time.  We can do this by continuing our general ringing, but we have some plans to try to make our activity more measurable by carrying out ringing sessions in a similar way from year to year.

The second is to consider species of particular importance on the Wetlands.  We have been working on shelduck for some time, and as a result have also caught and colour ringed a number of black tailed godwits.  I hope to continue this work and perhaps expand to other duck species and waders.

Training the next generation of ringers is an important role which the group should undertake, and we are currently seeing a number of new ringers starting to work with us.

The final task is to explain our work and our findings to the public.  We do this through our interactions with visitors to the Wetlands during our sessions, by communicating our findings to the Wetlands management, by attending various shows and, of course, through the blog!

The recent addition of new areas to the Wetlands has opened up some interesting possibilities for our ringing activities.  I am hoping that we will be able to continue with our current programme (bird flu permitting), but I am also hopeful that more opportunities for a variety of different activities will make themselves available, focussing on both the new areas, particularly for waders and duck, but also on some of the old areas to look at some new projects, perhaps including work on mallard and sand martin.

Please keep an eye out for news on the blog!

Ian Stanbridge – Leader AERG

Mist Netting 12/01/2025

Eight members of the group undertook a mist netting session on 12th January. Our activities were targeted at birds using the reeds as a roost site as we had done previously on 10th December (see report below). The team assembled at midday and eight nets were set around the Discovery Hut to catch birds during the afternoon before our roost endeavours were to begin in earnest. A variety of species was caught and of particular note was a group of eight long-tailed tits, six of which were retraps and four of these were previously ringed at the same session suggesting that outside of the breeding season they stick together in groups. A song thrush, as always, was good to catch and then we put up a net next to the Discovery Hut pond where a couple of teal had been spotted. One bird went in to the net fairly quickly but unfortunately got out before we could collect it. However, a moorhen soon followed and this was keenly inspected by the team since they are not frequently ringed here. We caught a female kingfisher, which was a retrap and had been ringed here a few weeks ago, and then as the light began to fade we saw a barn owl quartering the nearby reed beds. We put out a net in a likely spot for the owl and then another couple of nets in the reeds for the roost birds. A kestrel was seen heading off to investigate the owl and on the next net round although we hadn’t caught the owl we had caught the kestrel. It was a female and was a new bird, not one of the chicks from a nestbox at the wetlands that we had ringed last summer. By now it was 1615 and the first of the reed buntings going to roost was caught. As the light went down over the following 50 minutes we caught 25 more reed buntings. In contrast to the long-tailed tits earlier, only one of the reed buntings was already ringed and this bird was interesting because it was a control ie a bird that had been ringed elsewhere. We subsequently found out that it had been originally ringed 40km away in November 2021 at The Fleet in Dorset and so is at least 3 ½ years old.

The song thrush was aged 5. The wing shows the yellowy triangular marks of the old greater coverts in contrast to the smaller more buff marks of the new greater coverts. The tail feathers are fairly pointed which is typical of many age 5 Passerines and this bird shows the beautiful breast typical of this species.

This moorhen was hatched last year and so is aged 5. The white chin feathers and the pointed primaries are diagnostic of this age class.

 

The broad bands giving a mottled pattern on the mantle feathers are diagnostic of a female in this kestrel and the broken bars on the tail feathers show this to be an adult female (the tail colours in this photograph are influenced by artificial light).

 

The Team

Mist netting 9/1/25

The team met at 730, and after a walk through the reserve with the kit, 8 nets were set around the reed bed & the 'crop field' at the Colyford Common end of the reserve. There was no frost or snow, and there was little wind, so it didn't feel too cold. Although we didn't catch a huge number of birds (31), we had a great variety with 16 species, which included a control Dunnock ie a bird ringed at a different site.  We'll have to wait to find out where the bird was ringed, although we know it was ringed on 23/8/2023. 

We caught 2 Reed Buntings, one new & one that we caught at the roost near the Discovery Hut on 10/12/24. 

Male Reed Bunting from the December roost catch

We caught a Treecreeper, which isn't a bird we catch very often on the reserve, with this being only the 23rd over the last decade. They're well adapted for their lifestyle, being well camouflaged against tree bark,  with long sharp claws for clinging to trees, stiff tail feathers for propping them up as they climb, and a long curved bill for probing cracks & crevices for insects. Once they've completed their post juvenile & post breeding moults, it's very difficult to age a Treecreeper. It may be possible to use the shape of the pale tip of the outer Primary Covert, but it's a feature that's shown as being highly variable and to 'use with caution'. Using this criteria, that the pale tip may spread along the shaft in young birds and be smaller in adults, this could have been a bird hatched last year (age code 5), but it was left un-aged due to the uncertainty of using this feature. 

Treecreeper

Treecreeper

Outer Primary Covert (arrowed)

We caught 2 Meadow Pipits in the nets beside the reed bed. The one shown below was aged as a 5 as it had a clear moult limit in its Greater Coverts, with the new inner 2 being edged a much darker buff colour than the paler edged outer 8. 

Meadow Pipit

Meadow Pipit Greater Coverts

Our most surprising bird of the day was a Kingfisher, a bird more usually caught during sessions around the Discovery Hut. This bird was a male, indicated by the lack of any red on the bill.

Male Kingfisher

Kingfisher 

We had company a couple of times during the morning......

Fox: Photo by Robin Pearson

The Team ringing on the Colyford Common viewing platform

	Ringed	Re-trapped	Control
Blue Tit	4
Cetti’s Warbler	2
Chiffchaff	2
Dunnock	1		1 (22/8/23)
Goldcrest	2	1 (30/11/24)
Great Tit	1	1 (15/8/23)
Greenfinch	1
House Sparrow	2
Kingfisher	1
Long-tailed Tit		1 (26/9/24)
Meadow Pipit	2
Reed Bunting	1	1 (10/12/24)
Robin	1
Sonechat	1
Treecreeper	1
Wren	4
	26	4	1