Summer Shows 2nd August

The group attended two summer shows which coincidenally were held on the same afternoon. One was at Uplyme where Mike Tyler and Robin Pearson manned our stall and the other was at Whitford where Ian Stanbridge and Dan Montgomery represented us. These events are an opportunity to talk to members of the community who might otherwise not know anything about bird ringing. We were assisted in promoting the AERG this year by our recent appearance on Countryfile!

Our exhibits at the Uplyme Show

The MP for Honiton Richard Foord was in attendance at the Whitford Show. He was obviously impressed with Ian and Dan because his social media featured pictures of our stall and a link to the group!

Ringing at the Wetlands 1st August

A small team of three, Ian, Sue and Robin, undertook a ringing session around the Discovery Hut. We ran five nets – two in the scrub and three in the reeds – and caught 73 birds. Recent sessions in this area have produced a good number of reed warblers and so it continued, with 30 birds caught. Of these we aged 19 as this year’s birds (age codes 3 or 3J), nine as adults (age code 4) and two birds didn’t show sufficient features for us to decide how old they were (age code 2). So there were twice as many young birds as adults and this is what we’d expect towards the latter part of the breeding season when young birds are dispersing. It was good to ring and process a garden warbler and a linnet, neither of which is a frequent capture here.

The garden warbler and the wing of the linnet showing a moult limit which makes this a young bird: the older juvenile feathers (marked) are shorther and darker and are being replaced by the longer browner adult feathers. We caught five willow warblers which showed a wide range of body colouration, from the lovely lemony yellow that is typical of this species to the rather drab buff more typical of their close relative, the chiffchaff, of which we caught nine.

One of the yellower willow warblers.

of the nine chiffchaffs caught, one - the bird above - was a control and had been ringed in Spain. More details of exactly where and when it was ringed when we have them.

This is a wren which is this years bird. The lines on the primary feathers are arraged in neat rows showing the the young feathers all grew at the same time, unlike the chequered pattern in an adult where the feathers have been variously replaced. This bird also shows no white under-tail coverts that would be present in the adult

This is a young greenfinch. The striated breast and belly are typical. The wing shows the pristine feathers of a young bird and the lack of yellow on the primaries tells us that its a female

Three days of ringing activity - 17th-19th July

 After a considerable delay in our blogging we have a report from three sessions carried out on the 17th, 18th and 19th of July.

17th July

This was our weekly session working behind the sand martin colony.  This involves the checking of the nesting boxes to monitor activity and record the progress of nests for submission as nest records. This is predominantly carried out by the indefatigable Doug who uses an endoscope to check each of the nests. Several of us join him on each session to ring any pulli ready for rings.  This time we ringed a total of 33 nestlings from 8 of the boxes.  

18th July

We made a very early start trying to catch more adult sand martins in front of the sand martin bank at the Seaton Wetlands.  A team of ringers set out very early to set the nets before dawn.  We were soon catching birds and had a total of 68 birds.  

The team at work

22 of these were new birds, all of which were adult birds.  The remaining 46 retraps were all mostly adults, with only seven captures of this year's juvenile birds.  This fits very well with the idea that the young birds only stay around the colony for a short while and then roost away from the colony and so are not caught in the early morning.

Processing one of the sand martins

19th July

We set out again with intentions to do some general mist netting in the hope of catching our resident reed warblers, but also some migrating warblers.  The Wetlands sees good numbers of sedge warbler and willow warbler stopping on passage south for the winter.  

The weather was not ideal so we made our base in the Discovery Hut. This is used by the Wetlands as a focal point for visitors and has been designed with ringing demonstrations in mind and has displays and information for visitors as well as refreshments for thirsty ringers! This meant that as the morning wore on we attracted a number of visitors who we share our activities with. We try to inform about our activities, the birds that we are studying and about the Wetlands as an important local nature reserve.

Yours truly showing one of the birds to the public...

... while Dan gets ready to process another.

The mornings ringing proved very successful. We had a total of 75 birds, with good numbers of reed warblers with 16 new birds and 12 recaptures.  Sedge warblers ran the reed warblers a close second, with 22 news birds and 1 retrap.  Many of these sedge warblers were carrying large deposits of fat. This year so far, ringing in the same areas on a number of occasions, we have caught only two sedge warblers. These suggest these birds are on passage and heading south for the winter.

We also caught four juvenile stonechats indicating that there has been successful breeding on the reserve. 

One of the stonechats...

Other interesting birds included five sand martins and a house sparrow.  The sand martins were four unringed juvenile birds, which we presume are birds also on passage or local birds from other colonies prospecting the surrounding area, and one juvenile from the bank. While we do catch house sparrows on the Wetlands they are generally not in the area we were ringing on this occasion so this was a nice record.  Hopefully there will be more!

... and the house sparrow.

And we caught a blackcap which had begun a main moult of its flight feathers, providing an excellent training opportunity.

Two new primaries about half grown, one just appearing from pin and the rest are old primaries

We also caught a kingfisher which, as always, drew an admiring audience from those people nearby at the time and so generating a great deal of interest from members of the public.  

The total of birds for the session was

Species                 New birds               Retraps

Reed Warbler               16                         12

Sedge Warbler              22                          1     
Blue Tit                         3                           1
Stonechat                      4
Cetti’s Warbler              3
Sand Martin                  4                           1
Chiffchaff                      1
Willow Warbler             2
House Sparrow              1
Blackcap                       1
Reed Bunting                1
Kingfisher                     1
Wren                             1