Oystercatcher movement

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had caught an Oystercatcher on the nest back in June which was already ringed (original post here).

I got the original ringing details from the BTO today.
FP01502 had been ringed as an age '8' (BTO code for at least 3 years old) adult on the 19th September 1998 at Llanfairfechan, Gwynedd, Wales by the Scan Ringing Group.

That's a distance of just over 100km NNE and makes the bird at least 15 years old (the current longevity record for a British ringed Oystercatcher is over 36yrs old).

Last week

I spent last Wednesday out ringing with Sean and my young lad Ffyn.
We met Sean near the Point of Ayre where he had his woosh net set up and had been 'filling his boots' with Linnets.
He caught 3 just as we arrived and then after a battery failure on the remote trigger system meant missing out on a fine Northern Wheatear we packed up and headed to Port Mooar for some Rock Pipits.
Despite plenty of interest in the traps by about half a dozen Rockits we only caught 1 so we decided to head on to our new garden site near Sulby.
We caught 72 birds in 2 hours - 71 new and 1 retrap Blackcap.
42 Blue Tit
21 Great Tit
6 Coal Tit
1 Greenfinch
1 Siskin
No sign of any Great Spotted Woodpeckers whilst we were there but a juvenile had been on the feeders that morning. Thanks again to Mr & Mrs Crellin for their generosity in letting us ring in their fabulous gardens!
Ffyn had a great time helping to let the birds go (apart from when a Blue Tit bit his finger!).

Ffyn checking my primary moult score and alula moult is correct on the Blue Tit

Thanks for a great day out ringing Sean!

Meteorites and a Manxie

Sean and I went out for the thrid night running last night, this time we were targeting Manx Shearwater.
We ended the night having caught 1 Manx Shearwater and 1 Storm Petrel.

Manx Shearwater

 

Storm Petrel

The Storm Petrel had a deformity to its right foot as shown in the picture above. We find that legs or feet missing is relatively common (c.15%) amongst the Storm Petrels we catch. Studies indicate that this is due to attacks by predatory fish biting the birds legs/feet as they feed on the surface of the sea.

Weighing the Storm Petrel - an apt container in this case!

Unfortunately the lack of cloud cover last night meant it never quite got as dark as it could have been even though there was no moon. This was the probable reason for the small catch.

There was one good thing to come from the clear skies though as we saw many meteorites, some travelling the full length of the sky, a fantastic sight!
Thanks to Sean for the great banter and for all the pictures shown above.

Givin' it the old Razzle Dazzle

I've had a great time dazzling shorebirds with Sean the last couple of nights. We even had some great cakes to eat, courtesy of 'Mrs. S', after the slog up and down the beach last night!
We managed to catch:

6 Oystercatcher (1 retrap)
8 Dunlin (1 retrap)
5 Ringed Plover (1 retrap)
1 Redshank

Dunlin & Ringed Plover - pictures by Ian Scott

See Sean's blog for some pictures of the birds we caught and a great couple of pictures of a Ringed Plover, first as a young chick when it was originally ringed and then a second picture of the same bird when we caught it the other night as a fully grown juvenile. A right 'bobby dazzler'!

The range of sizes within the Dunlins was amazing, some birds having bill lengths over twice as long as others and there was a large range within the body mass of the birds too, presumably the heavier birds had arrived several days previously and had been feeding well on the millions of sandhoppers that literally carpeted the sand around the tide line.

We also saw a large ginger cat on the beach both nights - I wonder how many Little Tern chicks that thing had despatched over the previous month?

A nice view of a Barn Owl drifting over the road near to the Curraghs Wildlife Park on the way home at 02:00am was great.

Thanks for the company Sean, makes a change to be able to talk to someone when out dazzling!

More Herring Gull colour ring sightings

Herring Gull 'T1TW' - photo by Janet Servante

I received the above picture of T1TW from Janet Servante who took it on the 27th July at Port St Mary, by the scallop factory at the base of the Albert Pier. A fantastic picture - thank you very much Janet!

It was one of the Herring Gulls I caught just offshore from Perwick, onboard Bob's boat 'Gemini' on the 21st July this year.

Sean also had a sighting of T7TV on the 02nd August at Laxey harbour. He had caught that Herring Gull on the 19th June this year in his garden at Port-e-Vullen so this one becomes our furthest moved Gull so far! It will be interesting to see just how far 'Manx' Gulls can travel during this exciting project!

A Mighty Manx 'Pecker

I met up with Chris and Kay this afternoon to do some ringing at a new garden site in the North of the Island. The site is fantastic with a very large area of well-shrubbed gardens, an orchard/vegetable patch and all backing onto a large area of Curragh (Manx name for an area of wet Willow scrub/swamp).
As if one was needed, there was an alterioir motive for selecting this particular garden as it has regular visits by Great Spotted Woodpeckers.
For those non-Manx residents amongst you you may be wondering "So what?" but GSW are 'national rarities' on the Isle of Man and this year has seen the first proven breeding records after several suspected breeding attempts over the last few years.
During the tour of the garden where we were chooisng where to put the nets, we were given great views of a juvenile GSW, a Manx tick for me (and they are rarer than hen's teeth these days!).
We set up two 40' nets and ended up catching 53 birds.
28 Blue Tit
15 Great Tit
6 Blackcap
2 Greenfinch
1 Song Thrush
1 Blackbird
No woodpecker amongst them, but hopefully next time! Many thanks to Mr & Mrs Crellin for allowing us to use their fabulous gardens.

Crowd-pulling Rockets

I met up with Sean the other morning and we went hunting for Rock Pipits with our array of spring traps, a tub of mealworms and an an mp3 player rigged up to a speaker system. We attracted a crowd of admirers at both sites we went to, but then who can blame the ladies for being attracted to such fine specimens?! (Yes, of course I'm talking about the Rock Pipits being attracted to the mealworms!!).

We ended the morning having "filled our boots" catching 18 Rock Pipits. 7 were caught at Fenella Beach at Peel and 11 caught at Niarbyl Beach. As a certain new mate of mine says, it was a real "Top day"!

Ghanaian Sanderling details

Today, I received the details of the colour ringed Sanderling seen by Pete Giovannini back in May this year.

The bird had been ringed on 23rd October 2009 at Asenko Village, Ghana, Africa and had not been resighted prior to Pete's sighting at Ballaghennie, Isle of Man on 28th May 2010.

That's a distance of approximately 5,500km as the 'Crow flies', but probably a lot further than that as the 'Sanderling flies'!

Thanks very much to Jeroen Reneerkens from the International Wader Study Group for the information.