2010 Manx Ringing Group report now published

I have now completed the (long overdue) groups ringing report for 2010 which can be seen by clicking on the link below.

Link to report - Manx Ringing Group report 2010.

Nest box check at the Curraghs Wildlife Park

Dave was unable to check the nest boxes at the Currraghs Wildlife Park this week so I met Sean there this afternoon to check on their progress.
We have been monitoring the 50 or so nest boxes here for almost 10 years now and submit Nest Record Data on each one, each year to the BTO.

The vast majority of the boxes are used by House Sparrows with the remainder used by Great Tits and Blue Tits. The majority of the House Sparrow boxes contained very small chicks and several boxes had a mix of hatching young and eggs. The timing of our check was spot on for giving a good idea of the hatching date for these boxes, a key piece of data in the Nest Record Scheme. Only 1 brood of 3 Sparrows were big enough to ring today but we also had 3 each of Blue & Great Tits incubating eggs which were quickly ringed and placed back on the eggs to carry on incubating (all of which did so!).

We also found a Gey Heron nest up a tree in the White Stork enclosure. It contained 3 large young (FL) which were seen to be fed by both parents. Unfortunately the nest was not accesible to enable the young to be ringed.

We also saw a Common Frog below one of the nest boxes in the superb willow scrub/marsh area of the 'wildlife trail' in the park. A quick look at the excellent meerkat enclosure ended the afternoon!

First pulli of the year

A visit to see my brother this afternoon resulted in the first young of the year being ringed when he told me that he had found a Blackbird nest in his garden. On checking the nest there were 2 young and 2 infertile eggs.

Blackbird pullus

The young were about a week old, being at 'FS' (wing feathers small) stage and they should fledge in another weeks time. Given that they have raised these 2 chicks this early on then the pair should go on to raise another brood, possibly even 2 more broods.

Thanks bro'!

Cormorant colony check

We had a check on the Cormorant colony at Maughold this afternoon. We were hoping that there may have been a few early young but all the nests were still at eggs stage whilst the pairs in the Eastern part of the colony are yet to lay any eggs at all.

There looked to be a good number more nests than last year so hopefully there will be plenty of young to ring over the Summer. There were at least 7 ringed birds at nests but unfortunately they were too far down the slope to be able to read the ring numbers however we shouldn't have that problem in years to come once we start our colour ringing project on them this year as we should be able to easily read the colour ring numbers from a distance. Click here for more information about our Cormorant colour ringing project.

More Wheatears and Linnets

It was up to the Point of Ayre with Sean again this morning with the spring traps and woosh net.
There were up to 7 Wheatears on the landfill site and 2 were caught in the spring traps.
We also caught 6 Linnets in the woosh net (5 new and 1 retrap).

Male Linnet

Female Wheatear

Warblers & Wheatears

I met Sean at Close Sartfield MWT reserve this morning where we set up 5 nets in the Willow scrub.

We ended the morning having caught 24 new birds and 2 retraps (retraps in brackets):

Willow Warbler 5 (2)

Great Tit 6

Blue Tit 3

Blackbird 3

Sedge Warbler 2

Chaffinch 2

Coal Tit 1

Wren 1

Treecreeper 1

It was great to catch the Sedge Warblers and Treecreepers are always great to see up close too. For some reason we didn't catch any Blackcaps despite several males singing on site.

Treecreeper

Willow Warbler

Willow Warbler

Sedge Warbler

Sedge Warbler

We also took a walk down to the hide at the bottom of the reserve, overlooking a manged wetland area. There were a lot of Lesser Redpoll flying over, calling down there.

Ffyn (on top of the hide) modelling the lastest fashion in young birders wear!

Come 1pm things had gone very quiet at Close Sartfield so we packed up and headed to the landfill site at the Point of Ayre where Sean had caught 6 Wheatears yesterday.

Point of Ayre Lighthouse & Foghorn

We set up our collection of spring traps and an hour later we had caught another 2 Wheatears - very smart birds.

Female Wheatears

Recent Recoveries

The latest batch of recoveries arrived by email from the BTO today. Some nice records were included. I have included a link to a map of the movement for each record.

Storm Petrel

2526374 4 05/08/2008 St. Michael's Island (Isle of Man) map
            R 10/09/2009 Copeland Bird Obs (Down) 91km NW 1 yr 36days

2619112 4 11/09/2009 Copeland Bird Observatory (Down) map
             R 21/07/2010 St. Michael's Island (Isle of Man) 91km SE 313 days

2563242 4 10/07/05 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) map
               R  16/06/06 Skomer (Pembrokeshire) 259 km S 341days
               R  26/06/08 Skomer (Pembrokeshire) 2 yrs 352days
               R  17/06/10 Skomer (Pembrokeshire) 4 yrs 342days


Copeland Bird Obs is a regular location for Storm Petrels to/from our ringing sites for the species here on the Isle of Man. 2563242 would appear to be a bird that nests on Skomer Island.

Cormorant

5255562 1 17/06/2010 Stack Mooar (Isle of Man) map
           XL 19/03/2011 Dunlugas, Turriff (Aberdeenshire) 382km NNE 275days

5255576 1 17/06/2010 Stack Mooar (Isle of Man) map
           XF 29/03/2011 Hay-a-Park, Knaresborough (N Yorks) 189km E 285days

Both the above recoveries were from inland locations, not coastal. A large number of our Cormorants are recovered inland. Hopefully we will learn much more about the movements of our Cormorants with the new colour ringing project starting on them this year. 5255576 was killed by discarded fishing tackle, a sad end to such a fine bird.

Oystercatcher

FA99928 8 16/11/1996 Whiteford Point, Swansea (Swansea) map
            RR 04/02/2011 Ramsey (Isle of Man) 296km N 14 yrs 80days

Sean photographed this Oyestercatcher on the Mooragh at Ramsey and was able to read the ring number from the photos. We have had several Oystercatchers from Wales recovered here on the IOM.

Black Guillemots at Peel

Adam sent me the following pictures of Black Guillemots which he had taken at Peel this morning. He had about 50 'Tysties' between the back of Peel Hill (the main breeding colony site) and the outer breakwater where small numbers nest in holes in the wall.

Black Guillemots - photos courtesy of Adam Denard

We have caught 3 breeding adults here in the past and the pictures show a ringed bird. Unfortunately Adam wasn't able to get close enough to get the ring number this time.

What a great excuse though to put some pictures on the blog of these absolutely fantastic little birds which I think look equally fantastic in their winter plumage (as shown in the picture below of one I ringed when at North Ronaldsay, Orkney when it came to an 'attraction' at the Lighthouse there).

Black Guillemot in winter pluamge, North 'Ron' 1992

You probably get the message by now that I think Black Guillemots are fantastic!!

Watch out for low flying Ducks

I spent a few hours up at Lower Ballafodda again this afternoon. It was a lot quieter today, probably due to the warm and sunny weather meaning the birds didn't have to feed so well.
There could also have been another reason for it being quiet in that a male Sparrowhawk 'bounced' one of the nets having come almost face to face with me as I was extracting a bird. Maybe it had already been in the area and the birds were keeping low.

More 'excitement' occurred when a drake Mallard flew into one of the nets. I had feared it would go straight through and ruin the net, however it settled into the pocket nicely and sat there fine until it was quickly extracted and ringed and sent on its way again.

The totals for the morning were (retraps/controls in brackets):

Goldfinch 11
Chaffinch 2 (1)
House Sparrow 2
Great Tit (3)
Blue Tit 1
Mallard 1

Yet another control from the Calf of Man was caught with Chaffinch L214714. It was originally ringed on 6th November 2010 as a first year female. A distance of 11km and 162 days between captures.
That's 2 Chaffinch and 2 Goldfinch I have caught in 3 sessions here at Lower Ballafodda that have been previously ringed at the Calf of Man Bird Obs, fantastic stuff!

Great Tit

House Sparrow

Linnet to Lancashire

We have recently had a control Linnet caught at Rossall School, Fleetwood, Lancashire by a fellow ringer, Seumus Eaves (see his excellent blog here).

Linnet & Point of Ayre Lighthouse - photo courtesy of Sean

L623149 was originally ringed by Sean at the Point of Ayre, Isle of Man on 25th September 2010 as a first year male.
It was controlled (recaptured) by Seumus on 15th April this year at his regular ringing site on the Lancashire coast at Rossall, Fleetwood. A distance of 102km and 202 days between captures.

This gives credence to Sean and I's theory that due to the large number of Linnet he was catching then some must have been passing through to/from the UK and that they weren't just local birds. Lets hope some more turn up in ringers nets there or elsewhere!

Update on Brent Goose 'NPWB'

I have recieved the history on the Light-bellied Brent Goose which Sean photographed at Langness on 11th March seen here:

It was originally caught at North Slobs, Wexford, EIRE on 13th Feb 2009 as a first year Male and a list of its resightings is shown below:

'NPWB'     13/02/09  North Slobs, Wexford , Eire
                04/02/10  South Slobs, Wexford , Eire (6 km, SSW, 356 days)
                22/03/10  Killough Harbour, Down (217 km, NNE, 1 yr 37days)
                01/04/10  Baldoyle Bay, Dublin, Eire (118 km, N, 1 yr 47days)
                23/04/10  Loch Indaal, Islay (381 km, N, 1 yr 69days)
                13/02/11  North Slobs, Wexford Harbour, Eire (2 yrs 0days)
                11/03/11  Langness, Isle of Man (225 km, NNE, 2 yrs 26days)

Locations where Brent Goose 'NPWB' has been seen

Thanks to Graham McElwaine from the Irish Brent Goose Research Group for  the information.

White Wagtails

I met up with Sean this morning at Sandwick on the East side of Castletown Bay  to see what we could catch on the beach with a woosh net.
We ended the morning having caught 3 White Wagtails - very smart birds.

White Wagtails

We aged 2 of them as first year males and the other as an adult male. All had the classic grey rump with only the longest upper tail coverts being dark grey/black. Two of the birds also had missing claws on the toes, presumably some sort of infection/viral problem. There were 3 Wheatears in the area too, but none came near the catching area.

We then moved to Castletown Harbour and caught another Mute Swan bringing our total since we restarted the colour ringing scheme last year to 28 and 18 of which have been done this year.

Then this evening, whilst on coastguard patrol I had 8 Wheatears in Langness lighthouse garden and along the surrounding walls. The flock of Golden Plover numbered just over 150 in the fields next to the lighthouse. The majority of them were in Summer plumage - very smart!

Another great session at Ballafodda

I popped up to my mums again this afternoon to do some more ringing in her garden. The Siskins had returned earlier in the week so I was keen to catch some.
It was another great session with 49 birds caught - 40 new birds, 7 retraps and 2 controls (from the Calf of Man Bird Obs). Totals below (plus the retraps/controls in brackets):

Chaffinch 15 (1)
Goldfinch 13 (2)
Great Tit 3 (5)
Siskin 7
House Sparrow 1 (1)
Starling 1


It was great to catch a Starling as I don't get any in my garden. 

Starling

The 7 Siskin were great, the first of many with any hope as there can be as many as 50 at a time in mid summer on the feeders here. One of the female Siskins caught today had a fully developed brood patch (BP3).

Its great watching the recently fledged Siskins here in May, you can stand within a few feet of them on the feeders and they have no fear of you! 



Male Siskin



Male Siskin



Female Siskin



Male Chaffinch



Male Goldfinch

 

Male Goldfinch



The 2 controls were both Goldfinches from the Calf of Man. 1 ringed as a juvenile on 6th July 2009 and the other ringed as an adult Male on 24th March this year.

A great afternoons ringing, thanks for the lunch mum!

More Turnstone

I went dazzling with Sean after work yesterday evening and although conditions were a bit on the windy side (dazzling is never much good when its too windy) we still managed to catch another 2 Turnstone.


Turnstone