Manx Bird Ringing

Garden Ringing

2012-03-12T17:46:00.000Z

I took advantage of the calm winds today and opened the net in my garden. 21 birds caught, 15 new and 6 retraps.

Dunnock 1
Blue Tit 7 (+6 retraps)
House Sparrow 1
Chaffinch 3
Goldfinch 3

One of the Blue Tits had an interesting appearance. The front of its crown was bright yellow with a yellow wash to the loral area and front part of the 'cheeks'. It was an adult (euring code 6 - hatched prior to last calendar year) so its not even as though it could have been retained juvenile feathers.

I initially thought it could be pollen staining as all the willow trees along the stream are in flower, however there was no sign of any powder or dust and the feathers appeared 'clean'.

None of the other Blue Tits caught showed any yellow colouration like this bird.
One of the retraps was originally ringed in my garden as a first year bird in December 2009.

Calf of Man Bird Observatory recent recoveries

2012-03-07T16:41:00.004Z

Here are some recoveries from the latest batch for the Calf of Man Bird Observatory. Click on the map markers to view the details or clicking on the link directly underneath each map will open up a larger view with the details on the screen.

Lesser Redpoll Y362180

View Lesser Redpoll Y362180 in a larger map

Blackbird LC34001

View Blackbird LC34001 in a larger map

Blackbird LB12685

View Blackbird LB12685 in a larger map

Storm Petrel 2563242

View Storm Petrel 2563242 in a larger map

Some interesting recoveries there, including the mid-winter, northwards movement of the adult male Blackbird LB12685 to Norway only for it to be killed by a cat there. Looking at its biometrics, it had a wing length of 140mm suggesting it was of Scandinavian origin but it seems very early in the year for it to have been returning North.

Great Black-backed Gull from Dublin

2012-03-06T14:59:00.001Z

Back in December, Sean photographed a colour ringed GBB Gull at Peel breakwater.

GBB Gull Blue 1JN, Peel breakwater - photo by Sean

We heard back from Chris Honan today with the ringing details. It is one from his colour ringing project and was ringed as a chick on 25th June 2011 at Ireland's Eye, a small Island just North of Howth in Dublin Bay.

View Great Black-backed Gull 'Blue 1JN' in a larger map

Thanks to Chris for the info.

Mute Swan recovery to Scotland

2012-03-04T18:15:00.002Z

We recently received a recovery of Mute Swan 'A87' found fresh dead, washed up on a beach at Dundrennan, Dumfries & Galloway on 26 February 2012.

A87 in Ramsey harbour in 2010

A87 in Ramsey harbour 13th Jan 2012 - photo by Becki Barnes

A full map of its known movements is shown below, click on the map markers to open up the info or alternatively, click here to open up a larger map with all the information.

View Mute Swan A87 in a larger map

A87 had been resident in Ramsey for the last 9 years and had roamed the South of the Island for a few years prior to this. It was at least 16 years old this year as when it was originally caught in 1998 it was already a full adult (at least 2 years old).
It had last been seen in Ramsey harbour on 31 January 2012.

Wildfowl ringing trip to the UK

2012-03-02T19:56:00.002Z

Sean and I recently jumped at a rare opportunity to help Kane and the WWT teams with two planned catches at their reserves at Martin Mere in Lancashire and Caerlaverock in Dumfries & Galloway.

First up was a catch at Martin Mere. Although only a relatively small number of Whooper Swans were caught on the morning, the catch also included a good selection of Ducks with Shelduck, Pintail, Wigeon, Pochard, Teal and Mallard all being caught.

It was also good to meet up with Steve Christmas form the North West Swan Study, a project which we are a part of, and also Craig Brookes, Ciaran Hatsell and Dave & Jill Hallam.

After the catch Sean, Craig, Ciaran and I went to Southport Marine Lake to help Steve catch more juvenile Mute Swans for the NWSS and we managed to catch 16 juvs and an adult.

Mute Swans at Southport Marine Lake

It was also great to meet Dave Sowter here, the ringer who inspired us to start our Large Gull project and who kindly donated the colour rings for it.

The next day we had moved to Caerlaverock, a reserve on the Solway Firth where huge flocks of Barnacle Geese spend the Winter before returning to Spitzberegen to nest. A fantastic catch of 204 Swans made up of 147 Whoopers and 57 Mutes was taken.

The catch in the 'Swan Pipe'

All the new Whoopers were given colour rings to allow identification in the field and various biometrics were taken on all the Swans to enable the team at WWT HQ in Slimbridge to work out a body condition of each bird. Thanks to Gillian Dinsmore for the photos of the action!

Measurements were taken on tarsus length, head and bill length, weight and wing length

It was also great to meet up again with Sveri and his wife from Iceland who were down for a special visit to see the Whooper Swan catch. It was great to discover that we caught a Whooper which he had ringed as an adult bird 16 years ago on the breeding gorunds in Northern Iceland.

Sveri with his best friend!

Sean and I also managed to fit in some birding at Leighton Moss, Marshside and Fleetwood with some nice rarities seen including 3 Snow Geese and a cracking male Ring-necked Duck.

Snow Geese

Ring-necked Duck

Marsh Tit

Shoveler

It was also nice for me to see the likes of Nuthatch, Marsh Tit and Bullfinch - species which don't occur on the Isle of Man.

A great few days with a great pal meeting some great new friends! Thanks to Sean and Gillian for their superb photos too!

Ringing totals for February 2012

2012-03-01T22:00:00.001Z

The monthly ringing totals for the Manx RG can be viewed by clicking on the following link:

Manx RG ringing totals February 2012

It was another good month with over 300 new birds ringed. There were good numbers of finches ringed with 50 Chaffinch, 35 Siskin and 15 Lesser Redpoll. We also ringed singles of Wintering Blackcap and Chiffchaff, equalling the totals caught in January for these two species of warbler.

Recent recoveries

2012-03-01T21:12:00.000Z

We have received some interesting recoveries from the lastest batch sent to us from the BTO this week with 2 Goldfinch caught by other ringers in North West England and a Siskin found dead in the West Midlands.
Maps for the 3 birds are shown below - click on the markers to reveal the info/dates etc.

Goldfinch Y376419

View Goldfinch Y376419 in a larger map

Goldfinch Y376300

View Goldfinch Y376300 in a larger map

Siskin L983205

View Siskin L983205 in a larger map

The two Goldfinch give some backup to what both Sean and I had discussed, in that the large numbers of Goldfinch caught at the Point of Ayre last Autumn were all passing quickly through on migration.

We also received a recovery of one of our Herring Gull chicks ringed at the Point of Ayre last Summer found dead on 5th February 2012 at Fleshwick in the South West of the IOM.

Herring Gull to Ballycotton, Cork

2012-02-26T23:15:00.000Z

We received an email with information about one of our colour ringed Herring Gulls which had been seen at Ballycotton Pier, Cork, Ireland today.

Herring Gull T8UF at Ballycotton, Cork - photo courtesy of Graham Clarke

T8UF was ringed as a chick at the Calf of Man Bird Observatory on 14th July 2011. This is the first time it has been reported since it was ringed and becomes the furthest travelled Herring Gull so far in our 'Large Gull' project. We have only had 2 other Herring Gulls seen away from the Isle of Man, both to Dublin Bay.

View T8UF in a larger map

Thanks to Graham Clarke for the report and the photo!

Mute Swan to Cumbria

2012-02-16T21:29:00.001Z

I have just received some information from the North West Swan Study group, which we are a part of, with some re-sightings of one of our Mute Swans seen twice in Cumbria last Summer.

Mute Swan 'J21' was ringed as a first year bird on 11th January 2011 in Ramsey harbour, Isle of Man. It was then seen in Ramsey on the 30th January and again on 3rd March.
It has then been seen in Parton, a coastal village just North of Whitehaven, Cumbria on 08th July and then seen at Ravenglass, to the South of Sellafield on the Cumbria coast on the 06th August.
Then, this Winter it has been seen back in Ramsey harbour on 25th & 31st January 2012!!

View The travels of Mute Swan 'J21' in a larger map

It will be intersting to see if it returns to the Cumbria coast this Summer. Our thanks to the observer in Cumbria - Mike Mills.

Two Gardens and an Iceland Gull

2012-02-06T21:26:00.002Z

I met Sean at Christine & Barry's garden in St Johns this morning, catching 93 birds (69 new, 24 retraps). Included in the catch were 21 new Siskins and a Goldcrest.
Totals for the morning:

Dunnock 3
Robin 2
Blackbird 4 (+2)
Goldcrest 1
Coal Tit 2 (+6)
Blue Tit 10 (+11)
Great Tit 11 (+2)
House Sparrow 3
Chaffinch 10 (+2)
Goldfinch 2
Siskin 21 (+1)

Our thanks once again to Christine & Barry for all the tea, biscuits and excellent company!

We packed up at 1pm and headed over to Peel where an Iceland Gull had been seen for several days. Whilst on our way there we got a text from Chris to say that a new Iceland Gull, this one an Immature, had been seen there this morning. On arrival there was no sign of it amongst the Herring, Common & Black-headed Gulls, Kittiwakes and Fulmars but just as I had to leave, the 2nd Winter flew the length of the breakwater.

2nd Winter Iceland Gull - photos (c) grayimages.co.uk

I then went to my mums small farm in Ronague and whislt there I put up a net and caught 11 new birds, 4 retraps and a control. The control was a Blue Tit that had been ringed on the Calf of Man on 28/09/2011.

View Blue Tit L936720 in a larger map

The totals were:

Mallard 1

Robin 3 (+1)

Coal Tit 1

Blue Tit 2 (+4)

Great Tit 1

Goldfinch 1

A good days ringing/birding - back to work tomorrow!

Ringing totals for January 2012

2012-02-05T19:33:00.000Z

The ringing totals for the Manx RG for January 2012 can be seen by clicking on the link below:

January 2012

398 new birds ringed is an excellent start to the year boosted by some good garden ringing totals, 10 more Mute Swan colour ringed, another 10 Twite and some interesting oddities too in the form of 2 Black Redstarts and a tristis type Chiffchaff.

Garden ringing

2012-02-05T16:30:00.001Z

34 birds caught at my garden in Croit e Caley today - 28 new birds, 4 retraps and 2 controls. I also saw an abietinus type Chiffchaff feeding around my raspberry canes, but it didn't find its way into the net.

The 2 controls were a Blue Tit from our St John's garden site, ringed on 28/09/2011 and a Long-tailed Tit from the Calf of Man Bird Observatory, ringed on 01/10/2011.

View Garden ringing 05/02/2012 in a larger map

The totals were:

Dunnock 1
Robin 2
Long-tailed Tit (1)
Blue Tit 16 (+5)
Great Tit 3
House Sparrow 3
Chaffinch 3

Swans and stuff...

2012-01-28T21:19:00.001Z

I spent a busy few days with Sean, mainly trying to colour ring all the juvenile Mute Swans that are on the island. We managed to catch 1 of the 2 in Ramsey, all 6 at Ballasalla House and 1 of the 3 at Billown Mansion.

Ringing the Swans at Ballasalla House

We also colour ringed the adult female at Billown Mansion and recorded 18 of our colour ringed Mute Swans around various sites, some of which were starting to pair up on their nesting territories.

We have now colour ringed 44 Mute Swans on the island over the last 14 months which equates to the vast majority of the island's population. We should hopefully be able to identify all the known breeding pairs on the island this year and start to see if the local juveniles still wander to England, Wales and Ireland as the results from the previous colour ringing by Dave in the 1990's showed.
Our Mute Swan colour rings are Blue with white lettering with a code of "letter, number, number". We are always grateful for any reports of any ringed/colour ringed birds and a full history of the birds movements is always supplied to anyone who sends us a record.

In addition to the Swan work over the last few days, we also managed to catch and colour ring a Herring Gull at Port Erin, record 2 of our colour ringed Herring Gulls at Strandhall and record 4 of our colour ringed Rock Pipits at Niarbyl.

We even managed to get a bit of birding in seeing some nice stuff such as a pair of Scaup, a 'flock' of 5 Gadwall, Little Egret, 2 Little Grebe, Purple Sandpiper and Whooper Swan.

It was also good to meet Craig Brookes, a ringer from Lancashire, who was over on the island for an interview - good luck Craig!

T7TW seen again in Spain

2012-01-25T23:57:00.000Z

Rafa Garcia emailed me today with another sighting of Lesser Black-backed Gull 'T7TW' at Levant beach, El Puerto de Santa Maria, Cadiz, Spain on 24th January this year.

LBB Gull 'T7TW' - Spain - photo courtesy of Rafa Garcia

It had originally been caught on the nest near the Point of Ayre, IOM on 11th May 2011 and was first seen at Levant beach on 26th October 2011.

Rafa's blog can be viewed by clicking here.

First dazzling session of the year

2012-01-25T16:33:00.001Z

I met with Sean last night to go Dazzling for waders. It turned out to be a quiet night with only 4 birds seen and 1 Sanderling caught.

It was a first year bird (hatched 2010 somewhere in the High Arctic)

Showing the lack of a hind toe in this species

Redpoll goes Dutch

2012-01-25T16:21:00.001Z

I recently received some interesting info from the BTO regarding a Lesser Redpoll which had been controlled on the Calf of Man on 17/04/2011. We had already received the original ringing info which turned out to be at a site in Hollesley, Suffolk.
The info on it this time was that this bird had been controlled again, in The Netherlands!

Click on the map markers for info on dates etc.

View Lesser Redpoll L620737 in a larger map

A superb set of movements from this bird. Thanks to the original ringers for requesting that the BTO pass this second recovery of their bird onto us for our info!

Twite movements

2012-01-18T18:39:00.000Z

We have recently had a couple of reports of the Twite which we have colour ringed at the site near the Point of Ayre over the last couple of years.

The map below shows the basic details and you can read more about the movements on Sean's blog by clicking here.

View IOM Twite movements in a larger map

Siberian Chiffy

2012-01-17T22:38:00.003Z

Whilst packing up at the garden site this morning, Sean and I were discussing the tristis type Chiffchaff that had been seen for several days at a nearby field owned by one of the farmers whose farm and land we ring on.
Sean had taken a cracking photograph the other day that had whetted my appetite and as it had been years since I last saw a tristis Chiffchaff on the Island (2 on the Calf of Man in the 80's & 90's) then we decided to go and take a look.

Siberian Chiffchaff, near Bride, Isle of Man, Jan 2012 - (c) grayimages.co.uk

When we got to the field the bird was seen straight away by its favoured spot amongst some old, round bales. It's call was nothing like a 'standard' Chiffchaff, sounding very like a Dunnock.
It was in the field where we occasionally ring winter finches and buntings so we quickly set a 30' net by the bales and within 5 minutes the bird was caught.
We were able to confirm various features in the hand, being able to tick off several pointers to tristis in the BBRC guidelines:

Absence of olive in the crown and mantle - check
Absence of yellow away from the underwing - check
Presence of a grey-brown or pale brown hue in the upperparts - check
Presence of warm buff in the supercilium and ear coverts - check
Presence of buff at the breast-sides/flanks - check
Small dark bill and black looking legs - check

We also took a set of biometircs, which all fitted in the range for a tristis type. A stunning little bird - just a pity that neither of us had our cameras, having to revert to our mobile phone cameras instead!! As such these are the best we could come up with!

Top 2 by Kev, bottom 1 by Sean

We watched and listened to the bird for a while after releasing it back by the hay bales and it went straight back to feeding in its favoured area.

What a great start to the year!

Garden ringing

2012-01-17T22:05:00.000Z

I met up with Sean this morning at the garden feeder site in the Ballaugh Curraghs. We had a decent morning, catching 104 birds, 60 new and 44 retraps.

Robin 9 (+1 retrap)
Blackbird 4
Coal Tit 1 (+2 retraps)
Blue Tit 14 (+23 retraps)
Great Tit 12 (+14 retraps)
Chaffinch 7
Goldfinch 13 (+4 retraps)

We also had a big female Sparrowhawk 'bounce' the net and get away.
It was good to catch yet more birds ringed as chicks in the nearby nest boxes that we monitor every year. One Great Tit was into its 6th year when caught this morning.

Thanks to Sue and Steve for the kind use of their garden and for the Tea and biscuits!

150 bird day

2012-01-16T21:29:00.000Z

I met up with Sean this morning at the garden site at St John's. It was a busy morning with 150 birds caught.
Totals were:

Dunnock 4
Robin 5
Blackbird 9
Long-tailed Tit 7
Coal Tit 10 (+10 retraps)
Blue Tit 36 (+9 retraps)
Great Tit 12 (+5 retraps)
Treecreeper 1
House Sparrow 8 (+1 retrap)
Chaffinch 23 (+3 retraps)
Goldfinch 3
Siskin 4

Treecreeper

One of the retrap Great Tits actually turned out to be a control from my garden in Croit-e-Caley! A distance of 14km and almost a year to the day between captures.

We also caught a Great Tit with a moult limit in the primary coverts - something I've never come across before. The outer 2 coverts were retained juvenile feathers whereas the rest had been moulted, looking like adult coverts. The primaries were all of a similar age and, as usual with first year Great Tits, there were no retained juv gc's.

With the ageing criteria being the contrast between the pc's and the gc's then this bird could have easily been aged incorrectly given a cursory glance.

Thanks again to Barry & Christine for letting us set up in their garden and for all the tea, toast and biscuits!!!

Shag recovery

2012-01-15T21:01:00.004Z

We received an email via the Manx BirdLife website the other day giving details of a dead Shag found on the tideline near the Point of Ayre (IOM).
This is nothing out of the ordinary except that for the whole of 2011 we did not have one single recovery of a dead Shag on the manx coast whereas we would normally expect at least half a dozen or so throughout the year. Was this just a case of nobody finding any dead ringed Shags or did they have a partucularly good survival rate last year?

View Shag 1406221 in a larger map

1406221 was ringed as a chick on the Calf of Man at the main colony at Kione ny Halby on 24th May 2009 and found dead on 13th Jan 2012. A distance of 49km as the crow flies and 2yrs 234 days since being ringed in the nest.
Thanks to Michael Windiate for reporting the ringed bird to us. We're always very grateful for such reports.
It's always worth checking the tideline for dead birds - you never know what you might find! We have had ringed birds such as Osprey and Chough , a Black-headed Gull from Sweden and a Guillemot from Iceland as well as the more usual seabirds such as Gannet, Manx Shearwater and Razorbill all reported to us by diligent folk out for a walk on the beaches in the past.

My 2011 roundup

2012-01-05T20:58:00.001Z

2011 was a fantastic year for both the Manx RG and me personally. A record annual total for the group was achieved, reflecting the amount of effort that was put into the several specific projects which we carried out during the year.

I also took 2 off-island ringing opportunities. First off was a family holiday in the North Yorkshire Moors Forests where I caught 2 Nightjars - if you thought these mysterious creatures of the dark look good in the field you should see them close up in the hand!

Male Nightjar - North York Moors 2011

My second off-island ringing forray was a trip with Sean to the island of Flatey off the West coast of Iceland. We joined Kane Brides and Chris Bridge who had organised the trip - 2 great lads which it was a pleasure to meet.

Red-necked Phalarope - one of many ringed on Flatey 2011

Looking back at the local ringing it was great to launch a new project on Cormorants, expand our Gull colour ringing to include Lesser Black-backs, Great Black-backs and (in conjunction with Kane) Black-headed Gulls. We also continued our Rock Pipit, Twite, Mute Swan and Chough colour ringing projects.

Even though we have only recently started most of these projects, all of them are already producing very interesting and valuable results - more on which will come during the next year.

Z7P - seen in Hampshire

We also ticked over with several excellent garden ringing sites and our thanks go to Ron & Hazel Crellin, Barry & Christine Sloper, Steve & Sue Colvin and Liz & Glenn Jensen for the use of their garden feeding stations throughout the year.

We had an excellent Summer ringing plenty of pulli too. The Swallow pulli numbers were boosted by Sean with the great help of Les Kneale's contacts in the farms around Maughold and Judith Burn kept me busy with numerous broods of Swallows at Eary Farm again this year - our thanks to both of them.
We also had a good year for Chough pulli, ringing almost 70 young and 2 adults during a busy few days and numerous trips to ring Gull chicks near the Point of Ayre led to equally numerous changes of clothes!!
We also submitted over 150 nest record cards to the BTO this year.

And finally, getting to my favourite type of ringing - we had an excellent year dazzling, with over 80 waders dazzled, including 9 Whimbrel and 11 Sanderling.

A cracking pair!

So, will 2012 be as good as 2011? Let's hope so!

Thanks go to everyone who has helped us out during the last year - all the people who have reported ringed birds to us and to all the landowners and farmers who have so keenly let us have access to carry out our work.
Thanks also to Sean for all the laughs, enthusiasm and never-ending ideas, to Kane for helping out with the Chough ringing and his friendship and to Chris, Kay, Dave and Mark Fitzpatrick for their ringing efforts for the group.

Ringing Totals and recovery report for 2011

2012-01-02T22:13:00.000Z

Happy New Year to everyone who reads this blog!

I have just finished off the summaries for the recoveries and the ringing totals for the group for 2011.
It was another record year for the group with 5044 birds ringed during the year of 74 species.

A full report will be produced in the next couple of months but for now these links will take you to the summaries:

Manx RG Ringing Totals 2011
Manx RG Recoveries 2011

Monthly ringing totals for December 2011

2011-12-31T17:00:00.001Z

December was dominated yet again by strong winds, with mist netting possible on only 3 days in the month. A total of 447 birds were ringed with Sean's woosh netting continuing to tick over with 105 Linnets and 19 Starlings.

Manx RG ringing totals for December 2011

There were plenty of resightings of Rock Pipits recorded during the month as the birds utilised their favoured beaches for the winter. With almost 100 Rock Pipits now individually colour ringed it is becoming evident that the influx of birds into the likes of Port Mooar, Niarbyl and Gansey in the Autumn are merely local breeders congregating back on selected beaches for the Winter as opposed to off-island migrants arriving here.

Rock Pipit - photo by Sean Gray

We are, however, ever hopeful of an off-island sighting of one of our colour ringed 'Rockits' to prove this wrong!

Busy end to the year!

2011-12-23T21:23:00.001Z

With seemingly endless Storm force/Gale froce winds since November it had been very quiet on the ringing front for myself, although Sean had been managing to keep wooshing Linnets and trapping Rock Pipits. As a result of not getting any netting done, I had given up all hope of hitting the 5000 new birds total for the year as we were a couple of hundred short coming up to the start of this week.

On Monday, whilst I was working, Sean met up with Chris and Kay at the garden site near Sulby and had a decent catch of 102 birds, of which 62 were new.

Sean rang me that evening and asked if we could meet up at the garden site at the Ballaugh Curraghs the next morning as the wind was forecast to be suitable. I didn't need asking twice, despite working late that evening. So on Tuesday Ffyn and I met Sean there for 9am and by midday we had caught 139 birds, of which 101 were new. The total included a super little first year male Sparrowhawk!

Blue Tit 46 (+15 retraps)
Great Tit 28 (+21 retraps)
Goldfinch 14
Coal Tit 7 (+2 retraps)
Chaffinch 4
Robin 1
Sparrowhawk 1

First year Male Sparrowhawk

Checking the weather for the next day, we decided to do our other garden site at St Johns the next morning. So after my late shift at work and grabbing a bit of sleep I met up with Sean again on Wednesday morning. We had a very pleasant mornings ringing, being looked after like Royalty as ever by Christine! We ended the morning having caught 102 birds of which 87 were new.

Blue Tit 23 (+3 retraps)
Coal Tit 18 (+8 retraps)
Great Tit 15
Chaffinch 10 (+2 retraps)
Siskin 9 (+1 retrap)
Blackbird 5
Goldfinch 3
Robin 2
Dunnock 1
Greenfinch 1
House Sparrow 1 retrap

Siskin

An excellent few days garden ringing with 343 birds caught in the 3 days and 250 of them being new birds.

Looking at the retraps over the last few days it has been good to see the high adult survival during the year in Blue and Great Tits across the sites with a very high number of adults from previous years being recaught.
More worringly though is the very low number of young birds being caught in Blue Tits. Despite a high fledging success rate in our nest box studies, we are catching relatively few frist year birds (birds hatched this year) compared to the long-term average. On checking with other ringers elsewhere, this seems to be the case across parts of North West England and Scotland too.
Could this be poor survival post fledging due to the bad weather in the summer?

Of the young birds that we have been catching, it was pleasing to see good numbers of birds that had been ringed as chicks as part of the nest box studies at Close Sartfield MWT reserve and the Curraghs Wildlife Park during the sessions at the garden site at the Ballaugh Curraghs.
We also had some good longevity records with 2 Great Tits and a Chaffinch retrapped more than 5 years after ringing and a further 2 Great Tits over 2 years since ringing.
We also had our first movement between garden sites with a Great Tit from the Sulby site to the Curraghs site.

Thanks to Ron & Hazel (Sulby), Barry & Christine (St Johns) and Steve and Sue (Curraghs) for letting us use their fantastic gardens for ringing and for all the tea, coffee and biscuits!!

Monthly ringing totals for November 2011

2011-11-30T20:06:00.001Z

The Manx RG monthly ringing totals for November 2011 can be viewed by clicking on the link below:

Manx RG ringing totals November 2011

The month was dominated by strong winds and poor weather, allowing mist netting on only a couple of days. Once again, Seans woosh net site provided the bulk of the ringing with Linnet and Goldfinch topping the bill. Also, the Twite arrived back with over 20 colour ringed as part of the North West Twite Project.
The best bird of the month was a Black Redstart, caught by Sean at one of our Rock Pipit sites at Ramsey Harbour.

A very smart bird!

First LBB Gull to Portugal

2011-11-23T17:42:00.005Z

Having already had 3 out of the 11 Lesser Black-backed Gulls which we colour ringed this year seen in Spain this Autumn, we received a sighting of another one today from Portgual!

Orange X89:M was seen by Gordon Avery on 16th November 2011 in Quarteira Harbour, Algarve, Portugal.

View X98:M in a larger map

It was ringed as a chick on 1st July 2011 at the Point of Ayre Sand Quarry, IOM. Here is a picture of it on the day it was ringed (the one on the right).

3 LBB Gulls chicks colour ringed

Thanks for letting us know about the sighting Gordon!

Third LBB Gull to Spain

2011-11-19T21:11:00.004Z

We got an email from Salva Garcia today with sightings of 76 colour ringed Lesser Black-backed Gulls recorded amongst a flock of over 7000 birds in Malaga Harbour, SPAIN this morning!
Amongst the list was one of our birds - Orange X84:M, ringed as a chick near the Point of Ayre on the 1st July this year.

View Lesser Black-backed Gull X84:M in a larger map

Thanks very much to Salva for sending the sighting to us, he has a superb blog which can be viewed from this link - http://www.beachedseabirds.blogspot.com .
Our friend Paul Veron from Guernsey recently visited Malaga himself with Salva and you can read his blog entry about his visit on this link - http://guernseygulls.blogspot.com/2011/11/fantastic-weekend-in-malaga-spain.html

This is our third LBB Gull re-sighted in Spain this Autumn, not a bad reporting rate considering we have only colour ringed 11 LBBG's so far in our large Gull project!!

Recent Calf of Man Bird Observatory ringing Recoveries

2011-11-17T22:48:00.004Z

Here are some recent recoveries/controls from the Calf of Man Bird Observatory. You can view a map of each recvovery by clicking where it says 'map'.

Storm Petrel

Storm Petrel
2539500 4 04/09/2008 Faraid Head (Highland)
              R 02/08/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 506km S 2yrs 332days   map

2557983 4 21/07/2010 St Michael's Isle (Isle of Man)
              R 12/07/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 13km W 356days   map

2563298 4 23/07/2005 Calf of Man (Isle of Man)
              R 18/06/2011 Priest Island (Highland) 435km N 5yrs 330days   map

2581441 4 11/07/2008 Souter Point (Tyne and Wear)
             R 04/07/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 244km WSW 2yrs 358days   map

2639054 4 22/08/2009 Sheepland Harbour, Ardglass (Down)
              R 12/07/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 55km ESE 1yr 324days   map

2661382 4 04/07/2011 Gwennap Head (Cornwall)
              R 12/07/2011  Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 450km N 8days   map

A very fast movement from Cornwall to the Calf for 2661382, travelling 450km in 8 days.

Shag
1446377 1 19/05/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man)
             XF 15/07/2011 Port Erin (Isle of Man) 5km NE 57days map

Swallow
X602451 3J 16/08/2010 Thorganby (North Yorkshire)
               R 05/06/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 253km W 293days   map

Sedge Warbler

Sedge Warbler
ED87871 4 21/05/2011 Utsira, Rogaland (NORWAY)
NOS        R 04/06/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 831km SW 14days   map

A very interesting and rapid re-orientation on this birds spring migration, travelling 831km in a South Westerly direction in 2 weeks.

Willow Warbler
BEN479 4 03/05/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man)
              R 10/07/2011 Gosforth Park, Tyne and Wear) 233km ENE 68days   map

RH6355 3 31/07/2010 Tour aux Moutons, Loire-Atlantique (FRANCE)
FRP       R 16/04/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 773km NNW 259days   map

Goldcrest
DKN020 3M 05/09/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man)
                XF 21/09/2011 Penwortham, Preston (Lancashire) 140km ESE 16days   map

Goldfinch
L215785 3J 14/07/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man)
               XF 30/10/2011 Thrapston (Northamptonshire) 340km ESE 108days   map

Lesser Redpoll

Lesser Redpoll
R930786 5 17/03/2011 near Kinver Edge (Staffordshire)
R 26/04/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 246km NW 40days map

Some fairly typical recoveries there although the Willow Warbler from Loire-Atlantique is a more unusual record (there have been plenty of Sedge Warblers to/from there though).

Garden ringing at St Johns

2011-11-13T15:52:00.000Z

Sean and I did another visit to the garden feeder site in St Johns on the 7th.
It was another great day, with 89 birds caught in all (69 new birds and 20 retraps).
Totals were:

Coal Tit 21 (+11 retraps)
Blue Tit 18 (+2 retraps)
Great Tit 14 (+3 retraps)
Chaffinch 10
House Sparrow 2 (+1 retrap)
Goldfinch 2
Dunnock (2 retraps)
Greenfinch 1
Siskin 1
Robin (1 retrap)

Siskin

Thanks again to Christine and Barry for letting us use their superb feeder site and for the tea, biscuits and toast!! See you again next month!

October 2011 ringing totals

2011-11-04T17:22:00.001Z

The Manx RG ringing totals for October 2011 can be viewed by clicking on the link below:

Manx RG ringing totals October 2011

The month was dominated by strong winds with mist netting possible on only a few days, luckily Sean's woosh netting site kept up the pace resulting in some great numbers of Goldfinch and Linnet as well as the Atumn's first returning Twite.

Twite

Manx RG are part of the North West Twite Project, colour ringing Twite with Site/Date coding. Left leg - White ring above = Isle of Man, Orange/Blue striped ring below = Jun-Dec 2011.

See the link to our colour ring projects info page (Under the Manx RG Links menu on the right side of the blog) for further information/codes.

Recent Cormorant sightings

2011-11-03T18:36:00.000Z

A couple more Cormorant sightings have come in recently with Z6U seen in the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh, Scotland on 17th August 2011 and Sean taking a superb photo of Z6L at the Point of Ayre today.

Click here to see an interactive map of Cormorant resightings

Comorant Z6L at Point of Ayre, IOM - photo by Sean

Another LBBG to Spain

2011-11-03T18:27:00.002Z

Sean got a report today of one of our colour ringed Lesser Black-backed Gulls having been seen on the South West coast of SPAIN by Rafa Garcia, a top Gull watcher.
T7TW was caught as a breeding adult at the nest in the small colony near the Point of Ayre on 10th May 2011 and was seen by Rafa on the 26th October 2011 at Levante beach, El Puerto de Santa Maria, Cadiz, SPAIN.

Thanks to Rafa Gracia for reporting the sighting - his blog can be viewed here - http://avesporlabahia.blogspot.com

T7TW at Point of Ayre, IOM 10th May 2011

T7TW at El Puerto de Santa Maria, Cadiz, SPAIN

View LBB Gull T7TW in a larger map

Mist and Woosh nets = great days ringing!

2011-10-29T23:04:00.004+01:00

Ffyn and I met up with Sean yesterday to do some ringing at the Ballaugh Curraghs feeder site and Sean's woosh net site near the Point of Ayre.
It was a great day with 123 birds caught in total (89 new birds, 33 retraps and 1 control).

First up was the garden site in the Ballaugh Curraghs - totals were:

Robin 1
Blackbird 1
Coal Tit 4 (+4 retraps)
Blue Tit 19 (+11 retraps)
Great Tit 23 (+14 retraps)
House Sparrow 1
Tree Sparrow 1 (+1 retrap)
Chaffinch 11 (+1 control)
Greenfinch 1
Goldfinch 11

Tree Sparrow

The control Chaffinch R744889 had originally been ringed on 25 September 2006 at the Calf of Man Bird Obs, some 5 years and 33 days between captures and 35km between the sites.

Then in the afternoon we set up at the woosh netting site near the Point of Ayre. It looked good on arrival with plenty of birds down on the seed and there were 19 Twite seen as well as good numbers of Lesser Redpoll in with the Goldfinch and Linnets.
We took 2 catches (16 & 3) in what turned out to be a quiet few hours although the presence of both Sparrowhawk and Hen Harrier could have been the reason!
Totals were:

Goldfinch 10 (+3 retraps)
Linnet 5
Lesser Redpoll 1

Ringing the Lesser Redpoll

Chief photographer Ffyn - look out Sean, you've got some competition!

A great days ringing!

Dazzling

2011-10-29T23:02:00.000+01:00

With the new moon on the 26th I decided to try a late season dazzling session so met up with Sean on Thursday night.

Turnstone

It was a bit too windy and hardly any cloud cover so it was no surprise that we only caught 1 Turnstone which turned out to be a retrap from September!
Annoyingly I missed a juv Tern, it looked like an Arctic Tern, but with just a quick glimpse in the torch beam as it flushed up it was hard to get a positive ID.

Mute Swan day

2011-10-19T19:52:00.000+01:00

Sean and I spent Tuesday checking on as many of the Islands Mute Swans as we could in order to see if we could catch and ring any of this years youngsters and also see which ringed birds were where.

We ended the day having caught and ringed 3 new Swans, all of them adults. We did find a brood of 3 young at Billown Mansion but the Cob kept on calling his young away from the bank and out of our reach so they didn't get ringed this time.

At the end of the day we had re-sighted 16 Swans and ringed 3 new ones. We had also caught 3 Mallard and to top the day off I got a rare Manx 'tick' in the form of my long-held bogey bird on the Island - Kingfisher. We had superb views of the bird as it spent several minutes loafing around the road bridge over Peel harbour before heading off up the hillside into thick bracken!

First Brent Geese sightings of the Autumn

2011-10-07T22:16:00.001+01:00

The first sightings of Light-bellied Brent Geese came in today with reports of groups of 8 and 12 birds seen in Ramsey by Claire from Manx BirdLife.

Previous photo of Light-bellied Brent Goose 'J4YY' which has been recorded wintering at Derbyhaven for the last 4 years.

3 of a flock of 8 birds seen on the Ramsey Rugby Club pitch on Mooragh Promenade were colour ringed but due to a lack of a 'scope only 1 combination was confirmed - Left White ring '3', Right White ring 'C'. This is a 'new bird' to the IOM, not having been recorded here before.

The other 2 ringed birds had Red rings on the Left leg and White rings on the Right Leg. the letters on the red ring on each bird were recorded ('V' and 'H') but the letters on the White rings couldn't be made out.

All the sighting info has been forward to the Irish Brent Goose Study team who co-ordinate the colour ringing of Light-bellied Brents. I will post an update once we here back from Graham McElwaine, their re-sighting co-ordinator.

Any IOM sightings of colour ringed Brent Geese (or any other bird!) can be sent to us for forwarding onto the study co-ordinators and we will pass the history of the bird back to you.

Sean catches up with an old friend

2011-10-07T21:48:00.001+01:00

Sean took a couple of photos of colour ringed Herring Gulls in Peel yesterday whilst in the area for a seawatch.

T1UB ringed on the Calf of Man on 12th July this year

T6TX ringed at the Point of Ayre Sand Quarry on 30th June this year and in true Blue Peter style...here's a photo of T6TX we took earlier!!

A great coincidence and good to know that this years young Herring Gulls are wandering around. This is the second time that Gulls from the 2 extremities of the IOM have been seen together in the same area, the others were seen together in Howth Harbour, Co. Dublin, Eire the other week.

More colour ringed Cormorant sightings

2011-10-05T21:08:00.000+01:00

When Sean and I first talked about colour ringing the Cormorants I remember us saying that it would be great to get a few recoveries coming through in the early stages of the project. Well the flood gates seem to be opening as we have had 4 more confirmed sightings and 2 additonal probable sightings (slight clarification awaited on the ring code) in the last few days.

An interactive map of all the recoveries received so far from this years young can be seen by clicking here.

First up was a report from Hampshire from Martin Bennet and Bob Chapman. Z7P was photographed by Martin at Ibsley Water, Blashford Lakes Nature Reserve, Ringwood, Hants on 25th September. A distance of 418km from Maughold, IOM. Bob had seen a colour ringed bird on the reserve for several weeks but it hadn't given decent enough views to allow him to confirm the ring number. Thanks for the report Bob!

Z7P at Blashford Lakes NR - thanks Martin for this excellent photo!

Then Stuart Newson from the BTO (co-ordinator of Cormorant colour ringing in the British Isles and Eire) contacted me with several sightings from Seaforth NR, Liverpool Docks.

Z76 was seen there by Pete Kinsella on 04th October.
ZZN was reported by Steve White on 29th & 30th September.
We are awaiting clarification of a further 2 sightings of what is probably one of our birds too - Z3R (reported as 23R) seen on 17th & 30th September.

Thanks to Pete, Steve and Stuart for the information!

So the data is really coming through thick and fast now. Hopefully there will be plenty more to come and then in a few years time we will be in a position to confirm if the local youngsters return to breed in the IOM after their travels around the British Isles.

September 2011 Ringing Totals

2011-09-30T21:35:00.001+01:00

The ringing totals for September 2011 can be seen by clicking on the link below:

Manx RG ringing totals September 2011

It was a mixed bag of a month with mist netting virtually impossible for most of the month due to the constant storong winds. Sean managed to woosh net 119 Meadow Pipits as well as good numbers of Goldfinch at the site near the Point of Ayre.

Dazzling

2011-09-29T20:53:00.001+01:00

To round off the last couple of days garden ringing, Sean and I went dazzling again last night.
It was a quiet night by current standards with 'only' 5 birds caught:

Dunlin 2
Turnstone 2
Sanderling 1

Dunlin

Sanderling

Turnstone

That brings this years dazzling total to date to 87 birds. Hopefully we can get plenty more before the end of the year.

Cormorant recovery

2011-09-29T14:00:00.000+01:00

We recieved a Cormorant recovery form the BTO today of one of our colour ringed birds found dead on the River Dee at Cila, near Llandrillo, Denbighshire, Wales.

Z3U was ringed as a chick on 9th June 2011 at Stack Mooar, IOM and found freshly dead on 13th September 2011. A distance of 165km and 96 days after being ringed.

More Garden Ringing

2011-09-28T21:17:00.000+01:00

I met Sean this morning for another garden ringing session, this time beside Tynwald Mills.
It was another great morning with 83 birds caught - 77 new and 6 retraps.

The totals were (retraps in brackets):

Dunnock 2
Robin 2
Coal Tit 24 (+3)
Blue Tit 10 (+2)
Great Tit 11
House Sparrow 5
Chaffinch 13 (+1)
Greenfinch 3
Goldfinch 3
Siskin 4

Thanks to Christine for the bucket fulls of enthusiasm, the mugs of tea and the steady supply of biscuits!!

Garden ringing in the Curraghs

2011-09-27T15:09:00.002+01:00

I met Sean this morning at the garden ringing site in the Ballaugh Curraghs, near to the Close Sartfield MWT reserve. It was a decent session, ending with 85 new birds ringed and 27 retraps.
Totals were (retraps in brackets):

Great Tit 33 (+18)
Goldfinch 22
Blue Tit 13 (+5)
Coal Tit 7 (+2)
Greenfinch 5
Chaffinch 4 (+1)
Robin 1
Siskin (1)

2 of the retrap Great Tits had been ringed as chicks in 2009 by Dave as part of the nest box study at the nearby MWT reserve. We also caught 2 of this years young from the same brood from another of the nest boxes in the reserve. One of the Blue Tit retraps was also a chick from this years nest box studies.

Our thanks to Mr & Mrs Colvin for their hospitality and generosity in letting us ring in their superb garden (and for the brews!).

Gulls to County Dublin, Eire

2011-09-25T21:14:00.000+01:00

2 of our Herring Gulls were seen yesterday on the roof of the fish market at Howth Harbour, West Pier, Co. Dublin by Sean Kingston and Chris Honan who kinldy emailed me with the details.

View Dublin Gulls in a larger map

T8XP & T5UA were seen there. It is interesting to note that the 2 Gulls came from the extreme North and South of the Isle of Man but were seen together having crossed the Western Irish Sea.
T8XP was ringed at the Point of Ayre Sand Quarry on 5th July this year and T5UA was ringed on the Calf of Man on the 27th June this year.

Herring Gull chick being ringed at POA Sand Quarry this year

It will be interesting to see where else they travel to and if they return to their natal colonies to breed in several years time.

Cormorant ZZI seen near Hemel Hempstead, England

2011-09-20T21:18:00.003+01:00

We have had another of our Cormorants sighted this week with a report of ZZI having been seen at Piccots End Pools, near Hemel Hempstead, England on the 15th September by Dan Forder. A distance of 380km and 67 days after being ringed at Maughold.

Here is a map of the current movements recorded from the colour ring project.

View Manx RG Cormorant movements in a larger map

Dan kindly sent some pictures of his sighting of ZZI which are shown here.

This is the first sighting of one of our colour ringed Cormorants in England, the other sightings have been Scotland (2) and at home in the Isle of Man (1).

Cormorant Z7A seen in Kirkcudbright this morning

2011-09-13T19:26:00.001+01:00

I received a re-sighting of another of our Cormorants today, this time in South West Scotland in Kirkcudbright. It was photographed by David Henderson whose pictures of the bird are shown here.

This is the second of our colour ringed Cormorants to be seen off island, both of which have travelled to Scotland.

View Cormorant Z7A in a larger map

Thanks very much to David for letting us know about his sighting and for the excellent photographs.

Mega Mute Swans

2011-09-09T21:31:00.002+01:00

Sean and I met up at Niarbyl this afternoon to try for some more Rock Pipits, however after only catching 1 and no more appearing in the area we packed up. We headed to Port Grenaugh to try there but our luck was out, same to at Port Soderick where there wasn't even a sniff of a Rock Pipit. Very strange as these are cracking little bays full of rotting seaweed after last weeks high winds.

So we went to Castletown Harbour to check on the Mute Swans there. There were 15 present, 11 of them already colour ringed. Within 10 mins the other 4 were also colour ringed! The herd came out of the sea and right up to the slipway where we had set up the ringing gear and they all stayed there until we packed up! Sean made it look all very easy picking up each of the unringed Swans in turn! Very well behaved Swans! Why isn't it always like that?

Some of the 15 colour ringed Swans in Castletown Harbour.

Of the Swans that were already ringed, 7 had been ringed in Castletown harbour during 2011, 3 had been ringed in Ramsey harbour and 1 had been ringed at Ballasalla House.

More Dazzling

2011-09-03T15:15:00.000+01:00

Another dazzling trip the other night, this time with a little helper, Ffyn coming along to see what it was all about.

4 Turnstone

3 Sanderling

1 Dunlin

1 Ringed Plover

Ffyn checks on the age of the Turnstone

And agrees with Sean and I that it's age '3'!

Turnstone

Sanderling

We're doing very well for dazzling Sanderling this year, having caught 10 so far. This is about 5 times the yearly average and the last couple of nights dazzling have produced superb totals of them. I have always found them to be one of the hardest waders to catch when dazzling.

August 2011 Ringing Totals

2011-08-31T22:01:00.002+01:00

You can view the Manx RG August 2011 ringing totals by clicking on the link below:

August 2011 ringing totals

It was a very productive month, with not only large numbers of birds ringed but a wide range of species and good numbers of target species of conservation concern such as Linnet, Herring Gull (both Red listed) and Sand Martin (Amber listed).

Dazzling

2011-08-31T17:14:00.000+01:00

A great dazzling session with Sean last night with 14 birds caught. There were a lot of birds around and if I hadn't needed to get up at 6am to get to work we could have done another sweep of the beaches!

Turnstone 6
Sanderling 4
Dunlin 2
Ringed Plover 1
Herring Gull 1

Sanderling

Dunlin

Ringed Plover

Herring Gull

All the birds caught were juveniles and all were in extremely good condition with top end muscle and fat scores. It goes to show how important the Ayres NNR beaches are in providing an excellent feeding stopover point on the migration route of these waders which could be continuing their Southerly passage as far as West Africa.
The Herring Gull was given a colour ring as part of our 'large gulls' project.

First LBB Gull to Spain

2011-08-30T17:04:00.001+01:00

I received an email today from one of the top Gull watchers in Spain, Antonio Gutierrez, with details of a sighting of one of our Lesser Black-backed Gulls which he had seen this morning on Pantin beach, Valdovino, A Coruna, SPAIN! A distance of 1227km, 60 days after being ringed as a chick.

View Z97:M in a larger map

Z97:M was ringed as a chick on the evening of 01 July 2011 during one of the best Gull chick sessions Sean and I had this year at the Point of Ayre Sand Quarry.
Antonio saw it this morning and watched it resting, preening and drinking fresh water amongst a flock of c.3000 Gulls, 70% of which were LBBG's. Here is the picture he took of Z97:M this morning.

LBBGull Z97:M in NW Spain

Colour ringed Cormorants update

2011-08-30T16:45:00.005+01:00

Z6H has been seen again on the South Outer Breakwater of Aberdeen Harbour, Scotland, 7 days after it was first seen there.

This morning, during a Manx BirdLife survey of the Point of Ayre Gravel Pits, I saw 2 colour ringed Cormorants amongst th 80 that were present. Unfortunately 1 flew before I could read the ring, but I managed to read the other bird - Z6L. Ringed on 01 July 2011 at the colony at Maughold.

View Z6L in a larger map

Another Sparrowhawk surprise!

2011-08-25T15:00:00.001+01:00

I got a phone call from my brother this morning saying that he had a Sparrowhawk which had flown into a window at his house which apperaed to be just a bit stunned and could I come and check on it.
I was up there as quick as a flash and there was no doubt at all that the bird had fully recovered from its temporarily stunned state.
I quickly ringed and processed it and it flew off along the hedgerows, straight into the flap and glide hunting mode. Superb!

'3F' (first year female) Sparrowhawk

It was a first year female (hatched this year), aged by the pale yellow eye and uniformly coloured brown body/covert feathers with pale fringes. The large size, which was apparent even without measurements being taken, prove that it was a female (males are smaller).

Thanks Bro!

Colour ringed Cormorant Z6H sighted in Aberdeen

2011-08-21T20:01:00.004+01:00

Raymond Duncan emailed us today with the news that he had seen one of our colour ringed Cormorants in Aberdeen yesterday. Z6H was seen on the Outer South Breakwater of Aberdeen Harbour amongst 80 other Cormorants and 50 Shags. There were several other colour ringed Cormorants from Raymonds own study on colonies in the Grampian region of Scotland within the same flock and he told me that he was shocked to see a white ring with red letters rather than the Green letters which he uses!!

Here is my first attempt at an interactive map on here but hopefully you should be able to zoom in and out to see the two sites involved in Z6H's movements to date!


View Z6H in a larger map

The Outer South Breakwater with the mixed flock of Cormorants and Shags

Z6H on the Outer South Breakwater at Aberdeen Harbour - photos by Ray Duncan

This is the first resighting of our colour ringed Cormorants, a project which we started this year. Many thanks Ray!

Siskin recovery

2011-08-18T20:25:00.001+01:00

I received info about a Siskin recovery today.

3J Siskin

L983036 had been ringed as a 3J (recently fledged juvenile) at Seans garden site on 8th June 2011 and, as happens to the majority of reported recoveries of our songbirds, was found killed by a cat. It met its fate in Laxey only 10 days after ringing.

Siskin L983036

Storm Petrels and another garden session

2011-08-18T20:04:00.002+01:00

As is usually the case, a last minute check on the weather late last night meant a quick call to Sean and his mate Andy to organise a Storm Petrel session. The conditions were great when we set up with flat calm conditions however a breeze got up at about midnight and proved to be the end of the session. We had caught 2 new birds whilst we were there however.

Storm Petrels

Then, this morning I popped up to mums garden at Lower Ballafodda B&B, Ronague. Not huge numbers today but a good variety of species, totals below:

House Sparrow 7
Chaffinch 3
Great Tit 2 (+1 retrap)
Willow Warbler 2
Swallow 1
Robin 1
Blue Tit 1

Swallow

Willow Warbler

I also checked on the Swallow nest in the barn there where I ringed 5 chicks last week. They were all ready to fledge, sat on the edge of the (overcrowded) nest.

Swallow chicks

Garden ringing at Ballaugh Curraghs

2011-08-17T17:35:00.001+01:00

I met Sean this morning at our new garden ringing site in Ballaugh Curraghs. It is a '3 michelin star' bird restaurant with every conceivable type of food on offer including meal worms, suet bits, nijer seed, sunflower hearts, peanuts and raisins!

After 3 hours we finished on 75 birds caught, 63 new and 12 retraps. 6 of the retraps were from birds ringed as chicks in the nest boxes at Close Sartfield and the Wildlife Park, both within a couple of kilometres of the site - the best way of proving succesful fledging on our long running projects on those nest box sites!

Totals (retraps in brackets) were:

Great Tit 18 (+7)
Blue Tit 10 (+4)
Chaffinch 12
Siskin 8
Tree Sparrow 6 (+1)
Greenfinch 3
Coal Tit 2
House Sparrow 2
Robin 2

Tree Sparrows

Siskin

Chaffinch - measuring wing length

Thanks to Sue and Steve for letting us put the net up in their garden and for the cups of tea!

Rock Pipits

2011-08-15T15:23:00.003+01:00

I met up with Sean at Niarbyl this morning to try to catch some Rock Pipits, the first session of the Summer at this location (Sean has been catching small numbers up at Port Mooar over the last few weeks).

Rock Pipit

We had a succesful couple of hours, catching 10 birds, until the sightseers started arriving in numbers, keeping the birds off their preferred feeding area at the top of the beach and away from the traps.

All of them were first year birds and all were given unique colour rings as part of our ongoing project on the species.

Rock Pipit

Calf of Man Bird Observatory recent recoveries

2011-08-08T22:21:00.000+01:00

Here are some recent recoveries invloving the Calf of Man Bird Obs. The highlights include a Willow Warbler found killed by a rather special avian predator on Cabrera island off Mallorca and a Sedge Warbler to Loire Atlantique, France.
As usual, you can click on the word 'map' alongside each bird to see a map of the movement.

Sedge Warbler

Sedge Warbler
R747639 3J 28/07/2008 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) map
              R 20/08/2010 Tour Aux Moutons (Loire-Atlantique), FRANCE, 773km SSE 2 yrs 23days

Blackcap
R388845 3 12/09/2007 Rospannel St Buryan (Cornwall) map
              R 11/04/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 444km N 3 yrs 211days

Willow Warbler
BEJ554 4 29/04/2008 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) map
        XF 13/09/2010 Cabrera (Mallorca & Cabrera), SPAIN, 1756km SSE 2 yrs 137days

This Willow Warbler was found killed by a Woodchat Shrike on Cabrera, a small island South of Mallorca!

Woodchat Shrike (ssp. Badius - Mallorca, Kev Scott 2003)

BXL432 3 08/09/2009 Foxhall, near Ipswich (Suffolk) map
            R 03/05/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 462km WNW 1 yr 237days

CJN183 4 22/06/2010 Conon Islands, Maryburgh (Highland) map
            R 03/05/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 391km S 315days

Goldfinch
L201907 4 29/01/2011 Milcombe (Oxfordshire) map
             R 23/03/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 322km NW 53days

Common Redpoll
L653227 3 30/09/2010 Kilnsea Clays, Spurn Bird Obs (East Yorkshire)
             R 26/04/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 328km W 208days map

Lesser Redpoll

Lesser Redpoll
L148744 3 27/11/2010 Straight Mile, near Romsey (Hampshire) map
             R 31/05/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 408km NW 185days

L583607 5F 27/03/2011 Moss House Farm, Out Rawcliffe (Lancashire)
              R 16/04/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 129km W 20days map

L620737 4M 17/10/2010 Cauldwell Hall Farm, Hollesley (Suffolk) map
               R 17/04/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 474km WNW 182days

L790470 6F 03/04/2011 Brandon (Norfolk) map
               R 26/04/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 403km WNW 23days

X700437 5 16/03/2011 Brandon (Suffolk) map
             R 29/04/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 402km WNW 44days

Gull ringing at the MSPCA

2011-08-08T17:23:00.001+01:00

Sean and I went to the MSPCA (Manx Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) to ring some young Gulls that had been taken there for care as chicks and were now due for release. We ringed 22 Herring Gulls, all of which were given colour rings as part of our 'large Gull' project.
We also ringed some young Mallards, Rooks, Jackdaws and an Eider which had been handed in as chicks that had been found in precarious situations and were now ready to be released very soon.

Herring Gulls ringed at MSPCA

A big 'thank you' to Jen and the staff at MSPCA, especially the 2 lads who helped catch the Gulls and Mallards as Sean and I ringed them.

First Dazzling session of the "Autumn"

2011-08-06T16:54:00.000+01:00

August is always keenly awaited by me as the time when dazzling can recommence following the nesting season.
A quick 1 hour dazzle after work one night earlier this week with Sean resulted in 2 Curlew, 1 Oystercatcher, 4 Dunlin and a Turnstone being caught.

Curlew

Dunlin

Turnstone

All photos courtesy of Sean - cheers mate!

July ringing totals

2011-08-01T22:08:00.000+01:00

The monthly ringing totals for the Manx RG for July 2011 can be seen by clicking on the link below:

July 2011 ringing totals

A busy month with 482 birds ringed. Highlights included ringing over 62 large Gulls, all of which were colour ringed as part of our ongoing project (with another 50 of our colour rings used on Herring Gull chicks on the Calf of Man), 80 Sand Martins netted at the colonies in the North of the island, 39 Warblers of 4 species, 3 Sparrowhawk chicks and another 16 Cormorant chicks colour ringed.

Herring Gull chicks waiting to be ringed

Sparrowhawk chick

Little Tern update

2011-07-30T21:47:00.000+01:00

Back in June Sean and I caught several adult Little Terns at a colony in the north of the island.

2 of these were already ringed and were found to have been originally ringed as chicks in 1999 at the same site. This was the first time we had been able to prove that locally hatched Little Terns returned to the site to breed.
We also caught one with a UK ring on. We have now received the original ringing details of NV95538 which had been ringed as a chick in the colony at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk on 24th July 1998.

NV95538 - hatched in Norfolk and now a breeding adult in Isle of Man

My Flatey video

2011-07-26T19:18:00.000+01:00

Here is my video of our trip to Flatey, Iceland. It's best viewed in 'full screen' which is the button with the 4 arrows to the right of where it says "Youtube" on the bottom line of the video.

Flatey video

2011-07-24T23:44:00.000+01:00

Sean has done a great video of the highlights of our week on Flatey - here it is below.

Fantastic Flatey

2011-07-23T21:58:00.000+01:00

Just back from a fabulous week with Sean, Kane and Chris on Flatey, a small island in Iceland. I will post more photos and details of the trip over the next few days but here is a taster for now.

The Flatey ringing team

Back row - Sverir Thorstensen, Sean, me, Aevar Peterson

Front row - Chris, Kane

Red-necked Phalaropes

Male Snow Bunting

Female Eider

Fulmar chick

Juvenile Redwing

Snipe

Snipe chick

Red-necked Phalarope chick

Fulmar

Puffin

Arctic Tern

Puffin chick

Black Guillemot chick

Shag family

Thanks to Aevar for inviting us to help out with the ringing and survey work carried out on Flatey and its surrounding islands and thanks too to Sverir for putting up with the invasion of the 'bloody British Empire tourists' into his ringing territory! A great week and one that I will never forget.

I will post some more detailed highlights in due course....

Sparrowhawk Surprise

2011-07-12T22:49:00.000+01:00

I went to Eary Farm after work this afternoon to do another brood of 5 Swallow chicks and then continued North to meet Sean at the Point of Ayre to do some more Gull chicks.
On the way North I got a call form Sean who had received a call from a friend telling him that he had found a Sparrowhawk nest! A quick change of route and I met up with Sean and his friend.
3 Sparrowhawk chicks ringed - 2 female and a male, ideal size for ringing too.

We then continued to the Point of Ayre where another 14 Herring Gull chicks were ringed.
We have now done over 70 Gull chicks at the Point of Ayre in recent weeks - we should hopefully get some good re-sightings of them with their colour rings.

Cormorants

2011-07-10T23:05:00.001+01:00

Sean, Chris, Kay and I took our second trip into the Cormorant colony at Maughold this evening.
We found another 16 chicks which were ringed and colour ringed.

Cormorant chick 'ZZD'

That makes 101 Cormorant chicks ringed this year, hopefully we'll get plenty of re-sightings of them with their colour rings.

Monthly ringing totals for June

2011-07-02T21:27:00.000+01:00

The June 2011 ringing totals for the Manx RG can be found by clicking on the link below:

June 2011 ringing totals

There may be additional totals from Dave still to come but even if not then it was a bumper month with 474 birds ringed of 35 species (with a further 16 retraps/recoveries processed).

Highlights included the 85 Cormorant pulli, over 40 Gulls ringed of all 4 locally breeding species, 5 new Little Terns and 2 retraps from 12 years ago as well as a 'British' control and 91 Swallow pulli.

Arctic Tern - June 2011

Another 'Gull' day, another change of clothes!

2011-07-01T22:20:00.000+01:00

Another afternoon getting very messy ringing Gull chicks at the Point of Ayre with Sean.

This time we ringed:

17 Herring Gull
8 Lesser Black-backed Gull

3 L.B.B. Gull chicks

So wise at such a young age - this Gull will go places! (Just not with a ring on though!!) This chick knew just where to hide so that we couldn't get to it.

Gulls, Gulls and Sand Martins

2011-06-30T21:54:00.000+01:00

I went up to the Point of Ayre with Sean today. We had our first session catching Gull chicks and also checked out the Sand Martin colony.

We ended up catching:

Herring Gull 15
Great Black-backed Gull 2
Lesser Black-backed Gull 1
Sand Martin 4

All of the Gulls were given colour rings as part of our Large Gull colour ringing project.

Herring Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Great Black-backed Gull

Sand Martin

2 adult Herring Gulls also caught this evening in the garden in the large 'Moudry' spring trap.

Trip to North Yorkshire

2011-06-30T21:48:00.000+01:00

I have recently been on a family holiday to a forest cabin site in North Yorkshire and managed to get in a bit of ringing too! I had planned to mainly ring Swallow nestlings as we had found lots of Swallow nests at the same location the previous year, however the nests we found were either empty (already fledged) or on eggs.
I did however manage a couple of evenings up in the forests and caught 2 magnificent Nightjars!

I saw at least 9 churring males at the site in part of Dalby Forest, a truly magnificient sound and sight as they displayed over the areas of clear fell.

I also saw plenty of roding Woodcock, heard Tawny Owl and saw my first ever Badgers (2 of them). A great family holiday with all these great birds thrown in too.

Thanks to the East Yorkshire RG and the Forestry Commision.

22 year old Herring Gull

2011-06-16T14:37:00.000+01:00

I got an email back in March from a lady from Port St Mary saying that a ringed Herring Gull visited their garden every day and had been for many years. She was eventually able to read the ring number as GH72648.

On checking the IPMR databases I realised that the sequence of numbers was used on the Calf of Man in the late 1980's and early 1990's but the Calf of Man database doesn't go back that far to obtain exact details.

Today I got the recovery information back from the BTO and discovered that GH72648 was ringed as a chick on 27th June 1989, 22 years ago.

I then checked my own ringing records, knowing that I was working on the Calf at that time and low and behold I found that I had ringed it myself!! Fantastic stuff!

Thanks very much to Mrs Perry for contacting me about the Gull.

Recent Gull re-sightings

2011-06-09T22:08:00.000+01:00

We have been contacted with a couple of re-sightings of our colour ringed Herring Gulls over the last week.

First up was T4XC seen at Niarbyl Cafe by a visitor to the Island from Newcastle.

That bird was ringed at Peel on 19th September 2010 and this was the first time it had been seen since.

And T6XG has become a regular visitor to a garden at a house in Ramsey where it arrives each morning looking for food!

T6XG - photo courtesy of John Oddy

This bird was ringed on 6th May this year at Sean's garden in Port e Vullen.

Thanks to the folk for contacting us to report the sightings, each and every local report of a ringed bird goes to build up the big picture of the lives of Manx birds.

Cormorant colour ringing project gets underway

2011-06-09T16:40:00.003+01:00

Sean and I went to the Cormorant colony at Maughold this morning to get our colour ringing project up and running.

Cormorant chick 'Z7L'

Cormorant chick 'Z7R' showing the email on each ring too

We finished the morning having done much better than expected with 85 Cormorant chicks ringed and 81 of them given a colour ring too. There are still plenty of nests with young too small to ring at the moment and there were even some nests with young just hatching today so we will be back in a few weeks time to ring some more.

Cormorants

Sean has made another great little video showing the colour ringing 'in action' and can be viewed by clicking below.

We are looking forward to getting re-sightings of these birds. Previous recoveries from the normal BTO metal rings have shown that most Cormorants ringed here don't stay in Manx waters in their first few years as can be seen from the maps of some of the previous recoveries shown below.

Note that the majority of all the recoveries mapped above are birds found dead, the only resightings of live birds were 2 records of where the metal ring number had been read by birders at Abberton Reservoir, Essex. With the addition of the new colour rings we will hopefully have many more resightings of live birds and will be able to find out exactly where they go and if and when they return to Maughold to breed in later years.

If you see any of the ringed Cormorants then do let us know - email us at manxrg@gmail.com

Monthly Ringing Totals May 2011

2011-06-02T18:30:00.002+01:00

The monthly ringing totals for May can be seen by clicking on the link below.

Whimbrel

May 2011 Ringing Totals

Highlights for the month include 59 waders including 9 Whimbrel. 33 adult Gulls including 3 Common Gulls and 4 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 4 Little Tern and an Arctic Tern, 59 Chough (2 adults and 57 pulli), 2 Hooded Crow and a Carrion Crow.

There may be more nest box ringing totals to come in from Dave and I will ammend the totals once I receive them.

Black-headed Gull

More nest monitoring

2011-06-01T10:49:00.002+01:00

Sean and I spent the last couple of days looking for more nests on the beaches up North. We found several Ringed Plovers, Oystercatchers, Arctic Tern and Little Tern.
We caught 2 Ringed Plover, 7 Little Tern (plus 2 retraps and a control) and an Arctic Tern.

Ringed Plover

Little Tern

Arctic Tern

The retrap Little Terns, ring numbers NV94439 & NV94440, proved to be an excellent record as they had originally been ringed as chicks at the same site in the North of the Island in June 1999 as siblings!
We also caught a control (ringed elsewhere - not IOM) NV95538. We will have to wait to hear back from the BTO as to when and where that was ringed. A rewarding result from the effort in monitoring the nests.

We also checked on the progress of one of the Gull colonies we're monitoring near the Point of Ayre. The first chicks were seen and the Great Black-backed Gulls egg was just starting to hatch with small fractures in the egg and the chick heard calling from inside.
Another adult Lesser Black-backed Gull was caught and colour ringed as part of our project on large Gulls and 2 more Black-headed Gulls were caught.

Lesser Black-backed Gull

We have also visited some of the last few Chough sites with Chris. Unfortunately 2 had failed but we ringed 4 young at one site and 2 young at another. Chris has 1 more site to do and then all the Chough nests are finished for the year.

Some recent recoveries from the Calf of Man Bird Observatory

2011-05-27T20:18:00.001+01:00

I received a batch or recoveries for the Calf of Man Bird Obs recently with some interesting movements in them. They are listed below.

Herring Gull
GA35839  1   01/07/2001 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) map
               RR 08/07/2010 Skomer Island (Pembrokeshire) 259km S 9 yrs 7days

GA39195  1   01/07/2002 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) map
                XF 27/04/2011 Blencogo, Wigton (Cumbria) 131km NE 8 yrs 300days

GA39195 was found freshly dead with no head. GA35839 was recorded by a warden reading the ring number in the field.

Willow Warbler
CKB071   4 31/03/2009 Portland Bill Bird Obs (Dorset) map
               R 29/03/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 424km NNW 1 yr 363days

Goldfinch
L468347  3J 16/10/2010 South Walney Bird Obs (Cumbria) map
               R 28/03/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 105km W 163 days

Lesser Redpoll
L554497  5 13/02/2011 Sevenoaks Wildfowl Reserve (Kent) map
              R 29/03/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 456km NW 44 days

T438248 3 14/11/2007 Icklesham (East Sussex) map
            R 29/03/2011 Calf of Man (Isle of Man) 510km NW 3 yrs 135days

An interesting pair or controls from South East England caught on the same day at the Calf.

More Chough and Gulls

2011-05-26T23:00:00.001+01:00

Sean and I did another couple of Chough nest sites on Tuesday evening, this time both were in barns on active farms. Broods of 5 and 2 brought the Chough pulli total to 53 so far this year.
One of the nests was on top of a box put up by the farmer for Choughs to nest in. This year a Muscovy Duck started to nest in the box so the Choughs built their nest on top of the box. It is a good height up to where the box is located at the top of the barn so it was great to get a help up on the fork-lift truck!

Thanks to all the farmers and landowners who assist in our monitoring of the Chough nests. It's great to see how enthusiastic everyone is about 'their' Choughs!

We then went in search of more Gulls and caught 2 cracking adult Summer plumage Black-headed Gulls.

We also found our first Herring Gull chicks, although they were only a few days old and not large enough to ring yet.

Choughin Marvellous

2011-05-21T14:27:00.007+01:00

Thursday and Friday were spent checking on the bulk of our Chough nest sites with Sean and our friend Kane Brides who had come across from England to help.

15 Chough pulli ringed on Thursday followed by a further 27 on Friday.

All the Chough were colour ringed with a unique combination as part of our long running scheme, allowing individuals to be identified in the field.

Colour ringing Chough

Thanks to Sean and Kane for a great couple of days! There were plenty of miles covered by car and by foot and an almost constant barrage of cutting banter.

Sean passes the bag of ~~Barm Cakes/Baps/~~Choughs to Kane. You could have worn a clean coat to get on that flight home mate!

To top the day off yesterday, after dropping Kane at the airport we found and ringed 3 Ringed Plover chicks near Pooyl Vaaish.

Ringed Plover chick

Sean has made a fantastic little video of the work we did which can be seen below. Well done mate!

Click on the video to view it in a larger format.

Time for me to update IPMR with the nest record and ringing data now...

Nest checking

2011-05-17T20:49:00.000+01:00

I was out with Sean this morning ringing our first Chough pulli of the year. A brood of 4 young, all FM (wing feathers medium grown). All were given a unique combination of colour rings as part of our long-running Chough colour ringing scheme.

Young Chough with colour rings and BTO metal ring

We then noticed a Mute Swan on the shoreline in the bay. On checking we saw that it was not colour ringed and had an old style metal ring on which was very worn. We quickly caught it and removed the old, worn ring and replaced it with a new BTO metal ring and a colour ring 'N23'.

'N23', previously known as A07 and A20, aged at least 23 years old!

On checking the ring we were able to just about read the number U0326. This Swan was ringed on 26th July 1990 at Douglas and was given colour ring A07 at that time. A year later the colour ring had disappeared so it was given a new one, A20, in 1991. The Swan then held territory in Castletown harbour with its mate A13 from 1992, 1993 & 1994. It was then seen on and off until 1999. The last previous sighting of the Swan was on 18th December 1999. It obviously then lost its 2nd colour ring as there had been no other records since we caught him today. Given that he was an adult when originally caught in 1990 then he is at least 23 years old and possibly much older than that.

Then this afternoon I checked on some of my nest boxes - 2 broods of 4 House Sparrows ringed and young in 2 Blue Tit and 1 Great Tit boxes. Whilst at Lower Ballafodda, mum showed me a Pheasant nest in the orchard that she had found recently.

Spot the Pheasant

Gull and Wader nests

2011-05-11T22:05:00.000+01:00

I spent the day with Sean finding Gull and Waders nests today. We found numerous Lesser Black-backed & Herring Gull nests, 2 Common Gull nests, 2 Great Black-backed Gull nests and a handful of Ringed Plover & Oystercatcher nests too.
During the process we managed to catch a number of adults at the nest. Totals were - 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull, 2 Common Gull, 1 Ringed Plover and 1 Oystercatcher.

Common Gulls

Lesser Black-backed Gull

The LBB Gull was also given a colour ring as part of our 'large Gulls' colour-ring project. LBB Gulls migrate to South West Europe and North Africa for the Winter so hopefully we may get some sightings from the numerous keen Gull watchers in these areas this winter.

Ringed Plover

Oystercatcher

All the birds were processed quickly and all were back on their nests within 10 mins of release. The nests will be monitored closely over the next few weeks and we look forward to ringing the pulli once the eggs have hatched!

"We might catch a Whimbrel mate!"

2011-05-07T13:43:00.000+01:00

That was what I said to Sean at the start of the week when I said that it would be worth getting a bit of dazzling in during the new moon before we stopped for the nesting season. By the end of the week we'd had some fantastic results. The totals were:

Dunlin 20
Whimbrel 9
Ringed Plover 6
Turnstone 2
Knot 1
Sanderling 1
Little Tern 1

Getting 9 Whimbrel was superb. The group have only done 3 in total prior to this year and it was a bird that Sean had never seen in the hand. There are a lot of them around the Island at the moment as they pass through on their migration from Western Africa to Iceland and Northern Scandinavia to breed.

Whimbrel

summer plumage Knot

summer plumage Turnstone

Little Tern

Ringed Plover

Dunlin

Sanderling

That's it for dazzling until early August when the waders and terns start moving back through the Island after the breeding season. Hopefully we'll have some more good catches then.

Springwatch

2011-05-04T20:02:00.003+01:00

Sharpy and I met up with Chris Packham & Martin Hughes-Games from BBC's Springwatch programme today. They were filming the Cormorant colony at Maughold.

Chris, Martin and the crew insisted on having their photo taken with me!

The main aim had been to film us ringing the Cormorant chicks, however as predicted following our earlier visit in April, there were no young large enough to ring today. However they did film the birds on the nests and interviewed Sharpy about the colony.

A great bunch of people and a cracking time - hopefully next time they visit Kate Humble will be with them (no offence chaps)!!
Watch out for the film when Springwatch starts at the end of the month.

Checking Choughs

2011-05-03T21:40:00.000+01:00

A busy day out today with Chris and Sean checking on 15 of our Chough nest sites to judge their progress in order to work out when the young will be ready to ring.
14 out of the 15 sites checked were in use, the majority of which held young under 5 days old. 1 adult female was also caught and ringed.

Eggs hatching

Still blind

Downy and eyes now open

Wing feathers in pin

Adult female

Several of the nests were in active farm barns. It was great to see how pleased the farmers were at having Choughs nest in their barns and they all seemed very proud to have such a fine bird choose their farms to nest in.
Near to the last site we checked, we found a rather old Jackdaw nest...

How many Jackdaws does it take to build a nest??

The nest must have been older than Sean and Chris there were that many sticks in it!!

All the nests checked were recorded for the BTO nest record scheme and with any luck, it looks like we will be ringing plenty of young Chough in a few weeks time.
We also collected Chough feathers found below the nests in order to be sent for DNA analysis as part of a study which the Manx Chough Project are partaking in.

Note - Choughs are a 'schedule 1' species under the IOM Wildlife Act 1990 and as such are specially protected at all times. All Manx Ringing Group members hold the appropriate licences allowing us to study the nests.

April Ringing Totals

2011-05-02T20:30:00.001+01:00

An excellent month, helped by the favourable winds and weather throughout. A total of 289 birds of 35 species were ringed.

The monthly totals can be see by clicking here.

Great Spot

Highlights included the 2nd Great Spotted Woodpecker to be ringed on the main Island ringed in the same Sulby garden as the first GSW to be ringed last year, 11 Wheatears, 6 species of Warbler including a Grasshopper Warbler and 4 Turnstones dazzled.

Grasshopper Warbler

The Mute Swan colour ringing project started to give some interesting movements with a handful of Ramsey ringed birds turning up in the South of the Island and other Swans wandering around different locations in the South, ranging up to 5km or more. These will be Swans moving back to their nesting sites and other, non-breeders being displaced by territorial disputes. Any reports of colour ringed Mute Swans will always be greatfully received - report them via email manxrg@gmail.com or the manxbirdlife website sightings reporting form.

2010 Manx Ringing Group report now published

2011-04-30T22:00:00.004+01:00

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

2011-04-29T20:28:00.002+01:00

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

2011-04-22T21:12:00.000+01:00

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

2011-04-22T20:59:00.000+01:00

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

2011-04-22T20:45:00.000+01:00

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

2011-04-21T18:59:00.005+01:00

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

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

2011-04-18T20:37:00.000+01:00

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

2011-04-17T21:43:00.002+01:00

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

2011-04-17T21:32:00.002+01:00

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

2011-04-17T21:14:00.000+01:00

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'

2011-04-14T22:23:00.003+01:00

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

2011-04-12T20:47:00.002+01:00

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

2011-04-07T20:11:00.003+01:00

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

Female Siskin

Male Chaffinch

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!