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Tuesday 26 June 2018

Holme Pierrepont, Sunday 24 June

Sue, Alex, Gary and I took advantage of the only weekend until August at Holme Pierrepont when there were no events planned. The site had not been disturbed by campers or anyone else by the looks of it and the rides needed a lot of attention before we could put the nets up. Full sun from the start but no wind and at last we found some birds.....and mosquitoes.

The birds were welcome but I can only ever remember one other year at Holme Pierrepont in the last forty when the mosquitoes were as bad, probably worse than they are at Attenborough. Despite the hot sun we had a good catch of 64 including 9 retraps, made up of (new/retrap): Blackbird 3/1, Robin 1/0, Dunnock 1/1, Reed Warbler 13/5, Chiffchaff 4/0, Blackcap 15/1, Garden Warbler 2/0, Blue Tit 3/0, Great Tit 4/0, Long-tailed Tit 7/0, Wren 1/0, Chaffinch 1/0, Reed Bunting 0/1. The oldest retraps were two Reed Warblers from 2012.

Kev

Attenborough CES, Visit 5 - Tuesday 19 June

The fifth CES visit of the season was carried out on Tuesday by Mick T and I. The weather was good, a bright morning with intermittent cloud cover and only a light breeze. We did have a delayed start after finding 3 willows each over 40 foot high had come down right across the net ride smashing a pole in the process. We had the sort of catch that has become the norm this year with a total of 24 including 7 retraps, made up of (new/retrap): Blackbird 1/0, Robin 3/2, Dunnock 2/0, Chiffchaff 1/0, Blackcap 1/1, Great Tit 5/3, Wren 3/1, Reed Bunting 1/0. The oldest retrap was a Great Tit from 2014. Very few warblers and very few juveniles again.

Kev

Wales, Sunday 17 June

Tom, Mick P and I made what could possibly be the last trip to the boxes in Wales, 25 years after we first started the project there. It was a mostly cloudy and breezy day but at least it did not rain.
We could not get any local information about the state of the birds so I took a flyer based on information on Facebook. Unfortunately we were probably about 5 days too late. We ringed 48 birds, 43 Pied Flycatcher and 5 Redstart – all pulli except for 3 adult Pied Flycatcher. We also had 1 retrap Pied Flycatcher, an adult from last year.

We recorded 18 nests that appeared to have fledged, if we had gone earlier in the week we would probably have got well over 100 birds ringed.

I've looked at occupancy rates where Pied Flycatchers or Redstarts have got to at least the egg stage.
In the first year (1993) we had an occupancy rate of 70.3%. This rate has dropped generally over the years dropping below 50% for the first time in 2008. This year was the lowest rate ever at just 26.02%.

The pictures of birds were all taken using a NatureWatch camera costing £25, as shown recently on Spring Watch. The last couple of photos show the camera in position.

Kev





 Pied Flycatchers photographed remotely at a box (above) and pictures showing how the camera is set (below).

Saturday 16 June 2018

SNRG in Norway

Many of you know the origins of the ringing group, but for those that do not please refer to the FAQ pages. Those of us whose group membership goes back to 1971 have kept in touch with the group's founder Humphrey Dobinson over the years by letters and emails. However, the last time anyone from the group visited him was when Gary and I dropped in to see him at his house in Swindon in the early 1980s, on our way to Slimbridge to make some swan darvics. Since then Humphrey and his wife Oddrun retired and went to live in Oddrun’s native Norway. Their two children Colin and Kristin had also moved there to work.

I bumped into ex-member Nigel Bosworth just before last Christmas and he suggested we should pay a visit with any other original members that we could contact and were able to make the trip. After consulting with Colin Dobinson we secretly set up a visit to see Oddrun and Humphrey and flew out on Friday 18 May. Four of us made the trip, Gary, Mick T, Nigel and myself.

In 1966 on 7 September, Humphrey took delivery of a new Bedford mini-bus (the Beddy), Humphrey would take us all over the country in this bird-watching and ringing. He spent countless out of school hours, supported all the way by Oddrun, passing on his ornithological knowledge to van-loads of eager pupils. If we called in at his house in Keyworth to do some garden ringing, Oddrun would often supply waffles for us to eat. Sadly such dedication in this way would not be possible to repeat these days as current laws would not allow it. Pupils now miss out as there are no doubt still teachers today that would be prepared to dedicate so much time in this way if they could. The Beddy became a symbol of the Fairham Ornithological Society and the ringing group, much of the ringing we did in those early days would not have been possible without it. It was sad to see the Beddy head south to Swindon with Humphrey and Oddrun in the early 1970s when Humphrey took up a new position at a school there. Humphrey started an ornithological society at his new school and trained some pupils to become ringers but deliberately kept it on a smaller scale than he did at Fairham School.

As time took its toll on the Beddy it was left in a garage in Swindon and stayed there rusting and the interior being damaged by mice for a long time. But a few years ago Colin had it restored to its former glory and now it too has a new home in Norway. According to Colin it cost a ridiculous amount of money to restore but over the years it had played such an important part in the Dobinson family lives that he just had to do it. A magnificent job he has done as well, we saw photos of the ‘before’ condition and have witnessed the ‘after’. Certain alterations had to be made to make it legal for use on 21st century Norwegian roads, such as removing some of the bench seats to allow the installation of a row of ‘proper’ seats with belts behind the front seats and new Norwegian number plates. (Incidentally the new plate is 66.09.07, not just a random number - see the start of paragraph 3!) As we expected Colin had also saved the old UK plates JNN 902D. The Beddy took us all on a trip down memory lane, literally as we went out for a spin. Not least was the memory of how uncomfortable those bench seats were, it made us wonder how we managed to travel so far on them all those years ago. As one of only 3 of its kind in Norway we saw heads turn as we passed, I commented that we were probably turning more heads with the Beddy than we would if we were passing in a shiny new Ferrari! We just felt there was one thing missing but that was soon rectified as Colin accepted a SNRG car sticker which is now displayed in one the rear door windows.

It was a fantastic trip enabling us to catch up with Oddrun and Humphrey and to see Colin and Kristin who were only children the last time we met. It was great to meet Colin's wife, Trude, and their children Hannah and Fredrik at their house for the great BBQ . We were made so very welcome by them all and would like to thank them for their wonderful hospitality. We must also thank them for arranging the fantastic weather, in the four days we were there we hardly saw a cloud in the sky and the temperature was in the 20s every day.


Kev








Tuesday 12 June 2018

Attenborough Sand Martins, Tuesday 12 June

A later start to mist-netting the Sand Martins at Attenborough after a delayed start to egg laying, but this morning Phil, Mick T and I had a good first session. Few birds are nesting in Face A again but Face B and C had plenty of birds and we caught 52 including 19 retraps and 2 controls. The oldest retrap was a pullus from 2016. We also caught 7 ringed juvs that had fledged from this colony and 2 unringed juvs obviously fledged from a different colony.

Kev

Treecreeper nest

I was contacted recently by ex-member Nigel Bosworth about a Treecreeper nest he had found in an unusual location on Barton Island in the River Trent at Attenborough. The nest was positioned between a temporary wall and a support post, part of the toilet block for the Sea Scouts who use the island as a camp. Normally the ringing of Treecreeper pulli is restricted due to possible nest damage being caused when trying to remove the chicks. I wondered about the possibility of ringing these chicks as access was easy. Having checked the manual and not finding the answer I consulted HQ, after a while having had no feedback against ringing them I went out in a boat with Nigel and ringed the 6 pulli - the first pulli Treecreepers the group have ever ringed. Below is some video footage of the nest taken by Nigel, to whom we owe our thanks!

Kev

Attenborough CES, Visit 4 - Sunday 10 June

The fourth CES visit of the season was carried out on Sunday by Sue, Mick T, Gary and me. The weather was perfect, a bright start but soon after cloud covered the sun and there was not a breath of wind. In a normal year with conditions like this we should have been on for a good catch. We did get the best catch for this years CES season but it only beat visit 2 by a single bird.

Total catch was 26 including 7 retraps made up of (new/retrap): Blackbird 1/0, Robin 3/2, Dunnock 0/2, Chiffchaff 1/0, Blackcap 1/1, Garden Warbler 1/0, Blue Tit 2/0, Great Tit 5/1, Wren 1/0, Bullfinch 4/1.

The oldest retrap was a Robin from 2016. So closing in on the middle of June and only 3 of today's catch were juveniles: 2 Robins and a Great Tit. The low numbers continue here and around the country. Of note this week was a Wren (the first of the year!) and a Garden Warbler, the first on a CES visit since 2015.

As the photos show there were plenty of invertebrates about to make up for the lack of birds, we also had a brown hawker in the net (successfully extracted) and a hornet which bit through a net strand and extracted itself (thankfully!).

Kev


photos by S. Lakeman

Monday 11 June 2018

Buzzards

I ringed two Buzzard chicks on 7 June 2018 near Bestwood. You can see from the remains that they eat rats too!

Mick P

Monday 4 June 2018

Ramsdale Park Golf Centre, Sunday 3 June

We held the first ringing session of the year at Ramsdale this morning. The weather was good with no wind and clear skies. The team consisted of Maria, Fiona, Sue, Tom, Gary, Duncan, Mick T and myself. We were hoping for a better catch than the last 3 CES visits we have made to Attenborough which had reflected reports of low numbers from around the country (the total catch in the first 3 visits to Attenborough was 63 compared to 115 for the same 3 visits last year).

The catch rate at Ramsdale was pretty much on a par with Attenborough, very slow throughout the morning. This first visit of the year was the worst numbers total of the last 3 years at this site. We ended with a total catch of (new/retrap) 22/4 made up of: Blackbird 1/1, Song Thrush 1/0, Dunnock 2/1, Wren 1/0, Robin 1/0, Garden Warbler 2/0, Whitethroat 2/0, Lesser Whitethroat 1/0, Chiffchaff 3/2, Willow Warbler 3/0, Blue Tit 1/0, Linnet 4/0. The oldest retrap was a Blackbird from our first visit to the site in July 2015.

Other than a visit made in December 2015 this is the only visit we have not caught a Blackcap here, although we did have our first Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat and Garden Warbler of the year. Numbers of resident species were low, with no Bullfinch this time at a site which is usually very good for this species. A few juvs were caught but only 19% of the total catch - it was 37% of the total last year. A Cuckoo was around first thing but managed to evade the nets!

Kev

 A Lesser Whitethroat (age code 5 - i.e. born in the previous year) that had replaced the two outermost tail feathers on the left

 (both pics S. Lakeman)

Mandarin

A pleasant surprise when checking Barn Owl boxes recently was this beauty. Apparently, they can breed away from water and are often found in Tawny boxes; almost being a nuisance! Can't find any guidance, but presume this is an adult female.

Jim