Owls & moths

Well the moth season hasn't been much better than the Barn Owl season, but I had an interesting collision of hobbies yesterday. A month ago when checking Barn Owl boxes, I'd collected some pellets to pull apart with the children. These remained in a tupperware container on the side, forgotten about but yesterday the kids said 'dad - something's hatched out of the pellets!' Sure enough, buzzing around in the box were about a dozen micro moths called Monopis laevigella (sometimes called 'Skin Moths'). The larvae of this species feed on detritus of animal origin, including carcases, faeces and pellets. Their spent pupal cases can be seen sticking out of the pellets.

Pete

Ramsdale Park Gof Club, Sunday 14 June

The first visit of this strange year was made to Ramsdale on Sunday by Duncan, Gary, Mick P and me. The rides needed quite a few overhanging spurs of blackberry and hawthorn cutting back but no major clearance as we were using the site into November last year. It was a very misty start to the day but with only a slight breeze. The sun broke through just before we took down and it became very warm.

The catch rate was steady throughout the morning and we ended with a total of 46 including 4 retraps made up of (new/retrap): Blackbird 0/1, Dunnock 1/1, Wren 0/1, Robin 3/0, Blackcap 4/0, Garden Warbler 1/0, Lesser Whitethroat 4/0, Chiffchaff 9/1, Blue Tit 13/0, Great Tit 2/0, Linnet 5/0.

The oldest retrap was a Chiffchaff from 2018. Most of the resident species caught were juveniles and the migrants mainly adults with a few juveniles. Nice to get a few Linnets again at the only site we regularly catch them.

Kev

 male Linnet (K. Hemsley)

Holme Pierrepont, Tuesday 9 June

The second visit of the year was made to the Skylarks end of Holme Pierrepont on Tuesday by Duncan, Gary and me. Perfect weather conditions, overcast and still. We put up all the usual nets and caught steadily all morning. The Willow Warbler chicks in the nest we found near the base on the last visit had gone, hopefully fledged successfully.

We ended with 76 birds caught including 9 retraps, made up of (new/retrap): Song Thrush 1/0, Robin 7/0, Dunnock 1/2, Wren 4/0, Blackcap 7/0, Garden Warbler 2/0, Whitethroat 0/1, Cetti’s Warbler 1/0, Reed Warbler 2/1, Chiffchaff 18/0, Willow Warbler 5/3, Blue Tit 9/0, Great Tit 7/1, Goldfinch 2/1, Greenfinch 1/0.

The Goldfinch retrap was originally ringed last year in Tom’s garden on the other side of the river. The oldest retrap was a Willow Warbler from 2016. The Bittern was seen again overhead and was not popular with the nesting gulls! The photograph shows the state the net rides after they had spent such a long time under water during the winter floods. Now a layer of dry mud covers the ground and seems to have killed some of the bramble and supressed growth of other vegetation, leaving the rides nice and open for us.

Kev

Box-checking in the Vale, 30/31 May

Finished my first round of Barn Owl and Kestrel box checks over the weekend and the second half wasn't quite as productive as the first with several boxes down. Nevertheless, it looks like I have seven Barn Owl broods to return to but just two of Kestrel.

A bonus came when a friend with a private box sent me a photo of a large Tawny Owl chick looking out of the entrance hole. Knowing that this was not only late in the season, but also that these chicks were likely to start branching at any time, I popped round immediately and ringed a healthy brood of three good-sized Tawnys - almost certainly the only ones I'll ring this year having missed the main season due to lockdown. Later that night, the owner wandered out to watch the sunset and took the marvellous photo below showing one chick starting to explore!

The pie chart shows the breakdown of my box occupancy this year.

Pete

 

 Barn Owl

 Kestrel clutch

 Stock Doves

 'branching' Tawny Owl chick

Update from the east of the county

I completed the third CES session in our Sibthorpe garden on Monday 25 May. Totals below. The only juvenile birds were House Sparrow and Starling. Potter traps are a much more effective way of trapping the latter though and the same is also true of our Blackbirds. Since 1st April, I’ve had 27 individual adults in the garden (20 of which were male). I think with the dry ground, they are having to commute to our deli with its fat balls etc as well as the softer ground by the septic tank.

Birds handled (new/re-encounter 17/7): Blackbird 4/2; Blue Tit -/1, Goldfinch 4/1; Great Tit –/1; Greenfinch 2/1; House Sparrow 3/1; Starling 4/-.

Box-wise, I’ve now checked c50 with Elaine. We try to do no more than 12 per day as all the ladder work in down to me, but it still seems to fill the day. This has included nearly all of the Trust’s boxes.

Priority has been the Tawny Owl boxes and other boxes in their vicinity. Re Tawnies, I’ve now ringed 5 single chicks and found a female on eggs on 20 May to go back to. Only missed one breeding attempt for sure at Fox Covert NR where it looks like they fledged successfully. A banker box had a roosting adult escape 19 May and I wonder if it was a pre-laying bird?

The Little Owls at Brackenhurst had failed due to bees/wasps – one stung me on the chin, but we have chicks to ring at Flintham.

Barn owls – only found one breeding so far, and missing from Flintham Estate - and other local sites - but their kestrels are breeding for 17th year running. I have not found any small mammals cached in any of the owl boxes, which explains low occupancy and does not bode well for the Barn Owl and Kestrel breeding season.

In north Notts, Adrian Blackburn has checked c15 of his best BO boxes and found occupancy 50% down with some holding underweight non-breeders.

Jim Lennon

Holme Pierrepont, Thursday 28 May

We are back to mist-netting in a very limited way at some sites. The current restrictions remain frustrating for many ringers and especially trainees, but at least things are moving in the right direction and hopefully it won't be too long before we can resume more normal operations.

Gary and I held the first session at the Skylarks end of Holme Pierrepont once we'd been given the go-ahead from the Notts Wildlife Trust. It's too far into the breeding season to cut back vegetation along net rides, but luckily very little clearing was required as the high floodwaters over the winter had killed off quite a few patches of brambles and such like. So it was a pleasant surprise to be able to put several nets up quickly.

As expected, we finished a little early due to the sun and heat, but not before processing over 50 birds including 5 Willow Warbler pulli. Interesting that people have been reporting a bad year for Blue and Great Tits as we did not catch any. The only tits we did catch were a party of about 8 Long-tailed Tits which were all adults, so possibly failed breeders. Juvenile Robins dominated the catch but we had a few warblers including returning retrap Lesser Whitethroats and Reed Warblers. A new Kingfisher was a nice surprise and we also caught a juvenile Blackcap that had been fledged long enough to lose a tail feather and half grow a replacement already!

Other interesting birds around were a low flying Bittern and a Hobby overhead.

Kev

Owl box checking, Thursday 28 May

Did my first few owl box checks in the Vale of Belvoir today. Out of 14 boxes checked, 5 contained breeding Barn Owls, 1 had a roosting Barn Owl, 4 held Stock Doves, one had two Little Owl chicks and 3 were empty. So all in all a fairly productive day. Fingers crossed it continues like that and although the land is desperate for rain, let's hope we aren't completely washed out in June like last year.

Pete

Garden CES at Sibthorpe

With the Covid-19 ‘lockdown’ affecting bird ringers the same as everyone else, we were only allowed to ring in our gardens until a few days ago. With this in mind, the BTO thought it might put idle hands to work and try Constant Effort Site ringing in ringers' gardens, there’s more about the CES methodology here - the main difference is that under Garden CES food can be put out for the birds.

I have completed two six hour timed ringing sessions so far:

8 May 2020, CES 1
Birds handled (new/re-encounter 14/13): Blackbird 5/3; Chaffinch 1/-; Dunnock –/4; Greenfinch 4/1; House Sparrow 1/3; Reed Bunting 1/-; Robin –/2; Starling 1/-; Whitethroat 1/-.

15 May 2020, CES 2
Birds handled (new/re-encounter 12/10): Blackbird 1/4; Blue Tit 1/1, Chaffinch 3/-; Dunnock 1/1; Goldfinch 2/1; Greenfinch 2/-; House Sparrow -/2; Robin 1/-; Starling 1/1.

That’s 49 adult birds so far, which suggests I should make the minimum of 200 bird handlings over the 12 CES sessions. We suspected breeding Blackbirds were commuting to our feeders from around the village and with 13 different adults so far this seems to be the case. The Reed Bunting was unexpected, though they do breed in the wet ditches nearby, and the Whitethroat had a break from singing 12 hours a day across the road from us.

Images of the Whitethroat and an interesting Greenfinch for folk to muse over . . . . .

Jim

A slow return to normality?

A landowner contacted me last Monday to ask if I was going to come to ring the three Tawny Owl chicks in his nest box but I had to explain that it was not possible because we were only allowed to ring on our own property during the lockdown. But a slight lifting of Covid-19 restrictions this week and subsequent revision of ringing restrictions by the BTO yesterday meant I could venture out at last.

I headed straight to that site, about 14 miles away but still my longest journey in two months. Walking to the box with the landowner and keeping two metres apart was a new regime to get used to but we got to the box OK, only to find two of the chicks had already left, so just one to ring. No food stashed in the box but feathers from a juvenile Blackbird were evident. Unless anyone else beat me out this morning after yesterday's lockdown easing this was will be the first ring the group has used outside a garden since 22 March.

Let's hope we can all get back to something like the normal we were used to as soon as possible.

Kev

2019 Report

The 2019 SNRG report is now published and available. If you would like a copy, please email the address at the top of the 'Reports' page - see tab at the top.

Twite data

Some of you will be aware of the Twite project, co-ordinated by Jamie Dunning, that I have been involved in for the last few years. The project site in Derbyshire is watched intently by two local chaps, Peter and George, who keep a spreadsheet of all their Twite colour-ring sightings.

 

From this spreadsheet we have recently entered and submitted about 1000 sightings, from 2015 – 2019, via DemOn. And this is just a small percentage of all their sightings!

 

The use of colour-rings has been invaluable in reinforcing, and even adding to, the information we have on Twite and hopefully assisting to develop a long term plan to protect the decreasing population.

 

Entering this data encouraged me to try a bit more data interpretation, please see below.

 

Mick P 

 

 

Covid-19 update

Please note that the BTO has asked all volunteers to refrain from undertaking any survey work or ringing beyond the boundaries of their homes. This includes nest-recording and monitoring of nestboxes and remains the case until at least 7 May 2020 when the next Government review is currently scheduled.

Sibthorpe - Sunday 12 April

Like everything else at the moment, our bird ringing is severely curtailed, and rightly so. This means in practice only ringing and nest recording in your own garden. The BTO’s stance on this is here, and closely follows Government guidance.

Right now, the group's focus would normally be on monitoring breeding Cormorants, Grey Herons and Tawny Owls, but not this year... Like many ringers with more time on their hands, I have refocused on ringing in my garden. My normal fare is tits, finches, Dunnocks, Starlings and sparrows, but interesting migrants do drop in from time to time. These might include Redpoll, Siskin and Chiffchaff.

As Sunday was calm and overcast, I decided to mist net from dawn. My first visit to check the nets produced two unringed Dunnocks which was unusual as they are rather sedentary and I must have ringed most of this winter's population, but then an odd robin-shaped bird caught my eye and after an initial WTF moment I soon had a female Black Redstart in my hand! They are early spring migrants and Birdguides currently shows reports of a handful across the country and I’m told one was ringed in a Coddington garden a few years back. However, only 39 were ringed in Britain and Ireland in 2018, so what are the odds of one turning up in my garden mist net?

Jim Lennon

 female Black Redstart, Sibthorpe (J. Lennon)

Exploring data

In these unusual times when we're restricted to garden ringing, it's a good opportunity to look at our data and try some interpretation.

I am by no means an expert but have had a couple of previous attempts with the Bullfinches and Willow Warblers I catch at Goosedale Fisheries (which can be found in the 2014 and 2016 group reports) so I thought I would update these for the blog.

Unfortunately, the annual survival estimates were so poor I don't want to include them. The numbers of new birds ringed is both encouraging and disappointing at the same time (see graph) and it's important to poimt out that these figures can't be viewed as definite population trends over such a short period and in such a random study.

I thought I would also look at the sex ratio of the new Bullfinches caught. You can see variation over the 5 years but interestingly after the study period the totals are almost the same. The unsexed birds were juvenile birds still in their juvenile plumage.

This type of analysis is not going to re-write science, but it does add another dimension to understanding 'our' birds and how they are doing.

Give it a go!

Mick P



 

Brackenhurst Ringing Demo, Wednesday 4 March

It was third time lucky. We finally managed to deliver a ringing demonstration with the students at Brackenhurst on Wednesday, in what seemed to be the first calm day in like forever! Our team was Cliff, Gary, Kevin, Louise and myself. Weather was bright, cold and calm; almost disconcerting...

We managed 63 birds; just over half were Yellowhammers. Oldest retraps were a Blue Tit (2017), Reed Bunting (2018) and two Yellowhammers (both 2018).

We handled 67 birds (48 new/19 retrap) which comprised: Blue Tit 7/6, Coal Tit -/1, Goldcrest 2/1, Great Tit 3/2, Reed Bunting 1/3, Robin 2/1, Yellowhammer 32/5, Wren 1/-.

Jim