Lough Neagh Ringing Recoveries/Controls

We've taken the step to shift to Google MyMaps which allows the production of interactive control maps where you can zoom in/out and click on each of the controls/recoveries for details.

Follow the link below to check out map number one which includes the acro warbler controls from our Lough Neagh Ringing site. 

 https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1L-VSB3VVYy8uglNh1kh7d6TT3tmPt_o7&usp=sharing

The controls tab will be updated in the coming months.... and perhaps some actual blog posts! 

Return to Lough Neagh - 2019

After the great success of our Lough Neagh ringing site in recent years we were very keen to get back on the shore and open the nets. Making best use of the bank holiday weekend and a good weather, we decided to go for the first visit on Saturday 13th of July. John and I were short on helpers and lost three people the day before but we were joined by two fairly new trainees in Abbie and Rich K.

Sedge Warbler

In the last few years, the first rush of birds is usually underway as we are setting the nets, so we decided that an earlier start was needed. We set off form Coleraine at 04.30am, arriving at the parking area around 05.30am, on site 30 mins later after the walk in with the gear and then a further 30 minutes to get the 7 nets (run of 4 & 2) opened.

The catch was another busy one with 119 new birds including another 76 new Sedge Warblers, 10 more Reed Warblers and our first two Grasshopper Warblers for the site.

                                      New         Retrap
Blackcap                          3
Grasshopper Warbler      2
Reed Bunting                  7                1
Reed Warbler                 10
Robin                              1
Sedge Warbler               76               1
Willow Warbler            19
Wren                               1

Total                              119              2     

                                                                         Reed Bunting

Visit two took place a few weeks later on the 27th of July. We had planned for this morning with a team of 11 assembled but the weather changed & we had to bring it a day forward, leaving it with just myself, Steve, Abbie and also Joe, who had travelled all the way from Donegal.

As usual with the site, the onslaught of birds began at once and two nets were closed early and further two furled temporarily. The birds die off completely by 10 am.

The result was a big haul of 220 new birds which included 20 Reed Warblers, surely an Irish daily record. The 167 Sedge Warblers ought to be up there for a record catch also.

            

                                       New         Retrap
Blackcap                          15
Chiffchaff                         2
Dunnock                          3
Grasshopper Warbler      1
Reed Bunting                  3
Reed Warbler                 20
Robin                              4
Sedge Warbler              167              
Willow Warbler            19
Wren                               1

Total                              119                  

We didn't catch any retraps and given that we have previously ringed 782 birds in 6 visits here, the birds are clearly moving through the site

Yet again we managed just the three visits despite all our hopes and talk! Visit three took place on the 25th of August where we had a good team assembled with John, Ken, Jim Mc, Abbie, Rich K, James O and Nathan giving us a team of eight. With extra hands we increased the nets and covered four net sites with nine nets. It was a bright hot day which seemed to effect the birds. It was the first time at Blackers Rock that we haven't had a big movement of birds early doors and instead there was a steady trickle right through, until we took down the nets. There were much fewer birds seen and heard but there were still lots skulking amongst the reeds. We were only really catching birds in the shaded parts of the nets, often just a few feet on some.
It was another healthy catch of 154 new birds, a BTO control Sedge Warbler and a single retrap Blackcap, although we would have liked 300+!

                                       New         Retrap
Blackcap                          6                1
Blue Tit                        7
Chiffchaff                        3
Goldcrest                         1
Grasshopper Warbler      1
Reed Bunting                  12
Reed Warbler                 25
Robin                              7
Sedge Warbler              80
Swallow                         3              
Willow Warbler            11
Wren                              2

Total                              154                  

I've totted up the totals and put them in the table below. It was somewhat similar to last year in that the middle visit (27th July) produced the biggest numbers with more Sedge Warblers and the final visit (25th August) produced the greatest species diversity. 491 new birds compared to 2018's 464.

Sedge Warbler - 323 (1 BTO control, 1 retrap)

Reed Warbler - 55

Willow Warbler - 34

Blackcap - 24 (1 retrap)

Reed Bunting - 22 (1 retrap)

Blue Tit - 7

Robin - 6

Chiffchaff - 5

Grasshopper Warbler - 4

Wren - 4

Swallow - 3

Dunnock -3

Goldcrest -1

Total - 491 new birds

Although we had a great team of 8 for visit three, the first two visits (visit 1 - 13th July) were limited by only having four people present, particularly on visit 2 with two trainees, a C and A dealing with 220 birds which could have been much more. Weather was again difficult and there was a full month between the 2nd and 3rd visits and it twice put off plans of ringing on two consecutive days.

Reed Warbler numbers again peaked at the end of August, maybe they are even better in early September? The catches on the 27th July and 25th August were each record daily catches for Northern Ireland, probably Ireland also. The guys at Traad Point at the north of the Lough have caught 58 Reed Warblers throughout the c10 CES visits so a bumper year for Reed Warbler in the north.

Willow Warbler numbers were almost double this year while Reed Bunting numbers were quite a bit lower after the exceptional catch of 53 new birds on the 11th of August last year. Sedge numbers seemed like they might be a little lower this year after visit one but we caught a record catch of 167 on the 2nd visit, 70 more than our next best days catch.

Just the one control in the form of a Sedge Warbler bearing a BTO ring - it hadn't travelled far, having been ringed at Traad Point CES 10 miles up the shore but pleasing all the same as its our first exchange of birds.

No doubt we will get anther 2-3+ recoveries of birds heading south or on the way back north next spring. We only caught two inter-year retraps and one same year retrap, so we are still missing much of the local breeding population.

Bigger and better next year! (if the Irish weekend weather allows it).

Reed Warbler Recovery

News fresh in from the BTO last night that one of our Blackers Rock, Lough Neagh Reed Warblers has been trapped on return migration north.

The bird was originally ringed as a juvenile on the 13th of August 2017 and hadn't been seen since before it turned up in a mist net on Lundy Island in SW England 10 days ago. The time elapsed between ringing and recapture is 631 days. The distance between the two sites is 404km but in reality this bird will have migrated to sub-Saharan Africa, back to NI, back to sub-Saharan Africa before returning to the UK. All being well, the bird will be back in a reedbed around the Lough ready to breed. 

This is just our second Reed Warbler control/recovery and even better, just the seventh for Northern Ireland, the third NI ringed bird to be found outside the country. With more and more birds being ringed every year we are expecting these recoveries to become more regular and paint a better picture of Reed Warbler migration into NI. 

By chance, our friend and ringer Dean Jones from Coleraine is based on Lundy Island as a warden and may well have handled this very bird! 

Ringing on the Rock & Northern Irish Acrocephalus Warblers

I've finished putting together a report on the first two years of ringing at Blackers Rock, a little bit on the Reed Warbler in NI and also the migration of Reed Warbler and Sedge Warbler to/from Northern Ireland.

The report can be accessed in the link below or drop me an email and I can send by PDF

https://1drv.ms/b/s!ApJre-YC-2PrxhXxQ4yNlvVwde_m 


Below is just a snippit of the 43 page report.

Enjoy! 

Acro Warblers on Lough Neagh 2018

After our exploratory visits to our new site on the west shore of Lough Neagh in 2017 we were full of anticipation to get back in amongst the reeds this summer.

In 2017 we made two visits to the site producing 197 birds with 30 Reed Warblers, 121 Sedge Warblers, 17 Blackcaps, 10 Willow Warbler, 1 Sparrowhawk 2 Chiffchaff, 1 Wren, 2 Blue Tit and 6 Reed Buntings (which seems rather strange after 2018).

To refresh your minds on last years visits, please follow the links below:

https://causewaycoastrg.blogspot.com/2017/09/end-of-summer-update.html

https://causewaycoastrg.blogspot.com/2017/07/acros-galore.html

Reed Warbler

The total of 30 Reed Warblers was massive in an Irish and Northern Irish context given that the average catch of the species in NI between 2007-2016 was 3 birds per year and that there hadn't been more than 4 Reed Warblers caught in one year in the initial nine years before 17 in 2016. In the south they have averaged around 25 birds per year for the past 10 years. Certainly for the north, much of the change is down to effort and increased ringing around Lough Neagh once again - in 2015 there was no ringing in the area, one site in 2016, two sites in 2017 and two in 2018. In 2019 we should see this number climb further with certainly three, possibly four sites up and running, including two Constant Effort Sites with Portmore Lough being brought back into action after decades of no ringing - this site has produced over 1000 Sedge Warblers in certain years in the past and 1/2 Reed Warblers when they were much rarer back in the 1970's/1980's.




In 2018 we made three visits to the site on the 22nd of July, 11th of August and the final visit on the 25th of August producing 126 new birds (+2 controls), 182 new birds and 165 new birds respectively. Sedge Warbler numbers were pretty consistent across the three visits with 98, 97 & 84 respectively with Reed Warblers increasing across each with 10, 12 and 19. 

On the third visit there were noticeable gatherings of hirudines (and Swifts) feeding over the reedbeds and wet woodland so once the deluge of Acrocephalus (acros) warblers had subsided we had a go at tape luring some, successfully catching 15 Swallows and 3 Sand Martins with many more landing on top of the nets and poles and avoiding capture in the bright sunshine. I've never visited the Lough in the evening or at night but undoubtedly there must be some massive hirudine roosts forming all around the lough in autumn and our site seems better than most for potential habitat.
Through lack of extra hands we still haven't fully explored the potential of the backing wet woodlands but we did catch 26 Blackcap, 19 Willow Warbler and 4 Chiffchaff in short spells but a concerted effort would produce much more and perhaps a secret pair of Garden Warbler - the habitat is perfect (we may have as few as 50 breeding pairs in Ireland, generally around the Lakelands of Fermanagh, Leitrim, Roscommon and Cavan).

The combined totals of the three visits were:

Blackcap                      26
Chiffchaff                      4
Reed Bunting              83 (2)
Reed Warbler              41 [1 NW England control]
Robin                            2
Sand Martin                  3
Sedge Warbler            279 (1) [1 French control]
Swallow                        15
Willow Warbler            19
Wren                             1

Total                            473 (3) [2]

Reed Bunting

The biggest surprise of the year was the numbers of Reed Bunting around and the number caught. On the second visit an incredible 53 were caught (for not being a roost catch this is spectacular), an impressive 21 on visit three and a very decent 9 on visit one. Given that we only caught 6 in both visits combined in 2017 this is a massive change and 2019 might let us know what is normal! 


Having gone through the first autumn migration without a recovery from the 180 ringed warblers we were really quite surprised, particularly for Sedge Warblers which are readily controlled in the habitats they stopover in on migration. We were then even more surprised that we avoided any recoveries on the return journey north. 
The first visit of the season produced the goods with two controls, a very nice French ringed Sedge Warbler and a BTO ringed Reed Warbler which was even better in our minds! The Reed Warbler had been ringed at Middleton nature Reserve at Heysham Bird Observatory in Lancashire. Interestingly one of the ringers there, Pete Marsh, used to ring on our stomping grounds in the Bann Estuary back in the early 1970's and he reported that the Reed Warbler had arrived in a fall, including birds ringed elsewhere with 2 Sedge Warblers ringed in France and another in Belgium - did they all head to Ireland also?
A week after we received the details of our French control Sedge Warbler, we received news that one of our Sedge Warblers from this year had been recovered on the way south in France.

Sedge Warbler Movements (green) and Reed Warbler (light blue)

The Reed Warbler was originally ringed at Middleton Nature Reserve, Heysham on the 04th of May 2018 and controlled by us 79 days later at a distance of c151 miles.

The Sedge Warbler was originally ringed near La Rochelle on the west coast of France on its way south on the 11th of August 2017. It then spent the winter in sub-Saharan Africa before returning to Northern Ireland to breed for the first time, 345 days later, at a minimum distance of 1087 km but in reality this will be much more.

Our recovered Sedge Warbler was a juvenile ringed on the 11th of August this year and was recovered in Dourges in NE France 17 days later at a minimum distance of 790km. Normally we would expect these birds to stick to the west of France on their way to Africa but that's part of the beauty of the study of migratory birds.

Sedge Warbler

Limitations and Restrictions
As a ringing group, all of us are located 70-90 minutes away from the site, so regular visits and very early starts are difficult to enable the full monitoring the site deserves. The walk into the site is also over a mile long striding through reeds and wet grassland and not the easiest with all the equipment but the shear volume and quality of birds makes it very worth while. Getting sufficient pairs of hands in 2018 was our biggest restricting factor in regards to the number of nets we can use and also keeping the limited number open - at times the birds enter the nets faster than they can be extracted, let alone processed so the nets are closed until all birds have safely processed and released before reopening. Early morning seems to be the key time for the movement of birds with birds pouring through before tailing off before 9am, with basically no birds being caught around 10am. Normally on arrival the birds are in full flow and we've caught up to 17 birds in two joined nets in the process of erection which only takes a couple of minutes.
Cost is also a consideration when ringing such volumes of birds, the current price per bird for an A ring is 25.2p, so for the 449 ringed in 2018 equates to £113.50 + a further £5.07 in AA rings. Thankfully I have been able to source some funding sources over the past 4/5 years to pay for some of the rings, most notably to the Centre for Environmental Data & Recording (CEDaR) who covered the cost of 1000 A rings for 2018, but having never charged our T's & C's (and no plans to do so) there is still a financial burden into the £100's each year for myself and John. A CES would help us get a real understanding for the local breeding population of the site and take away the financial burden but unfortunately we couldn't commit to the effort at the moment!

..... but after all that, we do hope to increase our studies at the site next year to increase our understanding of the breeding birds on site, the turn over of birds in 24 hours and potentially investigate the sites potential in the evening (= overnight camping!).
If I get some time over the winter (on top of everything else I take on and pile up) I may take a look at the patterns from previous recoveries of the migration routes taken by be Sedge Warblers with the UK and Ireland to and from Lough Neagh of which I think there are three main routes - via NW England (possibly more so spring?), direct line through Wales out of SE Northern Ireland and NE Ireland and some to SE Ireland before making the leap to SW Wales and SW England.

The fresh wing (lower) of a juvenile Sedge Warbler and worn wing of an adult (upper)

A big thank you to John Clarke, Steve Fyffe, David Stirling, David Galbraith, Ken Perry, James O'Neill and James McDowell who were present at one+ of the visits and to Godfrey who gives us access to the site and is always on hand to assist. 

End of summer update

Yet again I have been slacking with the blog updates following a holiday in Hungary & Slovakia and I'm currently in the process of moving in to my new house. I'll hopefully get sorted in the next week or two and be back in action.
I received some great news from the BTO midweek to say that my application was successful and I have now been granted my A permit and I am also now registered as a ringing trainer!

So...... we have been semi-busy in the past 6 weeks with some more Storm Petrel ringing, general passerines, a trip to Copeland Bird Observatory, waders and we have been back down to Lough Neagh.


Lough Neagh, Take Two

Back on the 13th of August, John, Steve and I met with Godfrey and returned to the west shore of Lough Neagh where we had the very productive catch of 102 birds on the 16th of July.  We had another brilliant session with a slightly lower catch of 93 new birds but it did consist of a greater diversity and a fantastic 17 Reed Warblers taking us to 30 for the year. As an extra to the two nets we used the last time, we placed a net across the channel that separates the island from the mainland which is much closer to the wet woodland and it produced the majority of the Blackcap, Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler.
You'd like to think one or two of these 150+ acros will produce a recovery on the way south or during a later migration.

Reed Warbler

Lough Neagh                            
                                       New       

Blackcap                        17                                           
Blue Tit                           2                                              
Chiffchaff                        2            
Reed Warbler                17
Sedge Warbler               38
Sparrowhawk                  1
Willow Warbler              8                                        
Wren                                1               

Totals                              93                  

Sparrowhawk

We plan to return next year from mid to late summer and, with the right team, work the site to its full potential - 250-300 birds in a morning? A few trainees would be handy to carry the gear as the 1 mile walk through soaking reeds and swarms of flies is tough going :P



Mist-netting Waders

On August 25th John and I had a bash at mist-nesting some roosting waders with a decent forecast and a workable tide. With just the two of us on hand we stuck with just two 12m nets in a V over the main pool playing the 'Killer Redshank' tape. Ideally we could have had high tide two hours later and a bit of cloud cover but it wasn't bad.
There were plenty of birds about through the evening including 3 Greenshank, 2 Whimbrel and 100's of Curlew & Black-tailed Godwit and c30 Redshank. Early on there were 20 Teal in the pool but they were flushed by a Peregrine which I only noticed when 2 Teal landed right in front of me, which I thought was weird, when the Peregrine whizzed by and tried to nab them.

Black-tailed Godwit 

With the nets open we waited for darkness, catching one Redshank early on. The roosting birds began to move about around an hour after sundown and we ended the night with 16 birds of four species.

Curlew

Grangemore Waders
Species                       Ringed

Black-tailed Godwit      2
Curlew                           2
Dunlin                            2
Redshank                      10

Total                              16

Dunlin

We had hoped to have a few more attempts through September, as well as some Swallow roost catches but as mentioned I've not had the time but there are still a few weeks left yet to make it happen! 


Storm Petrels

On the Storm Petrel front we made our last two attempts of the season (six in total), again with a few visitors, this time from Northumberland.  We added another 5 new Storm Petrels and one control, taking us to a year total of 44 new, 1 retrap and 3 controls, which is our lowest since we started studying the species. We have yet to submit the details of the last control as yet but hope to sort that over the next month.

Storm Petrel

We had a little more luck with Redshank adding another 7 birds.

 Next stop Tiree in a due north path

Portstewart Strand

We have had three visits to Portstewart Strand on the 20th & 27th August and the 17th September and the combined ringing totals are below. There have been a few odds and sods around the estuary and my species total as of 19th Sep is now up to 115 including a roosting Long-eared Owl, Curlew Sandpiper, Sooty Shearwater, Great Skua and finally my first Collared Dove after 4/5 years of waiting! I've also been missed plenty in the estuary in the past month with Osprey, Sabines Gull (which would both be NI ticks for me), Little Stint, Arctic Skua and Ruff sighted by others. 

The Blue and Great Tits all appeared on the 17th September with 4 of the Chaffinches showing the changing of the guard. The final Willow Warbler of the year was caught on the 27th of August, one day earlier than the final bird of 2016. The Starling was caught in an evening catch.

Starling

 Portstewart Strand/Grangemore                            
                                       New       Retrap    

Blackcap                         11
Blue Tit                            3              1                 
Bullfinch                          2              1
Chaffinch                         5                                                       
Dunnock                          5              2
Goldcrest                         7              4
Goldfinch                        1
Great Tit                         5                        
Lesser Redpoll                2                                   
Linnet                              6          
Meadow Pipit                                  1  
Reed Bunting                  3
Robin                               5               1
Starling                           1                          
Willow Warbler             1                                        
Wren                               5             

Totals                              62              10                

We are approaching peak season at Portstewart Strand and John has 3 weeks of holidays coming up so we will be hoping for plenty more ringing in the coming weeks. We have also not had a suitable team where we can use all the nets so it will be nice to have some of the lesser-spotted trainees in tow.



Copeland Bird Observatory

On the 1st of September I headed over the Copeland Bird Observatory with a team of 11 others on a special trip to ring Manx Shearwater chicks during the peak emergence. I was planning on staying through to Sunday but the terrible forecast meant that we had to be taken off the island on Saturday afternoon.
In the down time waiting for darkness I had a shot at ringing some waders and was successful in catching one Redshank. Very little wader ringing has taken place at CBO in the last few decades and wader numbers are still very low on the island at this time of year but if I get another weekend visit this autumn I'll make a bigger effort. When the sun went down we headed out across the island in three teams of 4 and caught 173 new Manx Shewarwaters and dozens of retraps. I headed for bed at 1am so I could be up for 6am to open the mist nets to catch some migrant passerines. Some of the others lasted until around 4.30am.

Manx Shearwater youngster (DS)

I didn't actually record the number of birds caught in the nets in the morning but we did get 30+ birds made up mostly of Goldcrests, Robins and Swallows plus 4 Chiffchaff, Wren, a Blackcap and some of the resident retraps. We also found a late Woodpigeon nest with two chicks which were ringed.


There have been a few more birds processed with two mornings at the river site with a catch of 30+ birds made up mostly of Warblers, particularly Chiffchaff, of which we catch very few of.  I also had an attempt of catching the Jays in my parents garden but ended up catching the same Magpie three times and the rats have now eaten my big of peanuts yet again! 

Magpie