Sand Martins 2019

On the 20th of June I was joined by Nathan for the first visit to the Grangemore Sand Martin colony. I had been keeping an eye on it earlier in the year and had noticed 100+ Sand Martins and lots of fresh holes. We arrived bright and early and got the nets up but the result was disastrous with just three new birds caught and two retraps from previous years one from 22/07/2017 & the other from 14/07/2018. With first catches normally ranging from 56-147 birds, it was looking like a poor year. A new Sedge Warbler, a retrap from July 2017 and a new Meadow Pipit were also caught.

Sand Martin (old picture)

A few more visual visits were made to the site and there were still far too few birds around to warrant any further ringing visits. It is presumed that mammalian predation may have led to the abandonment of the colony - Fox or Badger most likely.

Something that may go in some way to explain where they have all disappeared to is that two of our birds are now breeding in Scotland. The first of these is one of last years juveniles that has opted for a sand quarry in Argyll and Bute, Scotland, 7 kilometres from Campbelltown. The bird was recaptured in Scotland on the 21st of June, 342 days after originally being ringed. The distance between the sites is only 73km but this bird will have migrated to Arica and back in between.

The second bird was also one of our 2018 juveniles and it has moved even further north. It was captured on the 28th of June along the River Lochy to the north-east of Fort William, Highland, Scotland. This site is 218 kilometres to the north east of us, 349 days between ringing and recapture.

Sand Martins have also recolonised the southern side of the Portstewart Strand spit tip and a few have taken up home in Castlerock Golf Club, so, although our main bank is down, they are still doing well in the estuary - but certainly lower numbers.

French recovery via a Long-eared Owl

Hot on the heels of the Sand Martin movement to France we have received news of another French recovery although it wasn't what we were expecting.
The bird in question refers to a mystery small French ring which John had found inside of a Long-eared Owl pellet on the Ulster University Campus in Coleraine back in April 2011.  Following a few years of trying to get the ringing details, even sending messages in French, we had written off receiving them.  We had thought the most likely species would have been something like a Lesser Redpoll, Sedge Warbler or perhaps a Siskin.
As it turns out it was another Sand Martin originally ringed at Lagunage, Rochefort, Charente-Maritime on the Atlantic Coast roughly 112 miles to the south of last weeks bird.  It was originally ringed on the 20th of August 2006 during an evening roost catch at a minimum distance of 1101km from Coleraine.  It was aged as a youngster in 2006 so it could have made as many as ten flights between Northern Ireland and Sub-Saharan Africa.  John is quite confident that the pellet was fresh when he found it as he had been watching the LEO nest above.

Sand Martin movement from France

This was actually the second recovery John has found in LEO pellets at the University and it's a great reward for his efforts.  The other bird was a Siskin which had originally been ringed at Gibraltar Point in Lincolnshire on the east coast of England.  

Post 100!

The BTO sent through some good news to say that one of our Sand Martins was controlled in France on its first migration south.  The bird was originally ringed at our Grangemore Sand Martin colony on the 18th of June 2016 and wound up at Tour aux Moutons, Donges, Loire-Atlantique, France 52 days later, travelling a minimum distance of 932 kilometres. 

Sand Martin control to Donges, France


I promised to give details of one of our Oystercatchers that turned up in Dublin ages ago and I have finally got around to processing it.  It was ringed as a recently fledged bird by Ken back in June 2004 at Croaghan Islet, Mulroy Bay, Donegal which was a former gull/tern breeding colony before it was decimated by American Mink.  We are unable to say where it has spent the past 12 and a half years of its life but it was still going strong at South Lagoon, Bull Island, Dublin on the 29th November 2016.  The minimum distance travelled is 228 kilometres although it is highly likely that it passed along the coast on its way to Dublin.  The oldest Oystercatcher recorded in the UK was over 40 years old, so some way to go for this bird to be a record breaker.

 Oystercatcher movement to Dublin

It had been over a month since our last visit to Castlerock, when John, David, Dineka and I dragged ourselves out last Sunday.  It was a cold start sitting at 3 below, with a very hard frost, which had even turned the normally soft estuarine sand to a hard cake.  It heated up a bit in the clear sunny skies but perhaps not the best for mist nets.  There are still thousands of berries remaining on the bushes to keep the birds interested but it looks like they are starting to drop now.  The flock of c40 Fieldfare were still scattered through the bushes with plenty of Bullfinches for company.
The Fieldfares are still giving us the run around and we failed to catch any but we did catch a few Blackbirds and Bullfinches.


Castlerock Golf Club 05/02/2017  
                                New      Retrap
Blackbird                  3              1          
Bullfinch                   2              1
Dunnock                   1
Goldcrest                                  1
Robin                        1               1 
Song Thrush            1          
Wren                                         1 

Total                          8              5            

Bullfinches             DS


There have been a further two ringing training sessions in Antrim with Copeland Bird Observatory.  The catches have been rather low with not many birds visiting the feeders throughout the winter.  We did get a bit of excitement on the first visit when a flock of Waxwings had appeared in the car park but unfortunately they had been chased off by a pair of Mistle Thrushes by the time we arrived. 
The Observatory opens up again next month so all focus will be back on the island.


I have spotted and received details of 16 colour-ringed geese over the past few weeks and will update on those in a later post.