Sand Martin Colony 22/06/2015

This morning I made use of some fine conditions to make the first visit of the year to the main Sand Martin colony near Macfin.  It was actually a bit windy but the lay of land helps protect the nets from the wind blowing off the river.

 
The catching started quick with 10 birds in the nets whilst setting up.  Once I processed the birds I went back for the next round and had 41 birds.  Because I was by myself and I had a lot of birds to process, I closed one of the nets and went for ring, age, sex and fling method.  Once I had finished processing the last lot I went to close up, catching a further 31 birds.

In total I managed 79 new birds and only three retraps.  The low retrap rate surprised me, as, with 144 new birds ringed last year, I was expecting a much higher return.  Hopefully over the next two visits, we can pick up more of these birds from last year.  7 of the birds were juveniles from this year, 42 males, 32 Females and 1 unsexed.   

Adult Sand Martin

Juvenile Sand Martin

Juvenile plumage

I'm off the Greece for a bit of island hopping for a couple of weeks, so the blog will be quiet.  The next Sand Martin Visit is planned for mid July (perhaps 10-12th weekend), so get in touch if you want to come along.  We will probably go for a late visit and then go for a Storm Petrel session after.

June Bits and Pieces

Time has been limited thus far in June, so we have only managed bits and pieces, here and there.

 Back at the start of the month I re-visited the Castleroe Wood nest boxes to ring the 5 broods that weren't ready in May.  The poor breeding season for Blue & Great Tits continued with only three of the broods having some success.  The first brood had 1 chick and 2 cold eggs, brood two was 2 alive plus one dead chick, brood three were 5 dead chicks, brood five (the only Blue Tits of the season) were 7 cold eggs and brood five was 2 alive & 2 dead. 

 

 Great Tit

Normally from the 30 boxes (now 29) there is c75% occupancy but that was down to 26/7% occupancy producing only 16 chicks to a ringable age.  All those ringed were Great Tit, so it may be the disastrous season for the Blue Tits that is skewing the results. 

 Great Tit

Each year a pair of Pair Wagtails nest around my house, usually managing two broods.  This year they choose the new nest box nestled in the Climbing Hydrangea.  I ringed the 4 chicks on the 9th of June and they have since fledged.  Hopefully the adults will go again for brood two.

Pied Wagtail 

 

 

 

Last week Adam McClure from the Northern Ireland Raptor Study Group came up to check out some birds of prey nests around the University of Ulster in Coleraine.  Thanks to Adams tree climbing skills we were able to access a couple of nests, although the presumed Buzzard nest was empty but we did get an active Sparrowhawk nest.  There were 3 chicks in the nest with one male and two females.

 



Another of Adams main projects is running the Northern Ireland Black-headed Gull Survey, which has produced some nice results.  You can check out more information on the blog below.

http://bhgullsni.blogspot.co.uk/

 Adam hard at work

On Saturday morning John and Steve had a session at the University river site.  In very nice conditions (for basking in the sun) they managed a dozen birds including the first Whitethroat of the year, a couple of Starlings and a few more fledglings of common species.

 

 

 

Portstewart Strand 15/06/2015

I usually find June to be a quiet month for ringing but with nice birds still popping up around the UK & Ireland, I dragged myself out of bed at 05.15.  It was a warm and cloudy day for the most, with the thermometer hitting 18°C by midday.  The winds were light southerlies, rising to c12mph by the afternoon when the sun came out. 

Starling

The scrub is now alive with the sound of young birds with Robins and Dunnocks in particular.  Other notable birds were the first Redshank (2) and Curlew (3) for a month or more; which may have been failed breeders on the way south, c20 Swifts feeding low over 'Grangemore' across the river and c170 Black-headed Gulls, which is way up on the recent dozen birds or so.  A new pair of Sedge Warblers have taken up residence close to the gorse nets which should hopefully breed.

Dunnock

The ringing is yet to pick up with only 12 new birds and 7 retraps but 5 new birds of the year is good to see.  I packed up west ride around 10 am and took an attempt at the small Sand Martin colony.  Watching the birds I reckon there are 7-8 active nests, 6-7 in a cluster and a single nest further over on the bank.  The two smaller banks further to the west that were utilised last year are empty this year.  I set a 9m 2 shelf net in front of the main cluster and caught 3 birds but the conditions at that stage were very bright and a little breezy.  The hope is to record interactions between the local colonies and perhaps pick a few of the birds in roost catches.
The Starling and Sand Martin are new ringed species for the site!       

Sand Martin

 

Ringing Totals 15/06/2015

                                        New         Retrap         

Blackcap                                             1

Bullfinch                                              2   

Dunnock                           3                 2                        

Linnet                               1

Meadow Pipit                   1

Robin                                1

Sand Martin                      3 

Song Thrush                                        1

Starling                             1

Willow Warbler                 2                 1                                    

Total                                12                 7 

Portstewart Strand 04/06/2015

At 6am this morning the conditions were overcast, mild (10°C), dry and the wind was coming from the south-east at around 5-6mph.  The forecast had said the rain would start to arrive after midday but unfortunately it arrived early and I had to pack up at 10am.

 

Again it was pretty quiet and it will probably remain that way until late summer, when the birds are on the move again.  The only things of note were the 100's of Starlings roaming about in noisy flocks (which thankfully avoided the gorse nets), 2 Greylag Geese and 3 Grey Herons.  The Otter was again busy fishing in its favoured spot and I spotted my first Cinnabar moth of the year.  The first fledglings of the year were scattered about with 1 Robin, 4 Stonechat, 3 Goldfinch and a couple of Meadow pipits. 

Meadow Pipit

In terms of ringing it was slow and only one juvenile bird hit the nets - a Meadow Pipit.  Breeding is evidently late, as with much of the UK but there should be a flood (hopefully) of juveniles to come over the next month or two.  Four new Blackcaps (2 pairs) is always good, which seem to be holding territory beside the net rides. 


Ringing Totals 04/06/2015

                                        New         Retrap         

Blackcap                           4

Bullfinch                                              3   

Chaffinch                         1                  1

Dunnock                                              1                      

Meadow Pipit                   1                

Song Thrush                    1

Willow Warbler                1                  2

Wren                                                    2                                    

Total                                8                 9 

Sandwich Tern Colony 02/06/2015

This morning Ken and I headed to the Inch Wild Fowl Reserve in Inishowen, County Donegal to ring Sandwich Tern chicks.  Ken has been studying the colony for 20+ years and it has produced some great results (I'll update the SANTE info at some point soon), including some very nice controls/recoveries.  We met up with 2 staff members from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (Ireland) who manage the site and another of Kens trainees who lives locally.

We were a little worried for the health of the chicks following continuous wet and windy weather and what was the worst June storm (possibly) on record the day previous.  We arrived in fine conditions but it was obvious the water levels were high and going to impact the colony on the island. 
Once we sailed over to the colony we could immediately see that a number of nests had been flooded including the nests of all the Common Terns, some Black-headed Gulls and a couple of Mute Swans, with eggs floating in the water.  The Sandwich Terns concentrate their nests on the slightly higher, less vegetated area of the island, so seemed to be unscathed.

 

  Ken had visited the site on the 22nd of May to count the Sandwich Tern chicks/eggs and managed a total of 488.  We found quite a few dead chicks that had succumb to the bad weather but we still managed to ring 161 chicks.  There was also a number of freshly hatched chicks that we did not ring, a few unhealthy chicks and lots of eggs yet to hatch, perhaps another 250.  It is still early in season, so hopefully the Common Terns will make another attempt.

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As well as the terns, there are hundreds of Black-headed Gulls nesting on the island, although these are not studied.  We did ring a few of the larger chicks to give the trainees some experience with the species. 

Black-headed Gull chick

 

Black-headed Gull nest

John and Ken had a short ringing session at the University ringing site on Saturday 30th of May.  They caught 8 new birds including the first fledged passerine of the year in the form of a Robin.  Other species caught included Blackbird and Blackcap.

John also visited a few of his next boxes at the Gateside Road and ringed some Great Tit and Swallow pullus.  The Blue Tits and Tree Sparrows are only freshly hatched, so should be ready to ring in a week or so.