Summer on the Teifi - a round up

CES 2016  - birds we don't catch annually...but we did this year....!

Magpie,

 Pied Flycatcher,

 Willow Tit,

 Grasshopper Warbler,

Otherwise CES was generally poor for numbers of most species. Now the CES season is complete, the BTO will soon publish a summary of national and regional results.

Over the last month we have been active on Poppit beach at night, passage waders are the target. Chris has introduced mist netting elsewhere to complement our lamping. This has improved our Dunlin totals considerably, with c50 caught this month and a Redshank.

 Ringed Plovers are more scattered on the beach and more successfully caught with hand net....

as was this Bar-tailed Godwit..!
 

A brief look at stats for June, July and August in the Teifi Marsh reed beds (not the CES site).....
Birds ringed included
301 Sedge Warblers, and 1 foreign control.
208 Reed Warblers, - great for our RAS project.
7 Cetti's Warblers, - maybe below average...
22 Reed Buntings - poor for our RAS project.
and 9 Kingfishers - above average.

We have already had recoveries of 2 of the August Sedge Warblers.
S322035 was ringed on 5th August by Tristian and controlled at Westdown Plantation, Wiltshire by the North Wilts Ringing Group 9 days later, 208km on the 14th August.
S161775 was ringed on the 15th August, also by Tristian on the 15th August and caught 9 days later at South Milton Ley, Devon 208 km on the 24th August.

News back from the BTO of ringing details of the 2 French ringed Sedge Warblers we caught this summer. One was ringed at Tour aux Moutons, Loire Atlantique on 28th August 2015 and caught on the Teifi Marsh on 5th May 2016. The other was ringed also ringed on the west coast of France at Braud - et- Saint Louis, Gironde on 13th August 2015 and caught by us on the 21st July 2016

During the Autumn dispersal and migration of TRG members, ringing will still be ongoing. There will be  ringing sessions on the Teifi Marshes and at Mwnt for Linnets and general migration.
Keep an eye on the blog for news from near and far.

CES season over....blow in the Autumn

754... our total of captures during CES 2016 and not the lowest season for us. We captured 54 new and 16 retraps today including 32 Chiffchaff.

Our lowest season was in 2012 with only 672 captures followed by 732 in 2013. Following this poor breeding season I presume next year will be low with a smaller breeding population resulting from this year's poor productivity. Details on some individual species to follow another day from 8 years of our current CES. Amazing that in 2009 our CES total was 1265 and in 2010 - 1483 birds..!

For CES last week we had 11 people available so we opened nets at our Mallard site too. Nice to welcome Alastair Wilson back for a visit after his time on Bird Island, South Georgia with Albatrosses, Penquins and Petrels. He joined us over by Mallard hide with Andrew who was delighted with a new species, Grasshopper Warbler adding variety to the commoner reed bed species.

Our Acro and general ringing at our Teifi Marsh sites will continue for a while and we will start our intensive Autumn migration monitoring at our CES site, where autumn surprises have included Wryneck (2012)

Common Rosefinch, Siberian Chiffchaff, Yellow-browed Warblers and Firecrests too....

Ryan has just gained his C permit

With assistance from Chris, he has already set up a small woodland site close to his home.  Nuthatch a new species for him already, ringed there on day one.

Charlie is a new member of the Group and he has recently gained his A permit, a Trainers endorsement for Charlie next !

So let the Autumn blow in..!!
               ....another Yellow-browed Warbler would be nice....

(Photos Andrew, Ryan, Tommy and Wendy)

Sedge Warblers and Swallows

Sedge Warblers are on the move.
One juvenile we ringed on 26th July was already in Dorset, 221 km away 4 days later. This was caught by Ian Dodd ( @LittleseaObs )
As in previous years, peak passage occurs in the 2nd week of August on their Autumn migration.
On Sunday 14th, 41 Sedge Warblers were ringed in a few nets around Mallard pond on the Teifi Marsh taking us to over 100 this month so far.

This was a good session teaching our newest trainees, Andrew and Tristian with a juvenile Kingfisher being the highlight for them

The 6th juvenile Kingfisher this year

Juvenile Reed Warblers are making up the rest of the bulk of the birds in the reed bed nets.

By night hundreds of migrating Swallows are roosting in the reeds. A good catch of 89 last night, mostly juveniles. A roost session last week was a special day for our visiting young ringer Jacob, from Northants RG as the first bird was a Grasshopper Warbler, a new species for him. A big thanks to his Dad who helped with the admin during a busy hour when 61 Swallows were processed.
CES 10 was completed last week. Our quietest ever with just 29 birds compared to the bumper year in 2011 when we caught 108. Highlights were a couple of juvenile Garden Warblers and some Blackcaps.

Teifi Starling to Lithuania

News today from the BTO of a Starling ringed by us on the Teifi Marsh on 20th November 2014 and caught by a ringer in Ventes Ragas, Silutes, Lithuania this June.

573 days  1737 km
Ventes Ragas, where it was caught is one of the oldest bird ringing stations in Europe. They catch a lot of Starlings, 14,626 were ringed there this June.

This is one of the 19 Starlings ringed that evening, one of thousands that roost on the Teifi Marsh in winter

Roost ringing and 2 French Sedgies

A control juvenile Swallow was among the 30 caught last night on the Teifi Marsh. It will be interesting to see where a bird with the ring from the series Z907 was ringed, obviously very recently.

We now have 4 trainees and with a keen Biology student home for the holidays from Oxford Uni as well it was good to be able to introduce some of them to roost ringing in the reed bed.

Every evening from about 20.30 the numbers of Hirundines over the marsh builds to several hundred. This month we have caught 65 Swallows and 1 Sand Martin.

(photo thanks to Dean)
Pied Wagtails come in to roost a bit earlier and 19 have been ringed so far this month.

As usual we are out ringing early every morning, weather permitting, to continue our long term monitoring of migration through the Teifi Marsh. Sedge Warbler numbers are increasing and a surprise earlier in the week was a French control. Although we catch several French ringed birds in Spring, it was our first in July but this year this was swiftly followed by another French control, this time with a Strasbourg not Paris ring.

CES 7....a yearly comparison,

On July 7th 2013 I wrote...."CES 7 this year compared to last year.   45 new birds this year..31 last year.  18 retraps this year..28 last year
Only one piece of data, but supports the better breeding season this year following a poor breeding last year producing fewer birds to recapture. 14 new Chiffchaffs and 7 Reed Warbler recaptures too..."

This year during CES 7 we captured  52 new birds and only 13 retraps. A surprisingly  low proportion of retraps. The Totals of  CES 7 for 2010-2016 are at the end of the post.

We recaptured a male Redstart ringed during CES 5. Back in 2013 Redstart was a not a species that we caught annually, we now appear to have Redstarts breeding more locally. The photo is of a juvenile taken caught during CES 7 last year. Perhaps a trend shown in the latest BTO Breeding Bird Survey report just published.

The most numerous species caught was Chiffchaff, 15 new and 2 retrap.

Reed Warblers have always been a feature of our CES, 7 new and 4 retraps this session.
We have a RAS site nearby for Reed Warblers, but we are interested in the Reed Warbler data provided by CES too. This season we have caught over 132 Reed Warblers, nearly all adults so far. I have a feeling that the 49+ new adults is unusual for us.....work to do !

Two of our trainees Dai and Dean had the chance to learn how to fit colour-rings on Reed Buntings, another species we are studying, and attempting a RAS project. Two adults and a juvenile were caught.

A good proportion of our Reed Bunting recapture records are from photographers. Many thanks particularly to Tommy and Colin. Great to add a bit of Citizen Science to a visit to the Teifi Marshes Reserve.

Three new juvenile Treecreepers were the other highlight of this CES visit.

TOTALS for CES 7	New	Retrap
2010	45	23
2011	95	27
2012	31	28
2013	45	18
2014	58	26
2015	68	15
2016	52	13

More juvs and French controls

The first juvenile Sedge Warblers were ringed on the Teifi Marsh yesterday

Also the first juvenile Lesser Whitethroat and Cetti's Warbler.

Not an easy development for some young. Irregular feeding producing extreme growth bars in the feathers as this tail shows in one of today's juvenile Reed Warblers.

Although this is an old paper, the abstract does explain growth bars nicely.
Ptilochronology, Feather growth bars as indicators of nutritional status.


CES 6 was done last week with  just 48 birds caught compared to 82 on the equivalent CES last year.
The most interesting catch was a juvenile Willow Tit, caught with the adult that we ringed last week. As noted in a previous blog it would be nice to think that these are breeding on the reserve.
Other Tit species were notable by their absence, a different story on our garden feeders where Blue and Great Tit juveniles are present in large numbers.

Regular readers of the blog will remember that we caught a good number of Sedge Warblers on migration this Spring including 1 Belgian, 10 French and 4 UK controls. We have now had details from the BTO of another two of the French birds. Both ringed on Autumn migration last year.
FRP.7828959 was ringed in Sandouville, Seine Maritime on 6th August 2015.
FRP.7843214 was ringed in Mars-Ouest on 21st August 2015.
The latest two have been added to the map of other Spring 2016 Sedge Warbler controls already received. We are now just waiting for ringing details of 5 French and 1 Belgian controls.

We don't catch many Storm Petrels at Mwnt but last night 11 were caught, all new. This was our second highest catch at Mwnt. 13 on 1st July 2014 included 3 controls and a retrap.

Weather permitting, we are planning the next CES for Wednesday 6th July