Juvs and moulting adults in the reed bed

A couple of productive hours in the Mallard reed bed on the Teifi marsh this morning.
A total of 52 birds were caught, 41 new and 11 retrap. 30 of the new birds were acros - Sedge and Reed Warblers. The others were Reed Buntings apart from a couple of Wrens, a Whitethroat and a Blackbird.
The majority of the Sedge Warblers were juvs but also a few adults undergoing body moult after breeding.

This bird, L250832, was ringed as a juvenile in the same reed bed on 25th July 2010. It was caught again on 10th July 2011 but has not been seen since.

 Until September we will be carrying out regular early morning ringing in the reed bed to monitor migration through it. This is part of continuing follow up to a paper written by the group in 2011 funded by a grant from the Welsh Ornithological Society.

A CES Kingfisher now.....

A second juvenile Kingfisher in 24 hours...
 (see post below)

 

A new bird for Tommy and a great photo by Tommy.
Numbers from CES and other week-end activities later..

Aquatics, acros...the Teifi and Loire Atlantique...

Aquatic Warbler 16th August 2010

One of the five ringed on the Teifi....last in 2010
.....and in France they are already catching them.....in July

Joanna Dziarska-Pałac

Last Friday, 19/07/13 we've opened the mist nets in our ringing station Donges-Est in the estuary of Loire (France). Already the 3rd day (21/07) we've captured our first Aquatic Warbler on migration! Looking forward to ringing the others AWs!
http://acrola.fr/camp_baguage.html
https://www.facebook.com/pages/ACROLA/195702077139259?ref=notif&notif_t=page_new_likes — with ACROLA.

So where is this site....?

Interesting !!
We have had 4 Sedge Warbler recoveries from Loire Atlantique and one controlled by us from there. 
Last Monday the 22nd July we controlled another French  Sedge Warbler on the Teifi.

Weather permitting we are planning to follow the established protocols as in previous years and attempt to open Mallard net rides every day until mid September...

Juvenile Kingfisher and Cetti's Warbler

Our first juvenile Kingfisher of the season in Mallard nets today.....

With Chris's initiative and effort we now have net rides on both sides of the River Piliau, and across it too.

This is the tidal watercourse running through the west edge of the reed-bed, the opposite side to the Teifi (east) and borders hedgerow and scrub............

Great to catch our first Kingfisher of the year, our 25th  Kingfisher ringed in the Group's five year history.

.........and nice a 3J Cetti's Warbler too.

Pictured, an adult Sedge Warbler...the only adult of 11 Sedge caught today. 

Also 6 new Reed Warblers and 9 new Reed Buntings..

.....MORE on acros including Aquatics in a new posting tomorrow....

CES 8, not just birds

Mid July and numbers of juveniles being ringed on the Teifi marsh at our CES site is increasing as expected. A juvenile Willow Tit was the only surprise amongst the 31 young Dunnocks, Wrens, Reed and Sedge Warblers, Bullfinches, Reed Buntings, Robins,Chiffs, Blackcaps, Great, Long-tailed and Blue Tits. A total of 54 birds were caught of which 39 were new. The same session last year was similar with 29 of 44 new birds being juveniles.
With several pairs of hands around for this session we ran a moth trap overnight in the slate waste, scrubby area next to the reed bed. This used to be a regular event at our CES sessions and some excellent species have been recorded with the help of Tony Lewis and Janet. This week Karen was in charge.

It was a cold clear night so the catch was small but some good species were caught including this Annulet.

As the distribution maps shows (from the excellent Butterfly Conservation site) , it has quite a limited range

A total of 18 species were caught. 6 of the Micro moths were new records.
Mothing at ringing sessions has proved particularly useful at ringing demonstrations when birds are slow to be caught as children seem to be universally fascinated by moths. It has also stimulated some others of the group to start catching in their own gardens. As a result I was lucky enough to catch a very unusual moth for this far west in my garden today - a Beautiful Hook-tip, only the 3rd record for Ceredigion and one which has never yet been caught in Pembrokeshire.

All records are submitted to County Recorders to go into national databases to monitor biodiversity changes.
Next blog - back to birds...........

A week-end in Mallard net rides....breeders and passage

A very wet start to both week-end mornings....though the sun and heat did soon arrive !

Sedge and Reed Warblers are target species in the Mallard net runs in Autumn.
With over 1150 Sedge ringed and 560 Reed Warblers ringed here in the past 4 years. Producing Sedge Warbler recoveries down the west coast of Europe, all the way to Senegal in west Africa.

A typical start to mid-July ringing with 8 new of both species.

Reed Warblers are the important breeder here, the most important site in Ceredigion. Reed Warblers were not proved to breed in Pembs until 1975 (Donovan & Rees) or Ceredigion until 1978 (Roderick & Davis)

This year on the reserve;-
Of  the 66 Reed Warblers caught to the end of June - 34 were retraps from previous years. Whereas with Sedge Warblers of 138 caught to the end of June only 4 retraps from previous years..

Redstarts delight at CES 7.....

Two juvenile Redstarts today doubled our total to four in our five years of  CES. Our only other recently fledged juvenile being on the 9th July 2011. - a very similar date

Photos by Tommy Evans

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 today and 7 Reed Warbler recaptures too...