France to the Teifi

Another French control Sedge Warbler, 6321623, was caught in a short session in the reed bed at Mallard hide this morning. That is our 16th Sedge Warbler control (8th foreign).

Also news of the Sand Martin with a French ring 6051318 that we caught on the 6th April this year.It was ringed on 4th August 2009 inLe Massereau, Frossay, Loire Atlantique in France. (610 days, 572km)

Teifi RG on TV!

An S4C TV programme was being filmed on the reserve yesterday. 8 celebrities are staying in the nearby Fforest camp for a week of intensive Welsh learning. Matt Johnson and Sophie Evans were out for a dawn walk and called to see us ringing at Mallard hide.
They were delighted to see some Sedge and Reed Warblers but declined the offer of some waders to experience the mud of the reed bed!

Wheatears - potential for a RAS project?

Sunday morning was spent on the southern slopes of the Preselis with spring traps for Wheatears. A lot of time waiting and watching.....

but success, amongst those caught - this retrap juvenile Wheatear that was ringed as a pullus by Paddy on 27th May. He ringed pulli in 2 nests at this site.
The resident adults did seem much more wary of the traps than Wheatears we have trapped at Mwnt (a coastal site) on migration. There was plenty of food around so our mealworms weren't so tempting.
The site has a good number of breeding Wheatear in a defined area so it does seem to have potential for a future RAS (Retrapping adults for survival) project.

What a nice tail..........

The highlight of this week-end's Teifi ringing..
This young male Redstart only the third that we have caught.

We also caught 3 new juvenile Cetti's Warblers in the 2 reserve's sites this week-end amongst the rapidly increasing Reed & Sedge Warbler totals..
(photos Dawn J)

CES 7

With adults in heavy moult and nowhere to been seen (Blue tits ..to Willow Warblers), plenty of juveniles, these the highlights. This a new juvenile Kingfisher, much brighter than last weeks juv. I didn't think that we catch many Treecreepers, thus a nice photo...a quick check with ipmr....oh? this is our 12th..!!
(Photos Dawn J.)

Strumble Stormies

A new venture for the TRG last night, ringing Storm Petrels at Strumble Head.
The net was set up below the sea watching lookout.
10 pm and it was still daylight.

Adrian joined the TRG for the night and took some photos for us.
Hundreds of passing Manxies entertained us while waiting for darkness......
The first Storm Petrels were caught at 11.47. This was just after the Rosslare to Fishguard ferry went past so theories were flying around about the boat pushing the birds towards land. Sounded reasonable at the time.
Note the healthy midnight snacks!
Only four were caught but a useful first session to get used to the site and the sound system.
A good way to end a long day that had started at 4.30am for some of us when we opened the nets for
CES!

Skokholm revisited

The turn of adult Manxies today, Wendy with one of the 30+ ringed from their burrows...we are trying to ring 100 adults in this study plot.

Alice doing a great job with the admin, whilst a Manxie copies a Puffin in attempting to bite me.


Part of the Puffin colony only minutes after we had finished.... we did successfully colour-ring the remaining 30 Puffins today, all the Manxies and Puffin work carried out for EGI (Oxford Univ.)
Jerry - Skokholm warden has resightings of 60+ of the c120 Colour-ringed Puffins so far.



I guess the final sea-bird ringing trip of the season....?

The group today not only from the Teifi RG and Pembs RG, but also Ian and Cedwyn from the Gower RG....Note the major rarity North of the Cleddau in the form of John Hayes !!
Delighted to see you John.