Tree Pipit adds variety to the September regulars

The settled weather has given us the chance to ring regularly on the Teifi Marsh this week. Our migration monitoring through the reserve is now on our drier CES site rather than the reed bed site by Mallard hide used during August.
The commonest species have been Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs with a few surprises.
This Tree Pipit was only the second that we have caught. The last was in September 2010.

In the same net was a Grey Wagtail. We don't catch many, this only the second since 2010 on this part of the reserve.

There was an increase in Robins caught and heard this week which fits with Skokholm Island recording 28 on the 9th Sept, they are on the move.


Some news of recoveries just received from the BTO...

Reed Warbler Y171344
Ringed at Kilpaison Marsh by the Pembs Ringing Group on 20th May 2012
Controlled by us on the Teifi Marsh on 31st July 2015
1167 days 53km

Storm Petrel 2683366
Ringed at The Lizard by West Cornwall Ringing Group on 17th June 2015
Controlled by us at Mwnt 26th July 2015
39 days 244km

Sedge Warbler L018029
Ringed at Icklesham, East Sussex by Rye Bay Ringing Group on 13th August 2010
Controlled by us on the Teifi Marsh on 16th August 2015
1829 days, 390 km

September warblers and waders too ....

During September with CES finished, we start to move our extra catching effort from the Mallard nets in the reed-bed to part of the CES site. The nets in the mixed habitat in the Pentood part of the marsh run throughout.
More on the warblers later but first some waders.
This a nice one for us - a juvenile Greenshank on the beach !

Our wader catches are usually made up of Dunlin.

with smaller numbers of Ringed Plover, an important species for us to catch as their roosting habits aren't favourable to cannon netting. Most of our waders caught are juveniles..

Before we closed Mallard reed bed nets for the season, a couple more juvenile Kingfishers were caught which brings the total to 9 new ones this year and 50 Kingfishers on the Teifi Marsh since 2008.

After one week in the CES site, the main species caught as part of our migration monitoring have been Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs.

We are catching a good variety of warblers every morning including Willow Warblers, Reed Warblers, Sedge Warblers and smaller numbers of Common Whitethroat, Garden Warbler and this Lesser Whitethroat...

Last Saturday we hosted a ringing demonstration for the Mid Pembs branch of the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales in conjunction with a talk we are giving them next week about ringing.

Keen younger birders are always welcome - hoping to inspire them to become OUR Next Generation Birders... and ringers

Ringing on Skokholm



Photo by Jake Gearty

Five of us went ringing on Skokholm from the 24th to the 31st of August. There was me and Chris from the Teifi ringers and there was Steve, Anna and Kim from Pembrokeshire ringing group. Thank you to Steve and Anna for organising the trip.

This was my first time to the island, which I had read and heard lots about, but nothing prepares you for the beauty of the island or the Manx shearwaters flying over head at night.

During the week we shared the island with some great people, I had the pleasure of meeting Bob and Annie Haycock who are amazing birders and photographers (they were on the island helping type up some archives of bird logs recorded in the 1940's -50's by hand, which included data from when Peter Condor was warden). We also had the pleasure of having a group of 6 Next Generation Birders, Craig, Kirsty, Sophie, Jake, Drew and Michael who were very keen to ID as many species as possible as they were in competition against another group on Bardsey, so they were great help at letting us know what species were around and helping Richard and Giselle with their bird log. Unfortunately Bardsey won with 94 species to Skokholm with 84.

Highlights include young Storm petrel weighing, visiting the Storm petrel colony in the quarry, Manx shearwaters ringing, which we did most nights and Storm petrel ringing, which due to low numbers was more of a demonstration and a chance for some of the NGB's bird ringing trainees to ring Storm petrels. I really enjoyed being able to see how much I had learned about ringing birds, ageing, sexing, etc and being able to pass this on to other people.



Young Storm petrel.



Photo by Craig Reed of a Manx Shearwaters.

Species ringed: Meadow pipit, Rock pipit, Willow warbler, Dunlin, Manx shearwater, Storm petrel, Robin, Sedge warbler, Reed bunting, Wren, Spotted flycatcher, Swallow, Whitethroat and a retrapped Lesser whitethroat.

Species seen: Bar-tailed godwit, Black-tailed godwit, Little stint, Knot, Ruff, Gannet, Fulmar, Peregrine, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Merlin, buzzard, Golden plover, Wheatear, Chough, Whimbrel, Curlew, Greenshank, Oystercatchers, Cormorant, Shag, Moorhen, Greater black-backed gull, Lesser black-backed gull, etc.

I got to ring three new species, Rock pipit, Manx shearwaters and DUNLIN!!!! My first wader, which takes me up to 36 species ringed.

In the words of Kim: "Chris was like a ninja when catching the Dunlin"



Photo by Kirsty Heiner, Dunlin being ringed.

On our day of departure Spotted flycatcher began to arrive, Kim and Bob managed to catch one in a heligoland trap, which was a new species for Kim. Until departure me and Chris kept checking the heligoland traps and we had a mist net up in the courtyard, but to no avail. But I did mange to catch a Swallow in a heligoland trap which does not happen very often.

Photo by Kirsty Heiner, of the Spotted flycatcher ringed by Kim

North Pond

                      


A few words from Craig Reed:

"thank you from the NGB ringers to the members of the ringing team present on Skokholm Island for the week of out visit, a great group of people, providing great help and passing on valuable knowledge. Thanks for the opportunity to ring species normally well out of grasp for me, allowing valuable experience with a number of amazing species such as Storm Petrel, Manx Shearwater and Rock Pipit. I can't imagine I will be ringing any of those any time soon in my Midlands homeland! Thanks to all from the Teifi ringing group and Pembrokeshire ringing group, great to have met you all!"

To wrap up, the island lived up to my expectations, it was an amazing experience, which I could happily repeat yearly. I loved the isolation of the island, the beauty of it and of course the amazing variety of bird species day and night. The only thing missing was my beautiful wife and daughter, who will have to come with me next time.


CES 2015 ends with variety..

August has been a difficult month for ringing with windy, showery weather but today we managed our last CES for the year.
A total of 66 new and 23 retraps but it was notable for the variety of birds. A new species for the group, a juvenile Spotted Flycatcher although we have ringed 2 broods of pulli in the past.

A Wood Pigeon was a surprise too, only the 4th ringed on the reserve. The largest species so far for our newest trainee, Dai, to ring

and learn about moult. Here the difference between old and new primaries is shown.

4 Cetti's Warblers in one day is unusual. This one a moulting juvenile..

A very young Lesser Redpoll and a Lesser Whitethroat were the other uncommon species with Blackcaps and Chiffs making up the bulk of the rest of the new birds.

We are still catching Sedge and Reed Warblers on the other side of the reserve in short morning and evening sessions. The most notable bird this week has been a Sedge Warbler which gained weight from 10.8g to 17.5g (fat 6) in 9 days!

A lot of the Reed Warblers are showing marked growth bars indicating sporadically insufficient food supplies during feather growth.

We are currently looking at our data for summer acro ringing and are seeing a trend noted in other ringing groups of a higher than expected percentage of adult Sedge Warblers. A summary of that to follow.

Aside from birds, some of the group like a bargain and/or the latest gadget which might be handy for ringing. Here Arfon is showing his usual bemusement at our latest purchase - magnifying reading glasses with LED lights (Aldi £2.99)!!

Two of the group have been ringing on Skokholm Island for the last week so hopefully a blog from them soon.

Mid August on the Teifi Marsh..

As in previous years, we concentrate our ringing efforts at this time of year in the reed bed between Mallard pond and Heron hide on the Teifi Marsh.

Sedge Warbler numbers migrating through the marsh so far seem to be down on previous years but yesterday there were quite a few feeding around the edge of the pond. Looking at numbers being caught in Cornwall (Early autumn in Nanjizal) it seems that the birds aren't stopping with us on route south but flying straight over. We do seem to be catching more adults than usual this year though, all with very worn feathers...

 Looking at our stats at the end of the season will be interesting.
A good hirundine roost is developing in the evening with over 200 around tonight. A couple of small roost catches have been done with Swallows and Sand Martins caught.
Swans bred successfully on Mallard pond for the first time in years and had 4 cygnets but they are now down to 3. The adult male is ringed so we should soon be able to find out when it was ringed.

Our CES site is in another part of the marsh and yesterday we did CES 11 with 64 new birds and 16 retraps. A control adult Sedge Warbler was nice and we will post when we get the original ringing details from the BTO. The other highlight of CES was an adult female Redstart. We have caught juveniles before, but not an adult. As expected at this time of year there are plenty of juvenile Reed Warblers.
As the days turn more autumnal with foggy starts, ripening berries and dewy spider's webs we are seeing an increase in Blackcap and Chiffchaff numbers.

Early (foggy) Monday morning update - Chris and Richard are out ringing again at two sites on the marsh The first bird ringed was an adult male Kingfisher. Although we have ringed 43 on the reserve in the last 6 years this is the first adult male.

Garden Ringing

Sedge Warblers are moving ...but Stormies ?

A juvenile Sedge Warbler ringed (at Mallard) on 31st July already controlled at Icklesham, East Sussex on the 7th August.
Only eight Sedge and six Reed Warblers ringed this morning in the Mallard run nets, still low numbers for us, and perhaps surprising with numbers being caught in Cornwall..

On Tuesday night one of our Mwnt ringed Storm Petrels (ringed 9th July 2015) was controlled by Tony Cross further up the Ceredigion coast near Cwmtydu..not the first time on of our stormies have been recaptured elsewhere on the Cardigan Bay coast ....interesting...

Numbers and further details of our activities to be posted in the coming days...