Poor Productivity shows at the Mallard Run

Initial results from the first two mornings  / evenings of the season in the Mallard Run
This year 26/27 July 14 new acros, of which only 9 juveniles,
2011 - 26/27 July.......36 new acros, of which 32 juveniles.
Also not a Grasshopper Warbler to be found.... we trapped 9 juveniles last July.


Of Swallows
Last night... 14 birds caught of which only 5 were juveniles.
Last year on the comparable date, 25 July... 35 birds caught of which 34 were juveniles.


We did catch another juvenile Kingfisher last night though.....

Sweet scent of stormies... (and CES)

Following our Storm Petrel movement to Strumble, 2 more night time visits to Mwnt under the new moon !
Friday night, 7 new stormies ...and another control under the stars !
We are not sure if Ceredigion has many Storm Petrel controls or recoveries?
Saturday night, when not under stars, but under cloud - we only caught 4...hmm.
Plenty of wonderful calling Manx Shearwaters investigating the headland to excite us though.

Back to CES.....poor numbers, especially the lack of juveniles. Interestingly 4 new adult Reed Warblers in the scrub, not in the reed-bed. This is where we catch passage birds.....have these adults just given up attempting to breed and moved to our site to feed up already?

 This morning we re-entered the "Mallard Run" of nets, (above) great for breeding Reeds, fantastic for passage Sedges, and 2 Aquatics in 2010. A poor start with only 9 new warblers caught this morning, but wind did stop play at c8am....many posts to follow on this part of the site as acro. passage increases...

Stormie recovery from Mwnt already!

At Strumble Head last night we were rather pleased to catch a Storm Petrel that we had only ringed at Mwnt 6 days ago. A distance of 19.6 miles......

 

 This was a non-breeding adult as were the other nine we caught.

Stormie control at Mwnt

Mwnt is now established as our migration ringing site for  Northern and "Greenland" Wheatears, but last night the target was Storm Petrels to start providing more information about the birds in this part of the Irish Sea. It would be interesting to establish if these are passage birds, or are they on feeding trips from their breeding colonies on the Pembrokeshire Islands.

In a brief respite before the next rain band we only had the net open for half an hour and caught 2 new Storm Petrels and a control. The ring on this control looked new and was only a few hundred numbers different from the rings we are using currently so not an old ringed bird. Hopefully we will get the ringing details on this bird soon.

As well as continuing to catch Storm Petrels  at the established site at Strumble Head which has historic data we plan to develop Mwnt as a long term project, and possibly other suitable local sites.
Thanks to the National Trust for giving us permission to ring and survey the bird species at Mwnt.

CES 7 supports the (poor) breeding season

Our fears are backed up by our numbers;- A large failure to raise young.
2012 CES 7, Today 8th July ;-
77 birds caught ....31 juveniles.....40%
2011 CES 7, (9th July)
116 birds caught, almost exactly a 50% higher total, AND more importantly.....102 juveniles...88%
I guess it won't get any better.....?
With our adult Willow Warblers, Blue Tits, Great Tits caught today all undergoing complete moult, no more breeding attempts to be made.....
  

On the brighter side today...our first juvenile Cetti's Warbler of the year (above) and a nice retrap X878903, an adult female Cetti's with brood patch, ringed by us as a juvenile in early September 2009.
(photo Tommy)

Brighter still... this Speckled Bush Cricket, found and proudly displayed by Janet....once finished helping with the admin..

Janet, holding his? hind legs...
(photo Tommy)

Juvenile Sedge Warblers...and a treat !

Our first July session at our Mallard site on the Teifi, and our first 3 juvenile Sedge Warblers of the year caught this morning. These almost certainly from Teifi nests.
A recent recovery of one of last year's presumed passage juveniles...Y206818.
Ringed on 3 August, and a typical movement of a Teifi ringed Sedge Warbler,..21 days later on the west coast of France at Cordemais, Loire-Atlantique on 24 August 2012.

Our 1st bird of the day, another treat for our colleagues from N. Ireland, and below Michael with our 1st juvenile Kingfisher of the year.

Welsh warblers give our visitors a treat !

CES 6 and the weather wasn't being helpful ...But we did complete with c50 birds caught and as usual interesting recaptures.  The ringing and processing under our  pop-up gazebo, an excellent buy !

Most of the team present dressed for July !!
Gillian and Michael Parr - trainees from N. Ireland joined us for the 1st of hopefully a couple of sessions.

To our and their delight  3 species processed that they are very unlikely to find at home, Lesser Whitethroat, Cetti's Warbler, and a few Reed Warblers. Michael here with a Cetti's. 

Gillian with one of our site faithful Reed Warblers.
We caught our 1st juvenile Reed and Garden Warblers, and Goldcrest of the year, but still very low numbers of this year's juveniles.
Have all the young Tits and Finches already descended into gardens...?
Another observation, early to make conclusions, but we are catching a higher proportion of  ringed adults that we didn't re-trap last year. Have our territorial  birds been severely affected by the winter and allowed these birds to return to fill these vacancies ?

We carry a hand held PC with us in the field. This has our up to date ringing data downloaded from IPMR. All recaptures are checked at that point for the birds history....