28/Feb/2017 Sparrowhawk on Pancake Day

I arrived at the Butterfly Reserve at 6:45 and it was already light. I put up four nets, but because I don't have enough poles to put them all up separately, I connected two nets in a row, twice.. if that makes sense! I found I didn't have enough strings when I came to putting up the second double net, but I used the wooden poles in between so I could push them into the ground and that seemed to work as the nets stayed upright :-)

I was on my way back around the reserve after putting all of the nets up and found that the first two nets had caught five birds and I didn't have any bird bags with me yet! Agh! I'm glad I looked at the birds before I went to the car because I noticed I'd caught a Redwing which had it's tongue caught, so I knew to grab a QuickUnpick while I was at the car to cut the net. In that round I also had two Bullfinches (ones that I could ring!), a new Dunnock and the adult Treecreeper that I ringed on the last ringing session.

The Newbury Ringing Group, Simon and Bobbie (BBOWT CT) had arranged this morning to do some access work and widen the rides for the CES site, so after my second round (a Blackbird and a Songthrush) I was joined by Ian who looked for the Firecrest, with no luck, but he did say he had heard a Chiffchaff, so next time I'm out I might play Chiffchaff calls to see if they respond. Jan and Duncan came over as well. Duncan suggested I put on Goldcrest calls because we could hear them all around us. I put the tapes on at about 9:30 and they were calling back to the tape for the whole of the rest of the morning but I didn't catch any.

After everyone had gone to start cutting the rides, I caught a Sparrowhawk! To be honest I was a bit nervous (crapping myself in fact) but I managed to not get got :P After that I caught both Treecreepers I caught last time and a Robin. I left the nets up until midday just in case the Goldcrest wanted to come to the tape, but then a noisy tractor went by with a flail so I thought they'd probably be put off so I took the nets down.

Totals for the morning:

 Thought you guys would like to see how camouflaged and pretty a Treecreeper's plumage is :-) 

Below is a photo of the Sparrowhawk - a male (grey back). The yellow eye and the contrast in wing colours suggest that it was born last year. I didn't dare try to get him in a good position to get a photo of the wing in case he decided he wanted to sink those talons into me!

And lastly, a photo of the wing of a male Bullfinch, showing four old greater coverts :-) this means that he was born last year.

24/Feb/17 a lotta lotti's

My plan this morning was to connect two nets together, but I overestimated the length of the Gundry net so put the two nets up separately instead but in the same area :P I might as well have put the Ecotone net somewhere else though because it didn't catch anything all morning... Live and learn! I put a third net on the other side of the reserve.

Despite the Ecotone net not catching anything I had a busy start to the morning. On the first round I had four birds - 2 Long-Tailed Tit's, a Blue Tit and a Treecreeper (nice!). I also caught that Bullfinch that we've caught previously with the crusty legs and the cloacal protrusion - the cloacal protrusion looked a bit nasty and maybe infected so maybe it's just unwell and not breeding...

On my second round I caught a flock of 7 lotti's (including one that I'd caught in the first round), a Dunnock and another Treecreeper! (I'll get back to the Treecreepers in a minute as they were different ages and I've got pics to see the differences). The third round I had another Dunnock that managed to roll itself out of the net and got away, and a Blackbird. That round was at 8:45 and I didn't catch anything more after that.

Totals for the morning: (note the number of retraps compared to new birds! All of the data!)

Back to the Treecreepers!

The cream coloured tips on the primary coverts on the Treecreeper in the picture on the left stretch a long way up the shaft of the feathers, whereas the cream tips of the primary coverts on the right Treecreeper are small and do not stretch up the shaft at all. This suggests that the bird on the left was born last year, and the bird on the right is an adult.

I should have taken the photo's with the same background, but it can still be seen quite clearly, and this may be down to poor condition rather than age, but I noticed that the primary feathers of the Treecreeper on the left are a lot more transparent than the primaries of the one on the right.

I was very lucky to see these contrasting plumages today!

And finally here's a picture I sent to Simon captioned "I could have done with your help today!" But actually I coped fine :D I must be getting better at this!

Peace and love xo

16/Feb/17 O frabjous day! Callooh callay!

I timed myself putting my nets up this morning. Ten minutes for each net, which I felt wasn't too bad considering my Ecotone net is poorly and I stood for a few minutes looking at it all confused. The top shelf string was hanging loose and the net was bunched up all around it and I couldn't work out what was wrong. When Jan came to visit a little while later he looked at it and fixed it a bit, but it's still not 100% right... :-( I've been looking at Potter Traps and Spring Traps online this past week thinking about buying some but maybe I'll have to invest in a new net first, if I can't fix this one :-(

My first catch of the day was a Robin, which overtook me as I was walking back to the car after putting the nets up, and I watched it fly straight into the net in front of me. The second net round I walked the opposite way round the Butterfly Reserve. Extracted a Dunnock from the Ecotone net, walked towards the last one and saw a little bird in the net and another one of the same size on the other side of the net in the bushes, probably Goldcrest. As I got closer the bird in the bushes flew away, and the closer I got to this "Goldcrest" in the net the more I thought "that's an eye stripe!" I'd caught a Firecrest!! My tummy flipped and it's the explanation for the title of this blog post :P a happy line from my favourite poem, The Jabberwocky! Jan had timed his visit perfectly as I had the Firecrest in my hand when he got to me and we admired the bird together :D so happy! Here are a couple of photos that Jan took:

After the excitement of the Firecrest we looked at my Ecotone net that I've already mentioned was a bit broken. That round saw a Blackbird and a Goldcrest caught in the 6m net. The Goldcrest was the female that I've now retrapped twice since ringing it on the 24th of January. The rest of the session involved attempting to coax a Swan up the bank of the lake just outside the gate of the Butterfly Reserve. It wasn't successful but Jan gave me 2 Swan rings just in case I'm ever successful in catching one when he's not around lol. I also spent a little while pulling those Alder (I think) seeds out of the net. Such a pain!...

Here's the totals for today's session:

Jan and I are going to a meeting with staff from Thames Water tomorrow to discuss permissions to ring at Kingsclere Sewage Works. So excited for the prospect of ringing Pied and Grey Wagtails! and Pipits! And a building with heating and toilets to ring in - luxury! Fingers crossed!! Watch this space, blog readers (if I have any)!

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

9/Feb/17 Experimenting with nets

Since it's not been very long at all since I was last ringing, I put the nets in different areas to where I would usually put them. I was really happy with how I dealt with putting nets up today - I usually get frustrated at myself when even the tiniest thing goes how I didn't plan it to, but today, even when I overestimated the length of the 6m net, my thought was "okay, let's sort this out" and just got on with it and sorted it out much faster and effectively than if I was in panic mode 😋 need to keep this up!

Even though all these nets were experimental, all three of them caught at least one bird, so I'm pretty happy with that! Here are photos of the nets today:

The Gundry net (12m)

The NR net (6m) through BBOWT's education area

The Ecotone net (9m)

Although I didn't catch many birds, I did catch the Goldcrest that I ringed on the 24th of January but accidentally let go of while trying to write and take biometrics at the same time (I hold the bird in the hand that I write with, which is weird for bird ringers, apparently..! And I struggle to scribe for myself. I have a scrap notebook that I scribble info in with my left hand before I write it neatly into my ringing book after I've released the bird.) But yeah, I caught that Goldcrest again so I have all of the measurements for her now 😁 This isn't her but this is the male Goldcrest that I ringed first thing:

That face! 💓

The orange crown feathers shows it's a male

I also caught a young male Blackbird that Simon and I keep seeing hopping about in the Butterfly Reserve (always close to where I put my 9m net today - that's the net he was caught in) but never actually caught him before! I'm pretty sure it's the same bird because even from a distance you can tell that he was last years bird - the brown colour of his primary feathers is an extreme contrast to the black everywhere else 😃 here's a photo of him and, in particular, his wing:

Totals for the session, 3 new, 3 retrap:

6/Feb/2017 Butterfly Reserve

Snowdrops in the Butterfly Reserve

It's been so long since we've been ringing that, when we left Tilehurst at our usual-ish time, it was already getting light..! At least we could see what we were doing when we put our nets up, though. We put the three nets up. The Gundry and Ecotone nets in the same place and the 6 meter NR net in the wet bit in the far corner - only because it would be easy to push the net poles into the ground hehe. The last time I came to the Butterfly Reserve on my own the ground was too frozen to push the poles in, and this time the lock was frozen shut so we had to climb over the gate until it got warmer later on, so better to take the easy option than push really hard and snap some poles..!

The Goldcrest in the list of totals had been caught during both January sessions as well. Each of these sessions he had been lured to the net by a tape playing calls. The time I came ringing on my own he went into the net 3 times so I had to change the species playing on the tape!

When we were packing up we caught a Bullfinch that sadly I couldn't ring because it had diseased legs. While I was looking at it's legs I noticed that it had a CP (cloacal protrusion), suggesting that it's breeding! I thought it was a bit early so I texted the photo to Jan and he confirmed that it was odd, especially since Bullfinches are usually late breeders!

I'll be going ringing at the Butterfly Reserve again on Thursday 9th but on my own this time, to carry on building confidence. Since it's a bit soon after this ringing session I'll be experimenting and putting the nets in all different places 😀 I will have to get my art head on and draw a map of the Butterfly Reserve to show exactly where I put my nets!

Below are some photos of the session 😊

Crusty unringable foot - possibly caused by mites

Male Bullfinch

A cloacal protrusion suggests this male is breeding

Song Thrush

Me ringing the Song Thrush

A very well behaved Blackbird

January

January was a quiet month ringing wise. Simon and I were busy packing our stuff to move out of Wyre Court and we managed to go ringing together once and I went out once on my own. Here are the totals for both visits:

9th January

 24th January

January wasn't a completely wasted month, though. I've arranged to do my first Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and this is the kilometer square and the route for it:

I've walked half of the route, from points 1 to 5, and I'm planning to test walk the whole route at some point this month. I've also got a potential new ringing site! Watch this space for more news on these soon!

8 birds ringed in total in January is SUCH a poor effort! I vow to definitely have a more birdy and generally more naturey February 🐦🐤🌷🌱🌻🌿🍀🍁🌳🌲🌱🌰