Halimodendri, blythi and margelenica - and rare warblers galore

Below Kester writes a quick summary of a reasonable autumn in Penwith:
 
As the mornings get ever more chilly and bird numbers start to dry up, thoughts of packing up the nets at Nanjizal for the winter pop into my head. The late autumn movements of thrushes and finches didn't seem to happen this year, with very low numbers flying over in the first few hours of light. Using a Redwing recording has boosted catches in the last few weeks, but Blackbirds that are usually so numerous in November are altogether missing. Chiffchaff catches remain low, as have Goldcrest and Firecrest, but one warbler caught in higher numbers than usual, mirroring the massive UK arrival, was Yellow-browed Warbler. Up until today, 15 birds have been caught, including an impressive five on 10th November alone! Other birds of note recently were a Dusky Warbler caught on 7th November and a very good candidate for a halimodendri Lesser Whitethroat on 13th November.

Dusky Warbler

Halimodendri Lesser Whitethroat

Tailt moult such as this in first-year halimodendri is actually rather common.

Interestingly, the DNA from this Lesser Whitethroat trapped in early October at Nanijzal came back as being of the race blythi.

Blythi Lesser Whitethroat

And just to add to the mix, going back to 20th October 2000, the bird below was caught. Unfortunately, a feather for DNA analysis doesn't exist, so we may never know what it really was. However, whilst its warm upperparts may suggest blythi, this was a big bird, with a tail length of 65mm, and a very 'blunt' wing. Birds from Mongolia very much resembling this bird have been DNA-tested and identified as being of the race margelenica.

Margelenica Lesser Whitethroat?

Some interesting controls from the autumn were:

• Juvenile Chiffchaff ringed at Nanjizal on 14/7/20113, recaught at Squire's Down (Dorset) on 21/9/2013
• Young male Firecrest ringed on St Agnes (Isles of Scilly) on 21/10/2012, recaught at Nanjizal on 5/10/2013
• Young Sedge Warbler ringed at Nanjizal on 3/9/2013, found dead the next day at St Ives 

So with nets now down for the autumn, some of the notable ringing totals include a top five of:

• Chiffchaff - 701
• Blackcap - 588
• Sedge Warbler - 538
• Chaffinch - 244
• Willow Warbler - 165

impressive totals of:

• Grasshopper Warbler - 54
• Yellow-browed Warbler - 15
• Firecrest - 10

and some rarities:

• Subalpine Warbler - 2
• Wryneck
• Aquatic Warbler
• Marsh Warbler
• Dusky Warbler
• Cirl Bunting

First Siberian Chiff of the winter?

With a hint of cold weather it was time to start poking round sewage works again and this morning we tried a new site for us, Gwithian, where it's nice and easy to net. Six nets in an open rectangle nicely cover the small site and although we only caught 18 birds, 10 of these were Chiffchaffs.

Of the 10 Chiffs, most were rather normal-looking, but one bird did look rather eastern... It's possible this is just a rather bright tristis Siberian Chiffchaff and it certainly called like one when released. But it does have quite a lot of green tones on the mantle and flight feathers, so not the most straightforward.

In comparison, all of the other birds looked more like the one below which was interestingly already ringed. We won't get the details on this bird for a while, but the ring was issued to East Dales Ringing Group in North Yorkshire, so a nice green collybita it is. Supposedly a photograph never lies, but check the difference in plumage tones in these two pics of the same bird: top a fancy DSLR and bottom my iPhone. Not surprisingly the DSLR looks to be a truer reflection of what the bird should look like!

More colour-ringed gulls

The weather is looking a bit more promising for the weekend, so hopefully we'll have some ringing news of our own shortly... But in the absence of calm days, there's always the fall-back of looking at gulls! After misjudging the tide at Hayle estuary yesterday, Copperhouse Creek was my only option, and I was greeted by this rather sleepy-looking Norwegian Black-headed Gull.

J4U4 was ringed as a chick back in 1991 near Stavanger (Norway) so is a very impressive 22 years old! It has been seen at Radipole Lake (Dorset) in February 2005 and was then recaught and colour-ringed as a breeding bird in Norway in April 2012, which then guaranteed a few more sightings. It bred locally in Norway in 2012 and was then not seen until January 2013 when it was on Hayle estuary. It was seen again in February before returning again in October 2013 and still there yesterday, so it'll be interesting to see if it's a regular wintering bird in Cornwall.

J4U4 in breeding plumage in Norway in May 2012

Interestingly, most birds from this Norwegain study head to Scotland and northern England, so a regular Cornish bird is very unusual.

This map shows the finding locations of birds from the Norwegian study,
showing how exceptional J4U4 is in its choice of wintering site.

A quick stop at Stithians Reservoir then also reunited me with a bird we'd ringed in Falmouth over the summer: W:032. It had been seen at the reservoir a couple of times already, but nice to catch up with one of your own birds away from home!

Thanks to Nils Helge Lorentzen for providing the details on the Norwegian bird so quickly, but note that these can now also be reported online here, with details instantly available! Thanks also to Alf Tore Mjøs for letting me steal his photo of J4U4 in full summer attire.

Mauritania Sedge Warbler and a Cormorant caught in the act

We recently received a whole bunch of reports back from BTO of birds we'd either ringed or recaught ourselves. The map below shows the spread of these reports and gives a good overview of where the birds we're ringing/seeing are coming from and going to. The map below shows birds ringed by us found elsewhere (in red) and birds ringed elsewhere recaught/seen by us (in blue), and you can zoom in to see more detail. Clicking on a line will also give you the full details for the movement: species, dates, places...

View Recent recoveries 2013 in a larger map

The furthest movements are a Sedge Warbler ringed at Gunwalloe recaught by French ringers 2400 miles away in Mauritania and a Polish-ringed Mediterranean Gull seen on the Hayle estuary (along with a Channel Islands Herring Gull). The movement to Mauritania is expected as this is where Sedge Warblers go, but is still only thew second from Cornwall to Mauritanis, with fewer than 25 BTO-ringed birds found there!

Other long-distance movements include Storm Petrels in all directions, with two birds to Skokholm Island (expect more from here as ringing has started a fresh here) and birds recaught from the Channel Islands and Co Wexford. We've also now got all the details back on the various colour-ringed Kittiwakes now breeding in Cornwall (more info on these here). These are all from the same French colony, but the interchanges are proving pretty fascinating!

View Recent recoveries 2013 in a larger map

A bit closer to home, a couple more of our colour-ringed Herring Gulls have been seen. Another bird from Falmouth visited Stithians Reservoir and a bird from Rinsey Cliffs was seen on the beach at Marazion. These birds all have a blue ring with code W:000 to W:999 so keep an eye out for these around the coast or at any gatherings of gulls. Another of our colour-ringed birds reported was a Cormorant caught in netting whilst stealing fish from an inland fishery, but was happily untangled and released unharmed. Wonder if it's learnt its lesson??

We don't have a photo of Cormorant TAH caught at the fish farm,
but here's TAB also ringed on Mullion Island

One final interesting movement is a Sedge Warbler ringed at Nanjizal and then recaught five days later at Gunwalloe, almost directly due east. We've also had recent reports of some of our Sedge Warblers moving north in autumn, so I wonder if these are actually heading out of the country somewhere further east and not directly or through the Isles of Scilly as expected...

Welsh wanderer

Although not strictly a West Cornwall Ringing Group bird, Great Black-backed Gull L:AU8 has been seen on our patch a couple of times...

It was ringed as a chick on St George's Island, Looe, in 2011 and was first seen on Hayle estuary in October 2011. It wasn't reported again until 24th September when it was on Skokholm Island, Pembrokeshire, and then the shockingly bad iPhone-scoped photo below (mine...) came from Copperhouse Creek, Hayle, just 26 days later (10th October).

Presumably this bird won't breed for another couple of years and will continue to wander, so where will it turn up next? Hayle is a great place to look for colour-ringed gulls and if you're lucky enough to find one then details of project coordinators can be found on the cr-birding website.

Nest recording in 2013

We've been a bit late submitting our nest recording data for this year, but having finally sorted all the final outcome codes and monthly effort recording, I finally sent it all off to BTO this afternoon (see more on the BTO Nest Record Scheme here). The total of  144 nest records was pretty good, although admittedly a fair few of these were single-visit seabird records...

All our records of Great Black-backs and Cormorants are from Mullion Island

The top five species were Blue Tit (43), Cormorant (24), Shag (18), Great Black-backed Gull (16) and Barn Owl (12). Of these, where we had multiple visits at the right time of year, we found average clutch sizes of 7.2 for Blue Tit, 2.4 for Shag and 3.3 for Barn Owl (compared to 3.6 last year). Despite very low occupancy of Barn Owl sites this year, the average clutch size compared well to the 3.6 recorded last year, but the average brood size of 1.8 compared pretty badly to the 3.0 in 2012.

Also doing badly were Great Black-backed Gulls. On our first visit to Mullion Island we counted well over 100 chicks and eggs, but later visits (theoretically to colour-ring chicks) found only a handful of survivors, with perhaps as few as three or four birds fledging! What happened to the others is a worrying mystery.

Some of the mystery missing Great Black-back chicks

Conspicuous by its absence from the top five this year is Kittiwake. The Rinsey colony failed completely, with just six active nests all failing at the egg stage, which compares badly to the 44 active nests in 2012 (36% of which failed).

The full list of nest records submitted is below:

Blue Tit	43		Dipper	2
Cormorant	24		Jackdaw	2
Shag	18		Blackbird	1
Great Black-backed Gull	16		Nuthatch	1
Barn Owl	12		Stock Dove	1
Herring Gull	9		Swallow	1
Kittiwake	6		Tawny Owl	1
Great Tit	6		Wren	1

Not one of mine, but this brood of Robins in a fertiliser bag
at the Lost Gardens of Heligan couldn't be left out

And perhaps not surprisingly, this nestbox in Lizard wasn't used...

Black 27M is a French first

A good stormy Cornish day meant that the only thing to do (other than work!) was chase a few colour-ringed gulls. Having been evaded by a French-ringed Med Gull at Men-Aver beach last week I thought I'd have another look this afternoon. Just after low tide on a good day, up to 60 Med Gulls congregate on the 'reef' here, but today wasn't a good day, with a paltry three present, none of which were colour-ringed.

But the larid redeemed themselves with a Great Black-backed Gull sporting an unfamiliar black colour ring. OK, so you can't see its legs in this dodgy iPhone-scoped photo, so you'll have to believe me that it was 27M, a bird ringed as a chick in Normandy in 2013. We don't get many foreign-ringed Geebs in Cornwall, with records of just six; four from the Channel Islands and two from Norway, so this French bird is a bit of a first.

Finch frenzy and a moult muddle

The last few days has seen a continued influx of autumn migrants into The Lizard and a couple of calm mornings has allowed us to capitalise on this. In my relatively small garden (below, with the school playing field behind), with just one 30' net, we've been busy catching Goldfinches coming to nyger seed and have caught over 140 in the last two days. Add to this a few Greenfinch, Starling, Chaffinch and single Siskin and Pied Wagtail and it's been busy!

Most of the Goldfinches have been young birds (and oddly more females than males), distinctive with their pointed tails, juvenile primary coverts and unmoulted greater coverts (although most had moulted them all). A surprising number were still in their first juvenile plumage as well, which seems a bit late. Most of the (presumed) adults caught were just finishing primary moult, with just two already done. There were then the odd one or two birds where ageing wasn't quite so simple.

The bird below was just finishing primary moult, with just the outer two primaries (including the vestigial outer one) to go. But is the unmoulted primary here really old enough? If this was a moulting adult, then this primary would have been grown as part of the bird's main moult a year ago. The other option is that this is a juvenile bird (from an early brood perhaps) undergoing a complete moult, in which case this primary would have been grown in the nest a few months ago.

So how can we decide on the age of this feather? Comparing it to known juveniles is one option... The bird below is a known juvenile, with a 'good' tail and dull primary coverts, and appears to show primaries with a similar amount of wear to our mystery bird.

Another juvenile (below) shows even browner primaries though, despite the poor quality photograph - iPhones don't do macro! So if our mystery bird has a fresher unmoulted primary than this juvenile, then it too must be a juvenile right?

Note as well on this juvenile has also moulted some primaries, but not all of them. The outer three (ignoring the vestigial outer feather) appear rather brown with worn tips, whereas the inner feathers are much fresher, darker-centred, with brighter yellow outer webs and with more obvious unworn white tips.

To be sure we'd really need to compare to a known adult in active moult and see how worn the unmoulted outer primaries really are at this time of year. But this does indeed look like a juvenile undergoing a complete moult, which means that it's rather unsafe to assume that other birds finishing primary moult are adults...

Mipits on the move

It's that time of year when as soon as there's a favourable light wind the Mipits are on the move...

This last weekend was the first settled period for a while on The Lizard and autumn vis-mig started to pick up. The first Reed Buntings of the winter were around the fields and the first real Skylark movement got underway, but it was Meadow Pipits we were interested in. We're lucky enough to be able to ring on a wild bird seed field down near Southerly Point, where we can also target Meadow Pipits in a triangle of nets. The theory is, set the nets in a tight triangle, put a tape lure (or more accurately an MP3 lure!) in the middle and wait for birds to drop in.

As Saturday went on, migration picked up and hundreds of Meadow Pipits were heading south, many dropping in to the triangle. Through the morning, two of us ringed 149 Meadow Pipits and some extra two-shelf nets through the weedy field also produced a few Linnet, Goldfinch, two Stonechat and a late Whitethroat.

Nets along the weedy field margin were particularly effective

The next day saw similar weather, so we repeated Saturday's efforts and ringed a further 114 Meadow Pipits and a more impressive 30 Linnet. In fact, our weekend total of 43 Linnet is the most ringed in the county in any year since 1985! Almost mirroring Saturday's catch, we also ringed two more Stonechat and a late Sedge Warbler.

The weedy field looks very tempting if you're a small finch or bunting,
so will make for interesting days later in the winter

Just to round of the weekend, this morning saw a change of scenery, with the team moving up to Gunwalloe for yet more pipits. This wasn't quite as successful as The Lizard, but it gave us the excuse for some late autumn reedbed ringing, producing a few Reed Buntings, a late Reed Warbler and a Cetti's Warbler.

All in all, the long weekend ringing totals were 449 birds ringed, including 349 Meadow Pipit, 43 Linnet and 21 Dunnock!

Ringing at Nanjizal, Cornwall's other CES

After detailing some of the highs and lows of our CES at Gunwalloe, here Kester Wilson gives a flavour of ringing in Penwith, where he also runs a CES at Nanjizal.

"The early part of the year was quiet, with most of my time spent improving the habitat on site. Last year's clearance around the bird feeders continued to improve the catches of finches and Lesser Redpoll, Siskin, Brambling and last year's Cirl Bunting were all caught in the first few months of the year.

Every year has its quiet times and if you're lucky a few purple patches. During spring 2013, the purple patches were few in number, with winter dragging on well into spring. In late March, the wind turned southeast and many birders noticed large numbers of Chiffchaffs in the far southwest of Britain. On 25th March, my nets were opened and 118 Chiffchaffs caught, two of which were controls: DLL278 was ringed at Icklesham (East Sussex) on 18/9/2010 and EKX125 was ringed at Portishead (Somerset) on 1/7/2012. Soon after, details of three more controls were received and gave a further indicator that most of the birds involved were destined for southern Britain. EPL449 was ringed at Nanjizal on 30th March and found dead at Crew (Somerset) on 1/5/13, another ringed on 26th March was controlled a few weeks later at Slapton Ley (Devon), and another ringed during the same period  on Skokholm (Dyfed) stayed to breed at Nanjizal instead of heading back further north.

Compare this to the spring of 2011, when prolonged periods of southeasterly winds brought larger numbers of abietinus Chiffchaffs than usual and in amongst them were two interesting controls. One ringed at Sul Panaro, Italy, on 2/10/2009 and controlled on 4/5/2011 and another ringed at Giessen, Germany, on 26/9/2010 and controlled at Nanjizal on 7/4/2011.

Spring/summer 2013 didn't produce any further noticeable falls, just the odd surprise turning up in a net; the most surprising being a female Subalpine Warbler caught on 5th July.

After last year's poor breeding season, it was nice to be catching good numbers of young birds on CES and most species seem to have done OK, with both Sedge Warbler and Dunnock doing very well, and only Blackcap having a poor year. See below the numbers of young birds ringed of selected species during the whole CES season in 2012 and to the end of July only in 2013.

Year	2012	2013
Dunnock	39	34
Wren	37	62
Sedge Warbler	26	39
Whitethroat	3	11
Chiffchaff	115	98
Blackcap	15	6

For the first time I have used tapes at Nanjizal this autumn and my change of heart came with the chance of purchasing cheap, small MP3 players with decent rechargeable batteries.  Once the CES visits were completed I started to play Grasshopper Warbler just before sunrise and I am sure other people have noticed that Gropper tapes also work very well for Sedge Warbler: I later found that you can pretty much play any warbler and other species will respond. Up to 24th September, I have now ringed a surprising total of 53 Grashopper Warblers!

Further confirmation of a good breeding season for Sedge Warblers sees my annual total now over 500, a high percentage of which were trapped around the Gropper tape. An Aquatic Warbler also seemed to find it appealing on the 20th, only the second bird seen in the UK this autumn!

Until last week, numbers of Blackcap had been unusually low, but they have now arrived en masse and the 20th alone saw 98 being ringed, bringing my annual total over the 400 mark. As well as the large numbers of birds, the last few ringing sessions have produced the afore-mentioned Aquatic, Marsh Warbler (22nd) and a Wryneck (24th). A few recoveries have also come in over the last few weeks and the Skokholm-ringed Chiffchaff reappeared in a net a few days ago."

Swedish-ringed Osprey

The RSPB office in Penzance recently passed across sad news of the demise of an injured Osprey. What is more unusual is that this bird was ringed, and a Swedish ring at that!

Thanks to Lee Stevenson for reporting (and photographing) the bird

92A07295 was found at Relubbus on 30th August and despite being cared for at Mousehole Bird Hospital it died soon after. We've sent the detailson to BTO who will send them on to the Swedish ringing scheme, and we'll post the details here when we receive them.

There is just one previous report of a ringed Osprey in the county, which was a bird ringed near Inverness in 1994 and seen in St Columb Major in April 1997, before being killed hitting wires in Scotland three weeks later. Even looking further afield, there are only 23 reports of Swedish-ringed Ospreys in the UK, so this is a very unusual record. The map below shows all Osprey movements to/from the UK, from the BTO's online ringing report.

2012 Cornish online ringing report released

The BTO has just released the 2012 Online Ringing Report, which makes fascinating reading. The various reports don't just show national figures, but also break them down by county, so there's plenty in here for Cornish birders.

The Cornish ringing totals for the year (here) show 7,161 birds ringed which is well down on the last few years, symptomatic of the poor breeding season. The top five species ringed in the county (with 2012 totals for comparison) were:

• Swallow - 748 (445)
• Blue Tit - 712 (1,455)
• Chiffchaff - 681 (1,054)
• Willow Warbler - 516 (377)
• Chaffinch - 508 (666)

Notable in the totals were the only Hoopoe and Iberian Chiffchaff to be ringed in the UK in 2012 and also Spotted Crake (one of only three ringed nationally), Wood Sandpiper (four ringed of just eight nationally) and Aquatic Warbler (two of only seven ringed nationally).

Perhaps of more interest though are the recoveries that these, and other, ringed birds generate (here). Considering the relatively low ringing total for the county (not enough ringers!), most of the most interesting recoveries are of birds ringed elsewhere and seen or found here. But amongst the 1,803 recoveries involving the county, the highlights included colour ring sightings of:

• Great White Egret from France (seen at Amble Marshes)
• Ringed Plover from Norway (actually the fourth to be seen in the county)
• The first Lesser Black-backed Gulls from Germany and The Netherlands

recaptures of:

• Green Sandpiper in The Netherlands (ringed at Nanjizal)
• Firecrest originally ringed in Sussex
• Swallow originally ringed in Belgium (just one day earlier!)

The one-day, 787km movement of a young Swallow from Belgium to Gunwalloe

• The first ever Chiffchaffs in the county originally ringed in Denmark, Germany and The Netherlands (and the third from France)

and the unfortunate dead birds:

• German Jack Snipe and German Snipe (shot at St Austell and Zennor respectively)
• Russian and French Woodcock also shot

• Collared Dove ringed in Dorset and found dead 195km distant near Truro
• Dutch-ringed Yellow-browed Warbler found in Truro in 2008 (only the second foreign-ringed Yellow-browed Warbler to be found in the UK, following a quick movement of a Norwegian-ringed bird to Fair Isle in 1990)

 

Most of these recoveries of ringed birds came from birders and members of public, so if you've been lucky enough to find a ringed bird or see a colour-ringed bird, report it online via www.ring.ac or contact us direct and we'll pass it on.

Amazing Med Gull histories and a Herring Gull coincidence

Terrible photo of a Mediterranean Gull (iPhone-scoped) but a fascinating bird! Red PHJ6 was at Hayle estuary this afternoon and the joy of the internet tells me that it has a great history. Ringed as a chick in Poland in May 2007, it was first seen in Cornwall in February 2008, at both Marazion and Hayle estuary.

In April 2009 it was seen at Badminston Gravel Pit, Hampshire, paired with another colour-ringed Med Gull (Yellow 2A34). Now interestingly 2A34 was ringed as a chick in Lancashire in May 2007, but has since been seen in Dorset (April 2011) and remarkably by me at Men-Aver beach, Cornwall (November 2011 and January 2012). So I've now seen both of this pair in Cornwall!

Back to PHJ6... Post-Hampshire, it was seen in Devon in July 2009 and then back in Cornwall around St Ives and Sennen Cove in October-November 2009. It was then seen back in Devon in July 2011 and August 2012, before being seen again on Hayle estuary in September 2012 and then again this afternoon.

The coincidences go on, as over the summer a couple of us went over to Guernsey to help with Paul Veron's colour-ringing project, cannon-netting birds on Chouet Landfill. On the trip we all camp in Paul's garden, where he traps a few gulls in the winter and it was here that White 3CT1 was ringed, a Herring Gull also on Hayle estuary this afternoon!

So all in all a pretty productive stop off this afternoon and just goes to show how colour-ringing can tell us so much about what our birds are doing.

Last few Stormies of the year

With the weather looking nice and calm and overcast, with a new moon to boot, we decided on one last Storm Petrel session on Wednesday night. We were hoping for something to liven up the day after a paltry 14 birds in the morning at Marazion Marsh, where there was still no Aquatic Warbler. AND we've now been beaten to it by Devon, with one seen at South Milton Ley yesterday morning.

So off to Hot Point we went, with just two nets set. It was pretty quiet (perhaps not surprisingly for September), but we did ring another six birds before giving up early at 1:30am. Interestingly, all bar one of these birds were already well into moult, as on the bird below, suggesting that these are non-breeding birds. Breeding adults are thought to moult slightly later in the year; starting in October.

The primaries are too worn to really guess if these are 'juvenile-type' or 'adult-type' (based on how pointed/rounded they are), but also note the very nice white-tipped greater coverts, shown in both newly-fledged juveniles but apparently also older birds.

Another Aquatic-less day, but perhaps an Estonian Arctic Tern instead?

With the wind hinting at turning to the east, we headed to Marazion this morning in the hope of a late Aquatic Warbler. But sadly still no luck, although 32 birds caught wasn't too bad considering how quiet the reedbed seemed. These were mostly Reed Warblers, though one of the driest net rides did catch this rather smart female Kingfisher (female by virtue of being greeny-blue instead of bluey-green) and almost caught a passing Common Sandpiper. Overnight the wind is proper easterly though, so maybe tomorrow will be the day...

A bit of extra interest for the morning came with the delivery, via RSPB, of a GPS data logger that was reported on an injured tern at Sennen Cove on Saturday. Unfortunately the bird died but the second finder only removed the data logger and not the ring, so we're still a bit in the dark as to what the bird was and where it was from! Rumour has it though that an Estonian-ringed Arctic Tern caught in Grampian recently also had a similar logger, so here's hoping...

 

 

We won't find out for a while though as the logger has to go back to the manufacturer (in Poland) to be downloaded to ID the bird. For info, the aerials allow the GPS data to be downloaded remotely to a radio base-station once the bird is back on its breeding grounds. So for those with 1107 € to spend, check out the technical specs here.

Thanks to Tony Mills for the Kingfisher photo and Terry George (Sennen Cove Birdwatching), Kester Wilson and Dave Flumm for eventually getting the logger to us.