Last 'CES' of 2013

Meet D129878, the final bird of our 2013 CES (Constant Effort Site) season at Gunwalloe. The fluffy flanks give it away as a pretty fresh juvenile Reed Warbler, the commonest species caught at the site, and totting up, the catch of 52 adult and 63 juvenile Reed Warblers compares OK to last year (60 and 48), but still not up the totals from our first year in 2011 (88 and 96).

The next most frequent species caught, Sedge Warbler, fared somewhat better though. The poor breeding season in 2012 was reflected in the number of returning adults (just 13, compared to 33 in 2012 and 30 in 2011), but the number of juveniles was surprisingly good (64, compared to 36 in 2012 and 85 in 2011). One species notable by its 'near-absence' though was Cetti's Warbler: the total of three adults and 12 juveniles in 2011 dropped to three adults in 2012 and just a single juvenile this year.

Species diversity was also down, with 12 species caught this year down on the 15 in 2012 and 17 in 2011. The only real highlight were the five juvenile Stonechats ringed, but even these weren't quite the Aquatic Warbler of 2012 or the three Grasshopper Warblers of 2011. But looking on the bright side, the year was in general a slight improvement on 2012, but not yet recovered to the levels of 2011. The chart below shows the catch totals per CES visit each year: note how typically windy spring weather means we always miss the first visit, but at least it's Constant!

So hopefully the disastrous breeding season of 2012 and the wet start to 2013 won't be repeated next year and we can look forward to another bumper year.

Colour-ringing comes good

After a summer of colour-ringing effort, it always pleasing to have the first reports from birders of a couple of our birds. First up was House Sparrow A31, photographed at Old Lizard Head on 30th July. This was too far from where it was ringed, but nice to see such a great photo of one of our birds 'in the field'.

Thanks toTim Bunce for the excellent photo of A31

Then just today we received a report of W:029, a Herring Gull ringed as a chick on the roof of a Falmouth Industrial Estate in July. This bird had foregone the promise of pasties, chips and bins in Falmouth and relocated to Stithians Reservoir, just 10km away. Again not a very long movement, but certainly an interesting one.

Other ringing recently has been a bit hampered by the weather... But between us we've managed a few Storm Petrel sessions, catching good numbers of birds (over 200 for the year now) and also birds from France and the Channel Islands. The latter is notable, with just 11 previous reports of Channel Islands-ringed Storm Petrels in the UK.

A rather poor composite of the 'Jersey' Storm Petrel ring

CES this morning at Gunwalloe was the first productive one for a while, with just under 50 birds caught, including good numbers of passage Sedge Warblers on the first net round. It was also nice to finally catch up with a Cetti's Warbler, the first of the year on CES! Numbers worryingly seem to have been on the decline at the site, with four birds caught by 20th August 2012 and 15 by 20th August 2011.

Despite a missing central tail feather, this juvenile still showed just nine more
- pretty unique in the British bird world.

Wandering Barn Owl

Barn Owls don't tend to go very far, so when I received a report today of a ringed bird just up the road at Ruan Minor (Lizard) that wasn't one of mine I was intrigued. 

It turns out that GC58243 had actually been ringed as a chick at Nanjizal (Penwith, in blue below) in June 2010, some 37km from Ruan Minor (in red below). With so much good Barn Owl habitat between Penwith and Lizard it's a bit surprising it made such a long journey, but that's the joy of ringing!

View Wandering Barn Owl in a larger map

First Cornish Stock Doves ringed in 25 years

Yesterday we had a great CES morning at Gunwalloe, with 81 birds caught easily beating just 30 on the same visit last year! Good numbers of juvenile Sedge and Reed Warblers made up most of the catch, with three more very juvenile Stonechats new for some bisitonv ringers from up country. Amusement (for some) came in nearly losing our newest C-permit holder to the marsh...

We then mopped up some remaining Barn Owls, which have been about six weeks late this summer. Many birds have also given it a miss this year, presumably in too poor condition to breed, including this Newquay pair.

Other sites checked included an abandoned clutch of three eggs, one unused for the first time in 17 years and broods of just one or two. The highlight in Cornish terms though, was an adult Stock Dove with two big chicks - the first Stock Doves to be ringed in the county since 1988! In fact, the three birds doubled the total number ringed in the county since the 1970s!

Not a Swallow

We've tried and failed at our first Swallow roosts this last week (at Gunwalloe), catching just a handful of birds. This did include a few Sand Martins and a Swallow we ringed at roost in July 2011 though, but the highlight for some was this rather smart (and very juvenile) Stonechat.

Our latest CES visit at the site was a bit more successful, with the 51 birds caught comparing well to 31 from the same visit last year. Lots of young Reed Warblers out now and also a few Sedge Warblers passing through, including a 'Fat 4' bird. Hopefully bodes well for the rest of the season...

New moon Stormies and an old Kittiwake

The current new moon (and rare calm conditions for The Lizard!) gave us our second opportunity of the year to catch a few Storm Petrels. The night started a bit quiet, but by 2am (when Tony had left) things picked up and we ended the night at 3am with 79 new birds and a ringed bird which looks to be from Co Dublin.

When you catch a good number of Stormies there's always a few missing toes or feet and last night was no exception, with one footless bird and one missing a whole lower leg! Birds seem to do OK with bits missing (presumably nipped off by fish), so we ringed both birds on the good leg and away they went.

Stumpy

We also took advantage of the low tides a new moon brings to get into the zawn at Rinsey to colour ring a few more Kittiwakes. However, with so few birds actively breeding though this was never going to be easy, and most birds went out to loaf on the sea before we got close. Not all bad news though, as there's always been one metal-ringed bird in the colony that I've wanted to catch, but it was always a bit too high on the face. But with a bit of patience and effort we managed to catch this bird - originally ringed as a chick on Tresco, Isles of Scilly, in 1998! So this is now sporting a new colour ring (CC - below) and it'll be interesting to keep track of this bird from now on.

15-year-old 'CC', now a Rinsey resident

Only other birds of note were a couple of Shags ringed and a few more Herring Gulls also colour-ringed in addition to our urban birds.

More urban gulls and a very Cornish surprise

Yesterday was spent catching up with the Rinsey Kittiwakes, but this didn't entirely go to plan. In perfect weather, the colony was worryingly quiet and a scan through produced a few sat birds but the only birds I could see on anything were three pairs on a total of four eggs! I know the season is a bit late, but compare this to 5th July last year when I counted 32 chicks, some of which were well on their way to fledging...

The only consolation was a very Cornish surprise on the way down to the site, barely viewable in this shockingly low-quality iPhone footage.

So further work abandoned we headed to Falmouth to mop up a few more roof-nesting gulls. This was marginally more successful, with an easy roof yielding 13 Herring Gulls of various sizes, but all big enough to now be sporting a colour ring.

Dismal CES season at Gunwalloe

Having completed Visit 6 on our CES at Gunwalloe this morning (in perfect conditions), the total of just nine birds was incredibly low, as we'd expect 30+ birds by now.

Looking out over the 'dry' ride at Gunwalloe - not so dry though,
still being thigh-deep in mud in places!

So with such a low total hot on the heels of the 13 birds caught on Visit 5, I thought I'd compare the ctch totals for the first half this year to those in 2012.

	2012	2013
Adult Reed Warbler	45	37
Juvenile Reed Warbler	4	1
Sedge Warbler	19	5
Blue Tit	15	1
Cetti's Warbler	3	0
Total all species, all ages	95	53

I was surprised to see so many Reed Warblers in the total, but the lack of species variety is rather worrying! We normally catch good numbers of Blue Tits, Reed Buntings and Chiffchaff but these have all been notable by their absence this summer. Hopefully this is just the effects of a late season, so we'll have to see if it picks up in the last six visits.

Urban gull ringing in Falmouth

This last week we've been out colour-ringing the first Herring Gull chicks on roofs in Falmouth. This project, in conjunction with Falmouth Marine School, with hopefully build up a reasonable colour-ringed population in the town allowing future studies on movements and behaviour. With so much 'pasty-snatching' and bin-raiding in Cornish towns, this is certainly a hot topic at the moment.

Over the summer we'll be ringing as many chicks as we can safely reach and also hopefully catching adults later in the year in a cage trap. Each bird is marked with a blue ring, coded W: followed by three numbers. Coincidentally, the first birds ringed in the project were on the roof of the Marine School, with more to follow there.

West Cornwall Ringing Group hatches

This week saw the first day out ringing for the newly-formed West Cornwall Ringing Group. Bringing together what few ringers there are down in the far southwest, the group will bring a new focus to ringing projects locally.

Our first day out ringing of 2013 saw a small group of us out at Ponsanooth Sewage Works, here proudly posing with the first birds ringed by the group - a small flock of Long-tailed Tits. The weather was a bit too clement for a big catch, but 49 birds including 13 Chiffchaffs and two Firecrest wasn't too bad! Such regular wintering fare is expected at these sites, so we now just need some colder weather to concentrate birds.

On the way back, we stopped off at a new site near The Lizard where a few Chiffs are feeding on old hay bales. A couple of single-shelf nets resulted in three more Chiffchaff ringed, including our first Siberian Chiffchaff (race tristis) of the winter - though sadly it wouldn't pose for a photo.