23D8 returns

It's that time of year when we should be out catching migrants, but it's also the time of year when the weather is never calm enough to open nets. So it's also the time to await the arrival of some of our returning winter birds, including some real creatures of habit. One such regular is 23D8 that we've blogged about before (see here).

Breeding in its natal colony at Hosehill Lake, Berkshire, 23D8 is a regular winter visitor to Helston Boating Lake, but in recent years has paused briefly on the Camel estuary en route to Helston. This winter it arrived back bang on cue on 24th October, and for once we thought it had slipped through the Camel estuary unnoticed, but having just heard back from the ringer, that's apparently not the case!

23D8, third from the right (honestly!), back on bread-stealing duty

Over the last few years, 23D8's movements can be summarised as...

• last seen in Berkshire June 2012
• Camel estuary 4th October 2012
• Helston Boating Lake 21st October 2012 (to 1st March 2013)
• back in Berkshire by 19th March 2013 (last seen 2nd July 2013)
• Camel estuary 22nd July 2013 (and again 24th August)
• Helston Boating Lake 17th October 2013 (to 16th February 2014)
• back in Berkshire 9th March 2014 (last seen 4th June 2014)
• Camel estuary 23rd June 2014 (and again 3rd October 2014)
• Helston Boating Lake 24th October 2014

Pretty much the only other ringing we've managed recently was this very rusty rehabilitated Tawny Owl ringed at the Screech Owl Sanctuary last week. This is part of a long-term project monitoring the success of their rehab programme.

Urban gull swaps Falmouth for France

It's been a while since we've blogged, but the weather's not been conducive to much ringing, and apart from a few Meadow Pipits and Linnets at The Lizard and a few more PIT-tagged tits, all's been quiet.

But today we received interesting news of one of our Great Black-backed Gulls from Falmouth, ringed in addition to the birds on Mullion Island. In 2013 we ringed three chicks on the roof of the Falmouth Marine School, but these then disappeared. We presumed they'd stay locally, but then several of the Herring Gulls ringed in the town have wandered, so perhaps Great Black-backs are likely to wander further.

But on 12th October, L:BF8 was seen at Baie de Lampaul on Ile d'Ouessant in western France. We know that birds from Looe Island will wander quite widely into France, but this is the first of our own birds (from Falmouth or Mullion Island) that has been seen abroad.

Thanks to Benjamin Griard for reporting this bird and it'll be interesting to see if it stays around the island over the winter.

Lizard Arctic Warbler eludes...

Well having spent the morning trying to get to grips (not literally) with an incredibly elusive Arctic Warbler in Church Cove, Lizard, I've been playing catch-up for the remainder of the day! The warbler was found by group ringer Tony Blunden first thing and despite being heard calling a few times has eluded most people. A really dull Wood Warbler hanging around the churchyard has also added to the confusion at times...

But anyway, in more important ringing group news (and to explain the random begging dragon above!), one of our ringing group members will this weekend be doing something quite stupid and needs your help... Luke Edwyn Marsh, from Falmouth Marine School (who fund a lot of our seabird work), will this Sunday be leaping out of a perfectly fine aircraft at 15,000 feet (yes, 2.84 miles!!) as part of a big fundraising day for Pete's Dragons.

Luke (right) in his more natural habitat: ringing gull chicks on Mullion Island

The dragons fundraise for two charities: The Samaritans and Cornwall Search and Rescue Team, the latter obviously very important to me as a SAR team member! But Luke ('Enter the Dragon') is still a bit short of the funding he needs to do the jump, so what better way to use the power of the ringing group blog than to try to add a few pounds (or hundreds of pounds??!!) to his pot for these worthy causes.

Members of Cornwall Search and Rescue Team steep slope
rescue training earlier in the year; a vital technical skill

So if you'd like to read a bit more about Luke, then he's 'dragon of the day' today so check him out on the Dragon's website, and to donate click the dragon below! If just 20% of the readers of our recent Paddyfield post felt inclined to donate just £2.84 (miles to pennies...), then we'd add a whopping £354 to Luke's pot! So if you can spare a pint's worth of cash, then please donate away...

Complete Goldfinch moult and other eccentric finch moults

It's long been known that some finches will undergo a limited moult of their primaries as part of their (partial) post-juvenile moult. It's not always easy to spot, but over the last couple of days we've seen some good examples in my Lizard garden. This Greenfinch is easily aged as a first-year bird (juvenile) by virtue of its relatively fresh plumage and brown-centred, pointy primary coverts. But you'll notice that it's in primary moult, with one feather still growing and another fully-grown inside it. The moulted feathers are not only fresher, but have much blacker centres, greyer tips and the yellow portions on the outer web are brighter than the juvenile feathers. But note that in this type of eccentric moult, the corresponding primary coverts aren't replaced.

The difference in the colouration of the moulted/unmoulted feathers is obvious here

This same pattern of moult is seen in several other finch species, including Goldfinch, Siskin and, rarely, Linnet. Two Goldfinches bizarrely caught at the same time today also showed this same moult pattern ,but had already finished moulting. So whilst they didn't have any obvious growing feathers, the contrast in the two ages of feather is still obvious enough. Both birds had just moulted two primaries in the centre of the feather tract.

Note the difference in the base colour of the feathers and also the degree of wear
on the white tips of the new feathers and those inside them

The second bird was very similar. Note how the two new feathers not only have
much 'smarter', unworn white tips, but also have much brighter yellow outer webs,
forming a brighter yellow patch in the wing.

Interestingly though, we did also catch a Goldfinch that was just finishing a complete moult, having moulted all flight feathers (primaries AND secondaries), primary coverts (seemingly) and tail. We know this was a first-year bird, as it was ringed as a 3J (complete juvenile) on 26th May. This is a much rarer pattern of moult, but unfortunately we don't have any photos of this bird!

Apart from garden ringing, we've also been helping out a Masters student at University of Exeter, helping to fit PIT tags (transponders) to Blue and Great Tits. This is part of a study looking at the effects of supplementary feeding on fitness in birds. PIT tags allow birds to be recorded remotely at feeders, checking themselves in and out of a feeding aviary as they pass through an aerial.

Although it looks clunky, the PIT tag on the right leg (on the left here) is very light,
and acts like a bard code which scans as the bird enters the aviary.

Nanjizal update: Barred and Aquatic Warblers ringed

Ringing at Nanjizal has continued at a fair pace, with the September ringing total now just over 1000 birds. The totals for some species are also really building now, including 44 Grasshopper Warbler (138 for the year), 182 Sedge Warbler (1248 for the year), 98 Whitethroat, 400 Blackcap, 78 Chiffchaff and four Redstart. Even better are the tit totals: just eight Blue and two Great!

On the rarer front, both juvenile Barred and Aquatic Warbler have been caught, adding to the already impressive species list for the year, and a close call was a Western Bonelli's Warbler sat by a furled net on 15th.

Barred Warbler ringed on 8th September

Aquatic Warbler ringed on 9th September, caught as nets were being furled!

Anyone wanting to ring at Nanjizal over the remainder of the autumn (and needing somewhere to stay), should have a look at the Nanjizal page on the blog for more info.

Another gull coincidence

Following the bizarre gull coincidence we blogged about before (here), they just keep coming! On the weekend I needed to go out to St Ives to replace a battery on one of the relay stations (that bounce the downloaded logger data to our base station) and also to retrieve one of the loggers from the Co-op roof that had either fallen off or been removed by one of the gulls... We knew the bird was alive and well as it had been seen on Hayle estuary by ring-reader extraordinaire Steve Lister (holidaying Leicestershire county recorder), but the tag was still just transmitting from the rooftop!

One of the two relay stations in St Ives

The retrieved logger, unfortunately now minus aerial

Whilst I was there it would be rude to not have a look on the beach for some of our birds... As ever, W:186 was still mugging children on the beach by Rod's Deckchairs (now accompanied by two begging juveniles) and on the beach by the ice cream parlour was W:194.

W:194 on the beach at St Ives, 20m from where it was ringed!

Once these jobs were done I decided to drop in to Hayle estuary to have a quick look through the gulls there. Not only did I bump into Steve Lister (and show him the logger dropped by the bird he'd seen earlier in the week), but also spotted a couple of our St Ives birds. Nothing really special there, until I realised that one of them was W:194 which must have followed me down from St Ives! I worked out I'd been watching it on the beach in St Ives just after 3pm and then watching it on the estuary at Hayle at 3:50pm. OK, so it's only a matter 4km from St Ives to Hayle as the gull flies, but I was impressed by the coincidence!

W:194 45 at Hayle, less than an hour after I'd been watching it in St Ives

Early autumn at Nanjizal - and an early Paddyfield

Autumn ringing at the private 'off site' at Nanjizal, near Land's End, has been picking up, with some pretty good numbers of birds ringed over the last couple of months. The totals are all checked now and make for impressive reading...

July - 1,090 new birds ringed

The top three species in July were Sedge Warbler (314), Willow Warbler (120) and Chiffchaff (86), although the supporting cast also included an excellent 45 Grasshopper Warbler and 68 Whitethroat.

Net full of Grasshopper Warblers

August - 1,184 new birds ringed

The top species in August was unsurprisingly Sedge Warbler again (658), taking the number ringed at the site in 2014 over the 1,000 mark (1,079 to be precise)! Second was Whitethroat (166) and then Blackcap (65), though the supporting cast was a bit more varied, including 2 Water Rail, Little Ringed Plover, 8 Tree Pipit, Redstart, 33 Grasshopper Warbler and Cornwall's fifth record of Paddyfield Warbler; a juvenile caught on 31st August.

The long-tailed appearance of Paddyfield Warblers is in part due to their very short wings

The fresh flight feathers age this Paddyfield Warbler as a juvenile bird

Nanjizal will continue to be regularly ringed through the rest of the autumn, and the next couple of months should bring big numbers of Blackcap and Chiffchaff, along with a few surprises (recent highlights include a very smart Red-eyed Vireo). Any ringers wishing to help out at Nanjizal over the autumn are welcome to come along and there is cottage accommodation nearby which sleeps four people. If you fancy coming down to help out then get in touch with us via the 'Contact us' page above.

Aquatic Warbler recaught in France!

Back in August 2012, we were lucky enough to catch a juvenile Aquatic Warbler on our CES at Gunwalloe, not at the more expected Marazion Marsh where we specifically play 'tape-lures' for them on autumn migration. This was a complete surprise on CES, but not as surprising as today's news...

Y752695 at Gunwalloe in August 2012

We heard just this morning that Y752695 was recaught by French ringers in August 2013 (yes, a year ago...) at Reserve de Briere Sud in western France. This is amazing news and a great link between the migration sites in the western UK and western France. Interestingly, this isn't our first exchange with this reserve, as a Reed Warbler ringed there in August 2010 was recaught by us as a breeding bird at Gunwalloe in  July 2011.

The global population of Aquatic Warblers is just 15,000 pairs, concentrated in eastern Europe (and further east), wintering in sub-Saharan Africa. So although we can put dots on the map linking Cornwall and France, we can also put a big smudge where this bird will have bred in summer 2013...

The BTO's online ringing report has details of just two previous foreign movements of Aquatic Warblers from the UK. These were birds ringed within a day of each other in August 2006, both recaught shortly after in France (one recaught 234km away the next day and another recaught 394km away nine days later!). In fact, 2006 was the last year double-figures of Aquatic Warblers were ringed in the UK (11 birds), with the most since then being 2012 (seven birds), including two in Cornwall.

So the movement of our bird is a really nice addition to the migration picture for this globally endangered bird.

Last CES for 2014

This morning saw three of us running the last CES visit of the year at Gunwalloe. The day dawned pretty cold and wet, so we weren't overly optimistic for a big catch... But in the end, the total of 27 birds was the most we've ever had on the last visit, ranging from 13 to 21 in previous years. This continues the trend of having much better catches late in the season this year...

Dawn over the reedbed at Gunwalloe

Visit totals on CES since 2011

Most of the catch were Sedge Warblers, a surprisingly large number of which were carrying plenty of fat. The heaviest was an adult weighing in at 17.2g, compared to a juvenile of similar size with no fat that weighed 9.4g!

Bit hard to see, but this is a Fat 7 Sedge Warbler (on a scale of 0 to 8)

The difference in wear on flight feathers between juvenile (left)
and adult (right) Sedge Warbler is pretty obvious!

Numbers of Sedge Warbler were the lowest since we started the CES in 2011, with Reed Warblers also pretty low in number. 

	2011	2012	2013	2014
Reed Warbler	184	108	115	110
Sedge Warbler	115	69	77	60
Cetti's Warbler	15	3	1	3
Total catch	533	235	257	226

Apart from Sedge and Reed Warblers, the only other bird of note was a juvenile Cetti's Warbler: a species that hasn't done too well at Gunwalloe over the last few years. Compare numbers on the CES in 2001 to those the last three years!

Finally, thanks to everyone that's helped out with the CES this year and it's been pretty grim at times, especially on the so-called 'wet ride' which turned into more of a swamp than anything else over the last few visits...

The notorious Gunwalloe 'wet ride'

Nanjizal Groppers

Yesterday we had a ringing group jolly to help out Kester Wilson down at Nanjizal, near Lands End. Numbers of birds in the valley there have been picking up and just last week a ringing day total of almost 300 birds spurred us on! The site is a great mix of habitats and attracts good numbers of some quite uncommon birds. After narrowly missing a soaking, the first net round wasn't quite as hectic as expected, or hoped for, but still kept us busy for a bit.

Half a dozen Groppers round the 'tape'

A first net-round haul that probable beats our average morning CES total!

It was only really the first two net rounds that caught big numbers and we were soon closing nets as it warmed up and slacked off. But a quick add up and we'd ringed a non-too-shabby 125 birds, including 10 Grasshopper Warblers, 35 Sedge Warblers and 31 Whitethroat, and just the one Tree Pipit.

Just one of the many Groppers ringed

Another Cormorant goes east

Hot on the heels of TBB, which was recently seen in West Bexington, Dorset, another of our Cormorants has headed east. TAX was at Dawlish Warren, Devon, on 15th August, reported to use by Lee Collins, who reads a huge number of rings at the site. This was his first colour-ringed Cormorant though, so we're happy to oblige!

TAX was ringed in May 2014 on Mullion Island, one of 18 birds now sporting orange colour rings.

TAX at Dawlish Warren (Lee Collins)

Returning Curlews from the Continent

We've had a little run of colour-ringed Curlew sightings recently, with three different birdsringed in three different countries. Two of these are in fact returning birds, proving that there's some degree of faithfulness to wintering sites of European birds.

Red/Metal, Red/Green was ringed as a breeding male on 30th May 2013 in Kattenvenne, Germany, and was first seen at Rosemullion on 10th August 2013. It then returned to breed at Kattenvenne in 2014 and was back at Men-aver beach, Helford River, on 13th August 2014.

RM,RG at Rosemullion in August 2013

This morning at Devoran, in amongst over 100 roosting Curlew, were two other colour-ringed birds. White (S), Red (A) was a bird ringed as a chick on 13th June 2013 at Sekdoorn, Zwoll, The Netherlands. It was first seen in Cornwall on 22nd September 2013 and then at Devoran on 29th December 2013 and again today (17th August 2014).

SA when it was ringed a a nearly-fledged chick...

...and as seen at Devoran in August 2014

The other bird was a new one to us, but we do know that it was a bird ringed as part of a BTO project looking at how waders use the Severn Estuary. This will have been a bird ringed in autumn/winter so may have been on passage when ringed, or has now switched wintering area.

BL/M, R/YW at Devoran in August 2014

Thanks to John St Ledger for the photo of RM,RG and Gerrit Gerritsen for the photo of SA as a chick.

T:013 returns from Spain

We blogged recently about a few big gulls at Lizard Point, including a pic (also below) of Great Black-back T:013.

We've now received the details back for this bird and it has quite an interesting history. The whole story behind it's ringing featured on the BTO's Demog Blog last year just after it had been resighted in Spain. It was seen in A Coruña from 13th January to 26th February 2013 and then again from 15th October to 29th November 2013, but hadn't been seen since. It is presumably still too young to be breeding so is just perhaps summering closer to home...

T:013 wen it was ringed in Aberdeenshire...

...and when it was first resighted in Spain

The photos originally appeared on Demog Blog and are courtesy of Euan Ferguson and Antonio Gutierrez.

Juvenile Med Gulls on the Helford

Surprise surprise it's too windy for any mist-netting this week, so it's back to looking at colour-ringed gulls again...

Just for variety I ventured out to Men-aver beach on the southern side of the Helford River. The reef here is a great gathering point for Mediterranean Gulls from the area and as the tide pushes them up the beach it's possible to read a few rings. There have been good numbers of very fresh juveniles around recently, so I thought it'd be nice to try to find a ringed one amongst them to see where they're from so early in the season.

The reef at Men-aver beach

Tides were rather higher than expected (ex-hurricane effect perhaps?), so there were only 15 birds on the reef, but three of these were wearing smart green colour rings, indicating a French origin. Two of these were fresh juveniles as well, exactly as I wanted...

Green 570

Green RR83

Thanks to the ever-efficient Camille Duponcheel, I got the details for these birds back this morning. Both 570 and RR83 had been ringed on the same day (29th June) at the same site: Barbâtre, Polder de Sebastopol, Vendée. This is over 400km from Cornwall and interesting that these birds had moved north so soon after fledging.

Green R16X is a regular in the area, having been seen several times
at Men-aver beach and Coverack

Dusky Swallow, odd Reed Bunting and more big gulls

The weather has been kind the last few days, and the forecast is looking good for the next few days, so we've been busy taking advantage to get mist nets up. A quick couple of mornings last week at Marazion caught over 120 birds, including this very smart Cuckoo.

In preparation for our latest CES visit this morning, we put up nets last night and managed to catch 25 Swallows in the process. There's always one rusty bird in these catches that makes a change, but I don't think I've seen one quite this dusky before.

Excuse the poor photo, but it was late...

The actual CES itself this morning was half-decent for a change. The average catch on Visit 10 is just 35 birds, so our total of 57 this morning was very respectable. Unsurprisingly most were Reed and Sedge Warblers, although 11 Blue Tits were a bit unwelcome! One more unusual bird was a very dark-headed Reed Bunting. Despite having a rather black head, it didn't have any real white collar, and the presence of an obvious brood patch confirmed this was a female. It was actually a retrap, first ringed as a juvenile in July last year. Whilst you do sometimes see female birds taking on male characteristics the older they get (female Blackbirds turning black for example), this bird was probably just very worn, with the dark feather bases showing through on the head.

Very dark (or worn) first-summer female Reed Bunting

Talking of wear, also check out the comparison here between a fresh juvenile Reed Warbler and a worn adult. The one will have had its flight feathers for a month, the other for perhaps five or six months.

The last few days have also seen a good gathering of big gulls at Lizard Point, and we've managed to read a whole host of colour rings, including birds from Norway, NE Scotland, France and local SW birds.

Black 42M (top left) from Normandy, France, and Yellow T:013 (bottom right) from NE Scotland

White L:BS3 (top left) from Looe Island, Cornwall, and Green K03 (bottom right) from Normandy, France

Thanks to Dave Jones for the reedbed photos and Terry Thirlaway for the gull photos.