dinsdag 25 september 2012

Weekend's ringing

On saturday morning a session was held at the Meintjes. Target species for the day were the Coal Tits as they were (and still are!) on the move! Hans caught a spectacular number of 70 Coal Tits on friday morning. Saturday morning we caught about 40 Coal Tits. In total we caught some 80 birds. The first Goldcrest of the season was trapped also. 

 Goldcrest (Regulus regulus)
 Coal Tit (Periparus ater), 1 cy bird, note the three old outer greater coverts and unmoulted alula's.
 Adult Coal Tit, no moult limit in the greaters, moulted alula's and nice primary coverts
There's a slight difference in tail pattern in the 1cy and adult birds. Note the more rounded tailfeathers on the adult in contrast to the more narrow and pointed tailfeathers of the 1cy.

Sunday some ringing was done in the Ooijse Graaf, together with Bram, Christian, Joost Valkenburg and three guests. We had good numbers of Robins (36) and some lower numbers of Blackcaps and Reed Warblers. Reed Buntings did well with 17 individuals. With the clapnet we managed to catch a few Meadow Pipits, Tree Pipit, 3 Barn Swallows and a stunning Grey Wagtail. 157 birds were trapped in total. 
 Stonechat (Saxicola rubicola), 1cy bird
 Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis), 1cy bird, note the 2 moulted inner GC's
Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea), 1cy bird with 5 moulted inner GC's

dinsdag 18 september 2012

Pretty little things

After some weeks of no ringing I felt like doing some bird ringing again. On Saturday morning I joined Hans, Gerrit and Tammo for some ringing along the IJssel. I arrived a little bit later but I didn't miss anything so far. Blackcaps were around in good numbers with some 40 ringed in the early morning. So were the tits. Groups of Coal tits mixed with Blue and Great Tits came by, of which we were able to catch some. About 30 Coal Tits came by, but only two responded well enough to the tape to end up in the nets. They don't seem to respond that well to the tape then they usually do.. Anyway, another pretty surprise was a sweet Firecrest. It had been a while that I'd handled one (not if you take all the Golden-crowned Kinglets into account that I ringed last year). We ended the morning with a decent total of ~85 birds.
 Firecrest (Regulus ignicapillus), first year male
Coal Tit (Periparus ater), first year birds