Classical Redpolls!

For more than a week now a group of 30-40 Redpolls have been visiting our garden and surroundings. It's a mixed group with both Lesser and Mealy Redpolls. Today I succeeded in catching one of each species. Both were classical examples of both species! Below of short photo study of the birds:

Lesser Redpoll (Acanthis cabaret), looks like a 1cy with a moulted GC9 (see arrow), male (hint of pink in rump)

 Mealy Redpoll (Acanthis flammea), 1cy male, note the 5 retained outer-GC and tertails

I would be happy with unstreaked undertailcoverts in combination with a white rump:)

 And a nice comparison of the two species!

Eccentric moult in Greenfinch, a Middle Spotted Woodpecker and more!

Friday, the 8th, I was back home in Apeldoorn and ringing session in the garden. It was quiet, with only 7 birds caught, some Blue and Great Tits and a Greenfinch and Chaffinch. The Greenfinch though, was interesting, as it had done some eccentric moult - as is known to happen with Greenfinches occasionally. It was a 2cy male, the pictures below will illustrate it:

 Greenfinch (Carduelis chloris), 2cy male

 Right wing: P5-P9 moulted (inner to outer)+ what looks like the tertails and one (incidental) secondary

 Left wing: P5,6 and P9 moulted + tertails

Tail: all new adult type tailfeathers

Yesterday, Saturday the 9th, my dad and I headed out to do some birding in the county. First we saw the Velvet Scoters at Zutphen again. This time they were quite close to the shoreline and showed very well. Enabling us to take some better photos than I did last time. 

Again! Velvet Scoters (Melanitta fusca), 1st winter males

On our way back home we stopped at Huis Voorstonden near Brummen where there's a territory of Middle Spotted Woodpeckers. It took 20 mins before we located it. It didn't show really well, high up in the trees, but it was actively calling so I made a recording:

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

Sibilatrix

Friday morning we went ringing at my ringing site again. The thunder and rain they had forecasted for the night didn't come out at all.. which was good for us. There was no wind and there was a complete cloud cover, perfect!

In the first round I came upon a great surprise in the net: a Wood Warbler! This was one of the species I was hoping to catch here, and now we did! It's not a species that's ringed very often (especially not at the breeding grounds); the main ringing records come from the coastal areas (the isles) in autumn. It's the first time I ring this species here in Holland. The bird was an adult female; it was surprising to see how good the condition of the flight feathers was, you would expect a much more worn bird. There were (young?) birds calling nearby, in the adjacent oak forest; same place where a male has been singing this entire spring.

 Wood Warbler (Phylloscopus sibilatrix), adult female; having a broodpatch

Wing of the Wood Warbler, note the good condition of for eg. the tips of the primaries and secondaries.

Another new, but expected species for this site was a 1cy Nuthatch. It was about time that we would catch one here! While doing a nestbox survey on Wednesday I had already noticed a large flock of young birds: many Tits, mixed with Willow Warblers, Chaffinches, Great Spotted Woodpeckers etc. I had hope the flock would still be around, and it was. We only managed to catch a small piece of the flock on Friday.

Nuthatch (Sitta europaea), 1cy

Among the tits we recaptured three juveniles that I'd ringed as pulli on this site this year. Good to recapture some! Furthermore it seems that most of the (adult) Pied Flycatchers have completed their post-breeding moult and left, none were caught this session.

Totals:

Blackbird 1 -
Blackcap 2 -
Blue Tit 1 -
Crested Tit 2 -
Great Tit 9 - 3
Great Spotted Woodpecker 1 -
Nuthatch 1 -
Robin 5 - 2
Song Thrush 2 - 1
Willow Warbler 5 -
Wood Warbler 1 -

Total 30-6 = 36
11 species

Yellowhammer

The weather has been pretty shitty the last week , and next to that the weather forecast turned out to be wrong multiple times. Well done weathermen! This morning was calm and sunny though, excellent for ringing. What a contrast compared to the strong SW wind of 5 bft with rain.

So this morning the 5th session of the season was held on the Veluwe. We had a nice number of birds and species for this site. Observations included: Siskins, Linnets, Crosbills, Bullfinches, quite a few Hawfinches (when we will catch one??), Firecrest, Woodcock, male Goshawk and of course the more common stuff. Below the totals:

Blackbird (Turdus merula) 2 -
Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) 2 -
Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) - 1
Dunnock (Prunella modellaris) 1 - new species for the site!
Great Tit  (Parus major) 6 - 1
Robin (Erithacus rubecula) 4 - 1
Short-toed Treecreeper (Certhia brachydactyla) 1 - 1
Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) 2 -
Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) 2 -6 including 1 Dutch control (controlled on the nest already, but first time in the nets)
Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) 1 - beautiful adult female
Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) 1 -

Total 32 birds (22-10) spread over 11 species.

Some adults had already started their post-breeding moult. For example a few Pied Flycatchers, a Willow Warbler and a Great Tit.

 Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella), female, possibly a 2cy according to the very abraded tail

 Dunnock (Prunella modellaris), an unusual capture I would say in the middle of the forest.

Pied Flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) that have started their post-breeding moult. The upper bird has started moulting its inner few primaries and also its greater coverts and has already moulted two primary coverts. The bird below is moulting the inner two primaries and has already moulted the inner two primary coverts.

'Our' juvenile Blackbirds in the back garden are doing great by the way!

House Sparrow life histories

Two days ago, as it was raining heavily all afternoon, I heard lots of House Sparrows in our back garden. There were many adults with their youngs present. Since it had been like three months that I had been reading off colourrings from my House Sparrows I figured it was about time again to do some colourring checking! The result was pretty satisfying. During one hour of watching the House Sparrows I read off 7 different colourrings (well one was only a metal ring), but there were still so many unringed adults present. Next to many House Sparrows there were also young Great Tits, Dunnocks (including the one juvenile I ringed last week) plus a cute mouse.

 Juvenile Dunnock (Prunella modelaris)

 On the left female House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) ringed on 18-05-2011, since then seen on 16-02-2012 and 04-06-2012. On the right, male House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), ringed on 07-11-2011, 04-06-2012 was the first time I saw this one again!

 Male House Sparrow, ringed on 18-01-2012, 04-06-2012 was the first time I saw this one in my garden again.

 This male House Sparrow, ringed on 20-03-2011 when I wasn't in the possession of colourrings yet. The ring however was easy to read, since I only needed the last two digits.

And this sight of young and adults always pleases me:)

And I almost forgot to place a photo of the cute mouse!

Yesterday I headed out to my ringing site as I had to ring some Pied Flycatcher pullus. I ringed three broods of Pied Flycatchers and also one brood of Great Tits. In total 19 Pied Flycatchers and 8 Great Tits were ringed. 

 Nest of Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca)

Pulli of Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca)

First pulli of the season

This morning (after the many millimeters of rain in the early morning) I went with Tim to ring some nestlings. We checked a few nestboxes of Great Tits of which I knew the pulli would be old enough to ring. The result was 22 Great Tits, not bad for just a few nests. One nest contained 10 chicks, pretty nice. Further birds of note that we observed were 2 singing Wood Warblers, 2 singing Firecrests and a female Goshawk.

 Great Tit (Parus major), pulli of 7 days old.

Nest of Great Tit with 10 pulli inside.

In the afternoon I went to Zuidbroek, a new neighbourhood/business area with some waste land. The area can be quite nice sometimes with some migrants around. There were quite a few pairs of Lapwings around, but there was no sign of any Little Ringed Plovers, which really suprised me since I've always seen at least 3 pairs around here, too bad.. Last year there was also a pair of Redshanks, but I haven't seen any of those here yet.

Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus)

First migrant I had was a male Wheatear, Zuidbroek is always a good place to see them during migration. A little bit later I had 3 more on a cropfield on the northern side of Zuidbroek. At some sand hopes there were at least 8 Sand Martins present. They had made nests already in a steep sand heap.

Sand Martins (Riparia riparia)

The best birds were two singing Icterine Warblers, one showed itself pretty well. Getting good views on those is pretty hard, let alone taking photos. I managed to get a proper shot of one of them though. Here I also had my first singing Garden Warbler of the year.

Icterine Warbler (Hippolais icterina)

As always, there was a pair of Kestrels and Buzzards present.

Because House Sparrows are too mainstream

I ringed this clearly overweight individual this morning in my garden:

Wood Pigeon (Columba palumbus)

Wing of the Wood Pigeon, >2cy

After the morning's session I set off to my ringing site on the Veluwe. It was great driving through the forests and hearing all the returned passerines. Activity everywhere! Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers, Redstarts, Pied Flycatchers, Song Thrush etc, everything was singing. In the more open areas Wood Larks and Yellowhammers were numerous, as well as a few singing Stonechats. All species of tits were active as well.

Great habitat to drive through in this season!

 Radio Kootwijk, with the cathedral in the back.

Hoog Buurlo

At my ringing site I checked a few nestboxes that have been hung there. Quite a few were occupied. In one nest I already found few days old chicks (1 day old?) of Great Tits.