Finger biters

Finger biters, not so surprising when you take a look at their bills. Both ringed at my CES recently.

 Hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes), male

 Jay (Garrulus garrulus), 2cy female

Ringing site at dawn

Redstart from Norway!

The first CES of the year was held at my site last Sunday. At arrival, temperatures reached -3 degrees Celsius, very cold for late April! During dawn it even reached -4.. Still, birds were already active, despite the cold.

When we stepped out of the car at 5, the first bird was already singing, a Redstart. After a relatively quick set up of the nets the ringing could start. The first two rounds were quite decent with 10+ each. The first round provided a first for the site: a female Hawfinch! Only my second in hand. The rounds after were slower, but still ok. Then around 11.00 I came across a Redstart in the net. And it was ringed! While I extracted the bird I looked at the ring. It said: Stavanger Mus. Norway! The first foreign ring for my site. Furthermore we caught 2 Great Tits with unknown Dutch rings, together with an unknown Pied Flycatcher.

Blackbird 2 - 0
Blue Tit 1 - 0
Chaffinch 6 - 0 
Great Tit 10 - 8 with 2 unknown Dutch rings
Hawfinch 1 - 0
Pied Flycatcher 4 - 2 one from last year and one femal (ringed as a pullus summer 2010!)
Redstart 0 - 1 Stavanger!
Robin 4 - 0
Song Thrush 1 - 0
Tree Pipit 1 - 0
Willow Warbler 1 - 1

Total: 31 new 12 retraps = 43 birds of 11 species

 Hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes), female

 Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), male; the darkest male we've caught so far..

Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus), adult male

Observations included two Bramblings (a singing male and a foraging female), displaying Goshawk, singing Cuckoo, Yellowhammers and a pair of Lesser-spotted Woodpeckers showing really well.

Here is a recording of the Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla):

A Yellow Ending

Our last ringing session of the year was held at my site and it's clear the woods have become really empty now.. Last year saw us ringing on the 10th of July as well and last year's session stood in big contrast with the ringing today. The birds have gone quiet, only very few birds were singing. The Robins continue, with every now and then a Song Thrush but otherwise it's quiet. No singing Wood Larks, Tree Pipits, Redstart or Pied Flycatchers (and so on) anymore. I think the latter two have moved away from their breeding grounds already, I didn't observe a single bird of both species. I was surprised to hear both Woodcock and Nightjar still singing during this time of year. I was able to make a recording of the Nightjar, as it was singing from a reasonable distance.

Nightjar, Caprimulgus europaeus by Fmeijer

During this time of year it should be booming with juvenile birds. There were quite a few juvenile tits etc. around but none were found in the nets. And if those are missing out, the numbers of birds ringed can be considered quite poor. Sometimes it's just a matter of luck..

The ringing today was not particularly boring, as the species diversity was reasonable - for the amount of birds being caught. The highlight of the morning was the male Yellowhammer that finally found its way into the net, after so much avoiding of the nets:)

Blackbird 1 - 2 new juvenile, retrap adult female and juvenile
Blackcap 1 - adult female
Great-spotted Woodpecker 1 - juvenile male
Goldcrest 1 - adult male
Robin 5 - 1 all new juveniles, 1 retrap adult
Short-toed Treecreeper 1 - adult female
Yellowhammer 1 - splendid adult male
Willow Warbler 1 - juvenile

15 birds in total..

Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella), adult male

Goldcrest (Regulus regulus), adult male

Short-toed Treecreeper (Certhia brachydactyla), female; this could be a 2cy because of the pattern (and now it's moulting, the large contrast) of the (brown/worn) old outer primary coverts. You can see the old ones have a narrow buffy/white shaft on the outer web, whilst the new ones have a dark buffy tip (adult type pc?) on the point of the primary coverts. I know that this feature can be used for ageing Treecreepers (Certhia familiaris), but I'm not sure it can be of use with the brachydactyla. This year and last year I took a look at the juvenile Short-toed Treecreepers and I found out that some juveniles had a smaller buffy tip (adult type?) but on the outer pc's this tip was sometimes somewhat larger. Others had more extensive buffy/white colouring , like the bird above. Here are just two random pic's to illustrate

Juvenile Short-toed Treecreeper from last year; note the outer primary coverts

Juvenile Short-toed Treecreeper from this year; note the smal(ler) tips on the pc's, the outer ones as you can see, somewhat larger. This is maybe not the best example as the wing is closed.. 

I don't know what experience/knowlegde other ringers have on this subject but I'm interested to know!

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!

It feels like winter..

Second CES ringing session of the season was held today. The conditions were horrible, strong northeastern winds blowing right on the nets and us, plus temperatures in the morning reaching 5 degrees, but later it turned a bit warmer, 10 degrees at least!! Not only we were cold, but the birds also. It was also nice to have some more company, with John Mulder and Tim de Boer joining my dad and I.

As expected with these conditions, we didn't catch too many birds, but we had some nice species. In the early morning a Woodcock was displaying above our nets, but we weren't lucky enough to catch it.

There were still many Pied Flycatchers around, we caught 5. One was a bird ringed somewhere else in the Netherlands. After I'd entered the record into our Dutch database called GRIEL, I immediately received the requested information: the bird was ringed as a nestling on 03-06-2010 on the Hoge Veluwe. So the bird is now in its 3rd calenderyear and returned close to where it was born.

We ringed the first two Redstarts of the year, both of them being 2cy males. New species for the year were also 2 Long-tailed Tits, a Song Thrush.

Below the totals and some photos.

Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) 1 -

Great Tit (Parus major) 3 - 3

Long-tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus) 2 -

Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) 4 - 1

Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) 2 -

Robin (Erithacus rubecula) 2 - 1

Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) 1 -

Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) 2 - 1 Total 17 - 6 (8 species)

 Long-tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus), >1cy male

 Common Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus), male.

Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), >1cy male; probably the brownest male I've ever seen. Note the lack of white spots on the forehead (just some buffish on the base of the bill), something that should rarely occur with male Pied Flycatchers. But note the black tail, which reveals its sex.

Promising start on Queensday

Unlike many other people, we spent our Queensday bird ringing. How wonderful!

Together with my dad, Hans and Henri we had an excellent first CES round at my ringing siste. As always with the first time, the set up took a bit longer then expected but for the rest everything went smooth.

From this year on, nestboxes have been hung on trees at the site and I think this has caused a clear increase in Pied Flycatcher and Great Tits. 

The morning started with cloud cover and low temperatures but soon the sun came forward and it became a beautiful day, the first reasonable day for Holland so far this spring!

Cloud cover is good for ringing and this was proved soon. Every round we had quite a few birds. Below the totals:

Blackbird (Turdus merula)	2
Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla)	2
Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)	1
Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)	2	1
Crested Tit (Lophophanes cristatus)	4
Goldcrest (Regulus regulus)	1
Great Tit (Parus major)	16	2
Jay (Garrulus glandarius)	1
Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca)	6
Robin (Erithacus rubecula)	2
Short-toed Treecreeper (Certhia brachydactyla)	1
Tree Pipit (Anthus trivialis)	1
Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus)	2

Total 41- 3 (recapture of one 'unknown' Dutch ringed Great Tit)

Observations during the ringing included: singing Lesser Redpoll, Yellowhammers, Marsh Tits, Coal Tits, Woodlark, Cuckoo, Redstarts, first Wood Warbler of the year and displaying Goshawk.

 Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), >2cy female; rounded primary coverts, rounded tail; blackish alula etc made me age this one as a >2cy, eventhough females are tricky.. (Well Pied Flycatchers in general in spring are difficult...)

  Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), >1cy male; of the browngrey 'morph'

But what about the age of this one? A very good 4 I would say! (Upper individual)

 Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus), >1cy; pale looking individual

 Crested Tit (Lophophanes cristatus), >1cy male

Jay (Garrulus glandarius), >1cy female