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):

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)

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 

Remember, 4 is a very good age

Ringing has been excellent the past two days at the JBO with today 195 birds spread over 23 species and yesterday 185 of 20 species.

We had a Spotted Flycatcher on both days and also few Pied Flycatchers were ringed. Yesterday there were 3 adult males Collared Flycatcher around at the ringing site, but none were caught. This morning however, we ringed two females Collared Flycatchers. Barred Warblers have been ringed in reasonable numbers which is really nice :D Also we ringed about 5 Thrush Nightingales on both days.

Another highlight from today was a pretty Icterine Warbler. A Spotted Crake has been present at the small pool for a few days already, but today was the first time it showed really well. It was bathing for a few seconds in the pool. I forgot to mention that there was also a Corncrake around for a few days.

 The JBO with the city center of Jerusalem on the background.

 Ringing at the JBO

Groups of kids come every day and get educated on bird ringing!

 Icterine Warbler (Hippolais icterina)

Yael with the Icterine Warbler

Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa striata)

Some Pied Flycatcher wings:

 Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), male

 Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), male

 Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), female

 Collared Flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis), female

Wing of the Collared.

Some wings of Barred Warblers:

 Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria), adult female, though the tertails (inner one moulted) and greater coverts (very worn) intrigue me..

 Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria), adult female

 Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria), young male, note the 3 inner moulted primaries.

Remember, 4 is a very good age! (as Roni likes to say it!)