What would taste better?

A Feral Pigeon or a Wood Pigeon? We discussed this matter in depth yesterday.

 Menzie seems to go for the Wood Pigeon.

Whilst Faab doesn't seem particularly happy with the Feral Pigeon.. 

So I guess the Wood Pigeon is our lucky winner!

Other birds ringed in the garden yesterday afternoon included a varied bunch of species. Several Goldfinches, Blue Tits, two Coal Tits, a Greenfinch, a juvenile Dunnock and the undoubtedly highlights Feral (well we didn't ring it) & Wood Pigeon.

 Wood Pigeon (Columba palumbus)

 Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis), 3J in English terms

 Greenfinch (Carduelis chloris), 2cy male

 Dunnock (Prunella modelularis), 3J with a tasty meelworm in its mouth!

 Pair of Coal Tits (Periparus ater), female left; male right

They turned out to be a nice comparison: the female (upper one) was a 2cy; note the brown alulas and primary coverts. The male (the one below) was a >2cy; dark alulas and dark primary coverts in contrast to the female. Both had started the post-breeding moult.

Yesterday we bought some wire at the shops and spend quite a few hours building a trap for in the garden; aiming for trapping the Wood Pigeons of course:) We had finished it in the evening and put it out this morning. We already have result: a Robin!

I would also like to share this photo of a Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) pullus:

Wednesday afternoon we joined David Norman again for some pulli ringing this time. We went to a farm with Tree Sparrows. We ringeds a few broods of Tree Sparrow, a single House Sparrow brood and a single brood of Great Tits.

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.