Freezing cold

But with a warm surprise...!

Went ringing this morning with Hans and Gerrit. We put 7 nets up together with the clapnet, to try our luck with that!

Results for the session weren't bad at all, with 87 birds trapped.

Blackbird 2 - 2
Blue Tit 26 - 6
Coal Tit 1 -
Dunnock - 1
Goldcrest 3 - 1
Goldfinch 1 -
Great Tit 31 - 5
Lesser Redpoll 1 -
Long-tailed Tit 1 - 1
Robin 1 - 1
Wren 3 - 1

The surprise was the Lesser Redpoll, a new species for our site! It was a fine adult male!

 Lesser Redpoll (Carduelis cabaret), adult male

 Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis), adult female

 Long-tailed Tit (Aegithilos caudatus)

Coal Tit (Periparus ater), adult

Migrating birds over the Rammelwaard

Over the past few weeks Tammo and I have been doing some bird counting in the Rammelwaard, north of Zuthpen to see if it has any potential, as (a raptor) migration watchpoint. And it surely does!

On the 19th of October Tammo did some counting there, and in just a two hours of counting (10-12) he had 22 Buzzards and 11 Sparrowhawks. Not a bad result for a two-hour count.

Four migrating Buzzards (Buteo buteo), Rammelwaard by Tammo.

Also see his weblog: http://www.natuurveluwe.blogspot.com

The next day (20 october) we stood there from 9:15 till 12:15. During these three hours we experienced massive migration!

Results below:

Hours of counting	9.15	10.15	11.15	total
Cormorant		9		9
Buzzard			1	1
Jay			2	2
Yellowhammer			1	1
Goldcrest			2	2
Meadow Pipit	100	67	40	207
Greenfinch		2		2
Mistle Thrush	5	22	4	31
Great Egret	3	9	3	15
Dunnock	4			4
Wood Pigeon	18	8	22	48
Jackdaw		12		12
Brambling	12	15	6	33
Lapwing	54		1	55
Great Grey Shrike	1	1		2
Linnet	2	1	4	7
Great Tit	10	6	8	24
Redwing	542	622	347	1511
Fieldfare		1	15	16
Blackbird		1		1
Blue Tit		5		5
Goldfinch		5		5
Reed Bunting	16	8	8	32
Tree Sparrow	3	10		13
Siskin	6	8	5	19
Shoveler			4	4
Merlin		1		1
Sparrowhawk	1	2	5	8
Starling	237	102	15	354
Long-tailed Tit	8			8
Chiffchaff	1			1
Skylark	39	313	326	678
Chaffinch	663	1023	320	2006
Water Pipit		2		2
White Wagtail	18	4	2	24
Song Thrush	52	60	11	123
Carrion Crow	4	4		8
				5274

Quite good results for our new try-out place! Here again some photos made by Tammo from the morning:

One of the two migrating Great Grey Shrikes (Lanius excubitor)!

Many groups of Skylarks (Alauda arvensis) passed by.

Here are 3 of the 15 Great White Egrets (Ardea alba) that passed by.

Today (the 27th of October) I decided to go to the Rammelwaard again. Yesterday good numbers of Cranes already passed through the Netherlands and I gave myself the best chance along the IJssel, so why not! 

It was really cold (-2 when I left) with quite a strong wind from the north, not ideal when you're travelling 20km on a scooter.. Anyway, arriving at the Rammelwaard, there was little migration. There were many thrushes present however, especially 100s of Fieldfares. 

From 9:45-12:15 I counted 19 migrating Buzzards and 6 migrating Sparrowhawks. I also saw, 1 Lesser-spotted Woodpecker, a Redpoll sp, 30 Tundra Bean Geese and many other common migrants/birds.

 Greater White-fronted Goose (Anser albifrons)

 Wood Pigeons (Columba livia) with some Stock Doves (Columba oenas)

 Group of Fieldfares (Turdus pilaris)

Male Sparrowhawk (Accipter nisus), passing by low overhead.

For more see Tammo's blog: http://www.natuurveluwe.blogspot.com

A dreary Siberian wednesday

I felt like I'd deserved some good ringing after the two exams I made yesterday, preliminary to some intensive days of studying over the last few days. I decided to head to Castricum today to join the ringers there for their daily session. The last days were very good at their ringing station; lots of birds present, many Robins, Blackbirds etc. but also a amazing variety of rarities such as 2 Olive-backed Pipits, 2 Radde's Warblers and so forth!

This morning, I got out of bed at 5.15 and got on the train of 6.00 in Apeldoorn. Around 7:30 I arrived in Castricum and from there I cycled into the dunes with my oldskool folding bike. 

As I arrived it was clear there hadn't been much arrival in the night. Just a few Blackbirds, Song Thrushes, Redwings jumped out of the bushes in front of me. The weather was really sombre with here and there some slight drizzle. At 8.00 I entered the ringing hut where I met the ringers, Jan, Arnold and Luc. The first round held some Blackbirds and Robins together with some other common species and amongst others 3 Fieldfares. Throughout the morning we kept catchin all kinds of different species, making up a nice species total. Two Rock Pipits were a nice addition to the list, next to that we caught 2 Meadow Pipits (one was a unknown Dutch-retrap). A single Skylark was also caught with the clapnets. 

In the round of 12.00 I came along a nice surprise in the net: a Cetti's Warbler. It was a retrap, ringed on 19-10-2012. My first in the hand in the Netherlands. 

In the final round Arnold brought back another good bird: a Siberian Chiffchaff! 

The totals:

Water Rail 2 - 

Great-spotted Woodpecker - 1

Skylark 1 -

Meadow Pipit 1 - 1

Rock Pipit 2 -

Wren 5 -

Dunnock 2 -

Robin 21 - 2

Blackbird 14 - 1

Fieldfare 3 -

Song Thrush 3 -

Redwing 4 -

Cetti's Warbler - 1

Reed Warbler 1 -

Blackbird 13 -

Chiffchaff 3 -

Siberian Chiffchaff 1 -

Goldcrest 4 - 1

Blue Tit 6 - 2

Great Tit 25 - 6

Starling 5 -

Chaffinch 1 - 1

Goldfinch 1 -

Total 118 - 16

23 species

 Skylark (Alauda arvensis)

 Rock Pipit (Anthus petrosus), 1cy

 Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris), 1cy male

 Cetti's Warbler (Cettia cetti), female

Siberian Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita ssp. tristis)

Tit Refill

In between the studying of the exams I have next week I couldn't resist to participate in some ringing this morning. I got on the bus early this morning and went to the Ooijse Graaf to help out Bram. I arrived around 8.30, right on time to help with the tits.

Yesterday Bram caught 270 Great Tits, 120 Blue Tits and so on ending the day with 477. Today was just as spectacular with a total number being exactly the same as yesterday, 477!

We had 160 Great Tits, 100 Blue Tits, but also other good numbers of birds: 50 Robins, 78 Song Thrushes(!) and 13 Tree Sparrows. With the clapnet we caught 7 Skylarks, 2 White Wagtails, and 1 Meadow Pipit, not bad! Among the Great Tits we had a Moskva-control, very nice!

Check it on trektellen.nl: http://trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?telpost=748

Migration during the morning and early afternoon was simply amazing: 1000s of Chaffinches, Woodpigeons, 100s of Thrushes and Larks, many tens of Buzzards passed by, but also decent numbers of Sparrowhawks. Highlight were two Red Kites I discovered as I was walking back to get the bus around 13.20 in the afternoon. They were migrating together with some 20 Buzzards. Bram and co had another one over the ringing station later in the afternoon.

I didn't have my proper camera with me, so here are just some photos taken with my phone:

 Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus)

 White Wagtail (Motacilla alba)

Skylark (Alauda arvensis)

Legendary Tits

And the winner is.... the o so Great Tit!

We were able to ring no less than 233 Great Tits today at our local ringing site near Apeldoorn. A true record! 2nd highest record ever in NL if I may believe trektellen.nl

It kept on coming the entire morning and beginning of the afternoon, we even had to turn off the sound because so many of them kept flying in while you were taking the other tits out, craziness! We practically caught all of them in three nets (all 12m), quite impressive.

Blue Tits were represented in far lower numbers, with 33 being ringed. Among the Blue Tits we had a very welcome control: a Lithuanian Blue Tit, excellent! It's quite funny that you catch 230 Great Tits, and none of those have a foreign ring, but then you catch 33 Blue Tits and one of them has a ring! In the past week Hans ringed about 300 Great Tits, but strange enough he didn't get a control from Russia or one of the Baltic States. He did have a Coal Tit bearing a Latvian ring though!

We did not only catch titties, amongst others, we also had the good number of 9 Redwings, a Goldcrest, a Willow Tit, a Song Thrush and 2 Blackbirds. Ending the day with 291 birds! 

And yes, after the Coal Tit invasion and the now lasting Great/Blue Tit invasion, we're ready for the other tits. Let the (White-headed) Long-tailed Tits come please!

 About 45 Great Tits (Parus major) hanging in a single net

The Lithuanian Blue Tit (Cyanistes caereleus)

And the ring!

 Redwing (Turdus iliacus), 1cy

 Redwing (Turdus iliacus), 1cy, open wing

Redwing (Turdus iliacus), adult, open wing (and unwilling to pose with its head :( ) Compare with the 1cy

Massive migration!

Did some ringing in my garden today. It had been a while since I'd done some good ringing in my garden so it was nice to do it again. Opened a 6 metre at 7:00 and the end result wasn't bad!

Blackbird 1
Blue Tit 5
Dunnock 1
Great Tit 15
House Sparrow 1
Song Thrush (new for the garden)

Total 23 - new record for the garden

 Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos), 1cy

 Great Tit (Parus major), >1cy male

 A very pale Great Tit (Parus major), male, not sure about the age with this very pale bird

Here a photo of the belly

My dad and I also did some birding along the IJssel. We went to the Rammelwaard and encountered massive thrush, Skylarks and Chaffinch/Brambling migration. One group after the other passed by, really cool! Among those birds were some Siskins, Hawfinch, 3 Sparrowhawks, 2 Kingfishers, Water pipit and a Great White Egret. A nice day for the county!

Great White Egret (Ardea alba)