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):

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.