Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society - 12th November -23rd November 2023

 Our first time at the rock, we were rather surprised by how urbanised the land around the rock is with several areas expanded via reclamation. We were staying at the observatory building at Jews Gate, a building that was used as a jail during WWII, hence the bars across the windows.

 The building is in a busy location with groups of tourists arriving throughout the day to view the strait and Mount Hacho across the water in Morocco. Together with the Rock pf Gibraltar these are the pillars of Hercules. In Greek mythology the pillars represented the limit of the known world.

MAC, the ringer in charge and who we've ringed with before, in Kenya, showed us around the site's upper and lower 'gardens'. The rides of some nets were quite difficult being on slopes, with trip hazards and some loose debris.

Over our time there, we had an average of 80 birds or so each day. The 21st was entirely lost due to strong westerlies that made opening up impossible. A full list of captures is available on the following link.

https://www.gonhs.org/news/latest-bird-sightings/241-recent-sightings-november-2023

Being rather late in the season we had quite a narrow range of species, but we did get in hand experience of a new species as Crag Martins often flew close to the nets in the early evening.

Ageing principle similar to Sand Martin although most juveniles

were not as well marked as the individual on the right. Bird on left is an adult.

There were waves of Black Redstart arriving with some seen around the building on most days.

We caught a few Serin.

There were even fewer Greenfinch.

Record numbers of Siskin were passing through the site as unusually high numbers 

of the small finches headed south via Gibraltar

Blackcaps were a regular capture. The only control during our time there was of a female Blackcap with a ring from Gdansk, Poland.

Adult female Sardinian Warbler

There was a single Long-tailed Tit and a few Blue Tits, quite different to the UK birds as the dull green panel on juveniles looks extremely dark green on the few examples seen.

The numbers were boosted by the use of playback. In addition to the three players belonging to GONHS we had taken another three and MAC had taken some of his own too. 

Birds tend to get caught moving up or down the rock. Here are some examples of the net rides.

 

Net 17 on two levels with the bottom line between pipes 

and next step up at shoulder height.

Net 18 (high net) sloped ride with ropes to hopefully prevent slips and falls

Net 20 

It is possible to stay and ring with accommodation cost of £10 per night. The room we had was quite basic. You need to supply your own food and it's quite a walk to reach supermarkets in the town. We were surprised by the low catch numbers in September and October - but the odd interesting surprise is always possible.

Barbary Partridges 

Macaques spend a lot of time grooming and generally 

keep to themselves if people respect their space.