Titchwell - 24th March 2018

We had other reasons to be in Norfolk, but we made a late morning visit to Titchwell reserve. It was reasonably quiet, with a bit of poor visibility on the sea due to overcast conditions and a slight mist on the sea prevented observations too far out.

Walking from the car park, four Brambling were calling to each other. En route up the track around 10 Bearded Tits spent a fair bit of the time travelling up and down the reeds next to the track.

Male Bearded Tit

The fresh Marsh had fairly high water levels with few waders on it apart from a few Avocet, a Ruff, a small flock of remaining Brent Geese, with at least 22 Mediterranean Gulls on the available islands being used for Gulls starting to set up territories. A couple of Marsh Harriers were flying over the eastern side of the Marsh, along wiht a single Barn Owl

adult Mediterranean Gulls

The brackish marsh held more Avocet, along with a few Black-tailed Godwits, single Little Egret, Knot and Greenshank.

Avocet

The beach on a drop tide held a decent sized flock of Knot, with a  number of Turnstone, and a few Bar-tailed Godwit, Sanderling, Oystercatcher and Grey Plover, with 10 Red-breasted Mergansers on the sea, along with just 4 Great Crested Grebes.

Turnstone 

Knot, with flag, but codes had become unreadable

Knots feeding on the beach around the old brick structure

Truss's Island - 22nd March 2018

We went to see how the swans were doing and record the darvics and metal rings that we could see at Truss's Island. We arrived to find the people from the Swan Sanctuary feeding them bin bags of bread and rolls, and were really pleased to hear that the feeding ban had been lifted on 21st March at midnight.

The Thames had been declared avian flu free. We also found out that birds at Windsor fared rather more badly that the Truss's Island birds and government officials believed that feeding at Staines had allowed stricken birds to recover from the virus. Perhaps visitors to the swans at Windsor took more notice of the notices not to feed. Certainly the booth selling food had been closed during the outbreak.

We recorded a lot of darvics, three metal rings and noticed rather a lot of unringed birds, including quite a few birds hatched the previous year.

Mute Swans

Black-headed Gull

Common Gull

Total : 0 (41)

Mute Swan - 0 (41)

Staines Res and Moor - 21st March 2018

A visit to see what Spring migrants might be about, ended up the answer of none! Well, none that I saw saw. The reservoir still held the American Horned Lark and the two Black-necked Grebes, and a Water Pipit flew off from the grass by the first water tower as I walked by.

Great Crested Grebe 

 American Horned Lark

A visit afterwards to Staines Moor, again failed to produce any summer migrants, but two Water Pipits were present, one bearing one of our rings which was one of two birds ringed on 29/11, but alas not the right side of the ring to identify which one!

Water Pipit

Staines Res - 16th March 2018

After Stanwell Moor I made a visit up to Staines Reservoir, which was fairly quite, but the American Horned Lark still present, plus two Black-necked Grebes, three Peregrines noisily chasing each other over the south basin briefly and a Little Ringed Plover was heard but not located as it flew by on the southern basin.

Wigeon 

Black-necked Grebe

 American Horned Lark

Stanwell Moor GP - 16th March 2018

The morning was earmarked for planting some Elder plants and doing some maintenance in the reedbed rides. It didn't take too long so we also put up four nets. We didn't get a great deal, although we were pleased to catch four Chiffchaff. The only other captures were a Great Tit and retrapped Long-tailed Tit.

Chiffchaff aged 6

High water levels at the lake are flooding the rides

Totals: 5 (1)

Chiffchaff - 4

Long-tailed Tit - 0 (1)

Great Tit - 1

End of an era, Pitsea Tip Gull ringing - 13th March 2018

Adult Med Gull colour ringed 2H73 (black print on yellow)

It's a long time since we first ringed with PR at Pitsea tip, in fact looking at my personal data, just two of my Herring Gulls ringed in Oct 2008 and Jan 2009 and seen in France during 2017 are the only colour rings on my birds resighted. But, there's still plenty of time for more birds to be seen. Chris has been more recently than I have, usually to accompany trainees or other RRG group members for experience of this type of operation. So, we dusted off the steel toe-capped and soles boots, hard hats and high- viz jackets and made our way to the far side of London for 8am.

Chris and I joined the team today as we are reliably informed that this is definitely the last session on the tip. There have been previous last sessions, as organic matter coming in has reduced and gull numbers with it, but now there is a final date for when this nature of operations will close for good.

Gulls above Pitsea tip

 It was a large team and we were ferried up onto the tip, in three trips, in PR's 4x4. Gulls were showing interest in some rubbish close by and a fresh delivery awaited. My first impression was that the gull numbers were well down and stink of rubbish was much reduced to past years, a result of less organic waste on site.The net was set quite quickly, with four cannons as I recalled. The final adjustments were made as the rest of the team took up position behind the equipment trailer while the rubbish was dumped and then spread in front of the net.

Setting the net.

The first catch was a good number of  mainly Lesser Black-backed Gulls, some Herring Gulls and Black-headed Gulls. Second and third catches took a few more gulls but the numbers were far reduced to the classic four to five hundred catches in the group's heyday.

Adult LBBG

Age 5 Herring Gull

Adult Black-headed Gull with emergent summer plumage

The team processed all birds just metres from the catching area. 

Full biometrics were taken for all large gulls.

Although relatively few Mediterranean gulls are ringed, they have an extremely 

high rate of resightings. MS was fortunate to be the ringer of this stunning individual.  

We would like to extend our thanks to Paul Roper and all those who have kept the efforts running throughout the lifespan of the North Thames Gull Group.

A link to the group's blog entry for the day.

http://www.ntgg.org.uk/

Catch 1

Species                             Ringed          Retraps        Controls        Colour ringed

Black-headed Gull                 44                    3                    2                          0

Lesser Black-backed Gull      17                    0                    0                        17

Herring Gull                           16                    0                    0                        16 

Hybrid                                      1                    0                    0                          1

Total                                       78                    3                    2                        34

Catch 2

Species                             Ringed          Retraps        Controls        Colour ringed

Black-headed Gull                  6                   0                    0                          0

Lesser Black-backed Gull       1                   0                    0                          1

Herring Gull                            2                   0                    0                          2 

                                                                                                             

Total                                         9                   0                    0                         3

Catch 3

Species                             Ringed          Retraps        Controls        Colour ringed

Black-headed Gull                  6                   0                    0                          0

Mediterranean Gull                 1                   0                    0                          1

Herring Gull                            3                   0                    0                          3 

                                                                                                             

Total                                        10                 0                    0                          4

Trip total                                97                 3                    2                          4

Broadwater GP - 11th March 2018

There was a threat of rain this morning, but apart from a few spots there was nothing to trouble us and we even got the chance to enjoy a spell of spring sunshine. There was plenty of birdsong and even 'though we didn't get that many birds, we did at least get up to double figures. Some birds were caught in pairs, including Blue Tits, Dunnocks and Bullfinch.

Male Bullfinch Y823988, ringed when a juvenile in 2016

Female Bullfinch aged 5

Totals: 6 (7)

Wren - 1

Dunnock - 1 (2)

Blackbird - 1

Long-tailed Tit - 1 (2)

Blue Tit - 1 (2)

Bullfinch - 1 (1)