Feeling a bit broody

With winter loosening its grip on the British countryside our bird life is starting to look forward to spring! Here at BTO HQ, we are winding up to a busy nesting season and are searching the hedgerows and bushes for nests.


Egyptian Geese - photo by Rachael Barber

So far this year we have found nests of Coot, Egyptian Geese, Mallard, Robin, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Long-tailed Tit, Wren, Collared Dove and Dunnock, with more species being added every day. Each nest will be fully recorded for the BTO Nest Record Scheme (NRS) with nest finders following the NRS code of conduct.


Mallard nest with nine eggs - photo by Lee Barber

Robin nest - photo by Rachael Barber

Several BTO staff and volunteers record nests around Thetford, Norfolk, but how do we avoid recording the same nest? The answer is that we share a Google Map between us, with colours and shapes used to denote the progress of each nest and a note included of who found the nest. After a day of 'nesting' we update the map with our exciting discoveries and this informs everyone of where the nest is, the species, when it was found and at what stage the nest is at (nest only, nest with eggs, chicks, not active). Each recorder will then follow 'their' nests and submit them to the BTO (usually via the ringing group) at the end of the season/nest completion.



Last years nest locations on a shared Google map

Across the country there are some species that have been nesting for some time already including Grey Heron, Raven, Dipper, Stock Dove, Cormorant and Crossbill. The BTO NRS Forum has come alive with reports of nests, includes a Peregrine laying in Woking, Surrey (webcam link), a Woodpigeon squab about two weeks old in North Cornwall and Moorhen, Mistle Thrush and Ring-necked Parakeet with eggs in London. Dippers have full clutches in the Scottish Borders and some chicks have already been ringed in Wales. A Stock Dove in North Norfolk must have fledged by now as well.


 

Blackbird nest - photo by Lee Barber

Nest recording is vital to our understanding of productivity and every nest counts! It is amazing how much difference one nest record can make. By looking at the NRS submission totals, you can see what nests have been recorded previously (2016 records are still being analysed). In 2015, just 24 Goldcrest, 15 Snipe and nine Grasshopper Warbler were recorded in the whole country. Take that down to the county level and you could make a big difference to the totals, especially if you focus on one particular species. Open nesting birds are particularly under recorded because they are generally harder to find, but with a little practice and patience it can be done. Click here to find out how to take part and develop your nesting skills.

Ringing, recording and recoveries at Sandwich Bay

Steffan Walton, Assistant Warden at Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory writes:

Life at a south-eastern Bird Observatory is full of surprises throughout the year. Late winter cold snaps on the continent can start the year off with a bang as wildfowl and thrushes burst into the recording area, whilst counts of almost 150 Woodcock in a morning have occurred in recent times. The spring sees thousands of northbound finches flying over, thermalling raptors, and Whimbrels passing through en masse, whilst typically scarce overshoots such as Kentish Plover, Temminck’s Stint, and Serin are reasonably regular. In 2016 an epic Lithuanian Blue Tit recovery set new records in the spring (see Demog Blog story), whilst both Long-billed Dowitcher and Common Crane treated the visiting young Next Generation Birders.



This is what a Lithuanian Blue Tit looks like - photo by Becky Johnson

Summers are typified by the (now increasingly rare in the UK) sound of the Turtle Dove, breeding waders, and of course, the Nest Record Scheme. Co-ordinated efforts to monitor, ring, and assess our breeding populations take priority whilst our recently started Retrapping Adults for Survival (RAS) projects on House Sparrow and Collared Dove are already bearing their first fruits. Bee-eater, Quail, and Honey Buzzard are all possible this time of year but highlights are just as likely to be non-avian being a truly fantastic site for Lepidoptera and Odonata records.

As the summer draws to an end things start to heat up. Autumn is traditionally our busiest time of the year avian-wise. Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory has a long history of ringing unusually large numbers of House Martin, Common Sandpiper, and Lesser Whitethroat during this time, as well as being one of the premier sites in the UK for Pallas’s Warbler. Just under 10,000 birds were eventually ringed in 2016, most of which were caught in autumn. In a typical year 7-8,000 birds may be ringed though a recent high of 11,000 occurred in 2015. Looking back at the most recent autumn, numbers such as 1,350 Blackcaps, 1,200 Chiffchaffs, 585 Robins, and 640 Blackbirds make impressive reading.

Tallies can vary from year to year as weather dictates what arrives and what carries on towards France. Meadow Pipits are usually ringed in excellent numbers, species such as Firecrest, Nightingale, Ring Ouzels, and Redstart frequently show well, as well as being one of the best sites to get to grips with continental Coal Tits. In recent year’s rarities such as Red-flanked Bluetail, Great Grey Shrike, Icterine Warbler, Wryneck, and of course, double-figures of Yellow-browed Warblers have found their way into our mist-nets.



Icterine Warbler - photo by SBBOT

The real highlights though come in the form of some very note-worthy foreign controls including a series of Robin recoveries all arriving in a fantastic three week period in October. One bird from Usquert, Netherlands moved 427 km in 16 days, another 545 km from Helgoland, Germany also in 16 days, but one record stood out from the others, the cream of the crop was an individual that was ringed at Kovda, Kandalakshskiy District, Murmansk Oblast, in RUSSIA! A movement of 2,460 km and believed to be the longest distance and furthest east Robin recovery in BTO history. Further interesting records included a good run of Common Redpolls (one being a Danish ringed bird, a movement of 814 km) as well as another Eastern Lesser Whitethroat (S.c.blythi) confirmed by DNA analysis (below).



Lesser Whitethroat - photo by SBBOT

If you would like to visit or ring, then stop by the Field Centre for more details. The home of Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory offers modern, comfortable, self-catering accommodation, allowing you to be on hand for early morning bird ringing, late night moth trapping, club events or just more time to explore the local area. We offer a self-contained flat, twin, family, and single rooms. All guests have use of shared shower facilities, kitchen, dining room and lounge. What’s more, you just might get a snapshot of all the additional behind the scenes crucial work ongoing at Bird Observatories across the UK. Be it the full digitisation of historic data for Birdtrack, Butterfly Monitoring Scheme Transects, the Kent Moth Group, RSPB Wildlife Explorers and Phoenix clubs, and more.

For more information see our website.

From across the pond

Britain and Ireland are part of the East Atlantic Flyway, so we regularly get a few high Arctic breeding birds from Greenland or Canada in our country like Greenland Wheatear, Barnacle Goose, Pink-footed Goose or Purple Sandpiper.

The majority of recoveries are of Brent Geese (66%), but 19 species have been recorded either coming from, or going to, North America, Canada or Greenland (the latter is covered by the Denmark Ringing Scheme).

Brent Geese have been excluded from the pie chart to better illustrate the other species involved.

These are not all recent recoveries however. The oldest report is from 18 July 1948 (juvenile Arctic Tern ringed in the Bay of Fundy and found by Lairg, Highlands three months later). Due to a colour ringing project on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, we have received quite a few Turnstone reports (37% of the total). Several species stand out, including Great Shearwater (one caught by a trawler and the other caught on a boat), Peregrine (downed by a falconer's Peregrine) and a Caspian Tern (found dead).

Below are a few examples of more recent recoveries :

Ringed Plover - you may remember that Ringed Plovers from Canada have been featured recently on the Demog Blog, so we have several reports of them.

Ringed Plover. Photo taken by Lee Collins

Green-winged Teal - one turned up on the Hayle estuary, Cornwall on 9 November 2016 and it didn't take long to notice it was ringed! It took the Cornish ringers and birders quite a while to get enough photos of the bird to get the ring number, but finally on 19 January 2017 they had enough to trace it. Amazingly this bird was ringed as an adult in Quebec in August 2015!

Green-winged Teal. Photo taken by Anne Carrington-Cotton

Knot - in February we received a report of a dead Knot at Old Hunstanton, Norfolk. The likely ringer would have been the Wash Wader Ringing Group but the ring was clearly from the American Ringing Scheme. American rings are also used in Canada, which is probably where this bird was ringed. If this is the case, then this would be the 10th Canadian ringed Knot to be found in Britain or Ireland. Several BTO staff travel to Delaware every year for their holiday to ring 'Red Knot' as part of the Delaware Shorebird Project, so there was quite a 'flap of excitement' until it became clear that it was not one of theirs. We, and the finder, are awaiting the ringing details from the scheme.

Recoveries from the States are still very few and far between so each one is unusual in itself. The information from the tagged Ringed Plovers will be very interesting to follow in the coming years.

For more information on the movements of birds look at our Online Ringing and Nest Recording Report on our website.