Nunnery nesting in 2014: off the mark!

We’re fast approaching the time of year where I grab my trusty nesting stick, Carl Barimore reaches for his mirror on a pole and Mike Toms straps on his endoscope as we head down to The Nunnery reserve to start looking for nests to monitor. We generally begin searching in late February, when the Long-tailed Tits begin to pair up and hang suspiciously around likely nesting sites (here typically gorse or bramble) and the first grebes, Mute Swan and Coot start gathering material. However, we’re always on the lookout for opportunities before that, and one was provided on the 15^th January by our colleague, Neil Calbrade, who spotted a sitting Collared Dove in the Nunnery garden, the nest wedged between the branches of a  yew about 3m off the ground. This morning was the first chance I had to check it and the bird flew on my approach to reveal a single white egg; the ‘standard’ clutch size is two, but clutch sizes of early attempts made by multi-brooded species are often smaller (single-brooded species show the opposite pattern).

The typical view of a Collared Dove nest is the underside of a twiggy platform, several metres off the ground in a tree or shrub. It is almost always possible to see the adult sitting from the ground. Photo by  B Besley

It may be tempting to blame the unseasonably warm weather for this apparently early attempt, but Collared Dove is actually the only species in the BTO Nest Record Scheme (NRS) dataset that has been recorded as breeding in every month of the year (Fig 1), although if as many recorders focused on Mallard, it may well reveal the same pattern.

Number of NRS Collared Dove records for which an accurate laying date can be calculated by month in which first egg was laid

That said, fewer than 30 January attempts are logged in the NRS database, dating back to the mid-1960s, and this is the fifth nesting Collared Dove nest we’ve been informed of in the past fortnight (the third in Thetford alone), which suggests they may have made an early start.  It is impossible to compare years without first collecting the data, however; analyses are orders of magnitude more powerful than anecdote when it comes to influencing Government policy on climate change, so it is vital your records are submitted to a national nest-recording scheme.

So, why not make 2014 the year that you register with the Nest Record Scheme and get involved in nest recording – it’s great fun, you’ll learn a huge amount about the birds around you and, vitally, it provides information to support conservation efforts that can’t be gathered any other way.

Information about any species, no matter how common, in any habitat, be it your garden or a remote island, are of value as long as you can see inside to count the eggs and chicks. Looking in nests is perfectly legal as long as you don’t handle the contents, although a licence is need to monitor nests of Schedule 1 species and be sure to follow the NRS Code of Conduct

We’ll be monitoring the progress of our Collared Dove and about 400 other nests across The Nunnery over the course of this season, from Wrens to Mute Swans; we’ll keep you posted on our progress and we look forward to hearing about yours.

Dave Leech, Head of the Nest Record Scheme

http://www.bto.org/sites/default/files/u15/downloads/publications/legislation_and_good_practice.pdf

Recycling Goldfinches

No sooner has the snow gone than the breeding season has started! A while ago now we heard of early nesting by thrushes and pigeons, but the real early birds are starting building now. Around Thetford we have several Long-tailed Tits building nests and in Norwich there are already Blackbirds sitting on eggs! We also saw this video recently of Goldfinches raiding an old nest for material for this year's effort.



So it's always worth keeping an eye out for early nesting! For more details on nest recording, visit the pages of the Nest Record Scheme.

Tawny Owl video diary

Over the coming weeks the BTO will be following the exploits of a pair of Tawny Owls using a nest box in Cambridgeshire via webcam. The birds have been in the box since early winter, with the first egg laid on 28 February! You can follow the Tawny Owl video diary on the BTO website.

This clip (from just before midnight on 1 March) shows the male bringing food to the incubating female. Other clips now online show the first and second eggs and even the original mating (over 18s only)...

We will update the progress of these birds during the coming weeks, and keep an eye out for some amazing footage of their previous interactions with other species...

We'd like to hear of other early nesting attempts, so do get in touch. Recording of nests is of immense value (even common species), so why not think about contributing to the BTO's Nest Record Scheme? It's easy and even better free!

Merry Christmas bloggers!

Just as we're in the midst of one of a big freeze, some birds just seem to be ignoring it completely. This week we had a report of a Canada Goose sitting on five eggs on a canal right in the middle of Manchester (not quite the one below), so it'll be interesting to see how it fares.



We've also hear of a Robin apparently nest-building in late November (Suffolk), a female Mallard with 14 day-old ducklings in mid November (on a golf course pond in Hainault Forest, London) and also a late Reed Warbler caught in Sussex on 1 December (it was originally ringed at the same site in late October).

If you find any odd nesting behaviour over the winter then we'd be interested to hear about it. All of us in the BTO Demography Team wish you a Merry Christmas and hope you have a New Year full of ringed birds and recorded nests!

Thanks to Judith Smith (Greater Manchester Bird Recorder) for letting us know about this bird.

Check before watering!

"The other day we noticed a male Wren singing from one of the hanging baskets right by our back gate. With its tail pumping up and down whilst it sang, we knew it was keen to defend its territory. When the female bird appeared, the male suddenly disappeared inside the basket. Checking the basket a little later, there was a small pile of evicted compost under the basket and a Wren’s nest inside it! What the bird had done was tp create a nest inside the basket, using a flower hanging from one of the holes as a perch. It had then dug out a nest in the compost inside the basket.


Male Wrens build several nests over the spring, and the female selects the best one, so we have no idea if she'll like this particular site. However, it looks like we won’t be watering this hanging basket for a while!"

Thanks to James & Kate Cracknell for this, and for the photos.

Summer is here...

OK, so perhaps its not exactly summer yet, but some birds are already getting down to breeding!

The BTO HQ in Thetford is now home to a Mallard sitting on 13 eggs (right beside a completely frozen lake) and a Feral Pigeon sat on two eggs (in a local church gutter). We're not sure how wise these early attempts are, but you can't fault them for trying!


It would be interesting to hear of any other early attempts, so keep your eyes peeled!