From the Wilds of the Heath to the bustle of a retail park.

Last Wednesday eve, saw one member venture up onto Canford heath in the hope of trapping some more Nightjars before their fast approaching departure. This turned out to be highly productive with three caught, with all being birds of the year and proving at least some breeding success on Canford, with the suggestion that the season has been a good one.



Nightjar - Age 3

This morning the group split with 4 members ringing at Durlston, where 33 birds were caught, the highlight being Grasshopper Warbler and Green Woodpecker.
Two others members went to the delightful site of Fleets Lane Corner (NOT), though this is proving to be quite a  interesting site with the migration corridor here being quite unexpected, though study of the surrounding landscape does shed some light as to why this site is so productive and the ringing here also shows the value of such green corridors.
This morning did not prove to be buzzing, though with just two of us present we scaled down activities. There was a nice spread of species caught though, 11 in total, this consisting of 7 species of Warbler, Willow Warbler being the most common.



Willow Warbler - Age 3
Showing the strong yellow on the face and breast of a young bird.

There was much to look at, with a few adult birds in full moult and young birds in post juvenile moult, such as the Blackcap below, which shows the brown cap of a juvenile being moulted and revealing the bird is going to be a male, since the new feathers coming through are clearly black in colour.

The morning finshed with a non-migrant being ringed and this one was always going to inflict a little pain, since they live their lives giving out stick.....it was a Magpie.


Magpie - Age 3
Aged as a 3 due to the extent of black on the tips of P1 & P2,
though the bird had an overall juv appearance, being dull and tatty as it was going through its post juvenile body moult.

A welcome arrival

Four of the crew ran another session at Lytchett Bay today, the winds had swung back round to the north west and so hopes of an Aquatic Warbler were somewhat lowered, however the arrival of the autumns first Grasshopper Warbler was a most welcome sight, since there had been a noticeable absence so far this season. So it was even more pleasing that the morning not only turned up a 2nd but also a 3rd.
With September just days away, this year is not looking likely to be a great one for this species, since in 2011 the first bird of the autumn arrived on the 27th July, this did prove to be a record autumn passage however, with 35 being recorded, the last being trapped on the 28th September.
All today's birds were aged 3 (born this year), all having fresh warm olive brown upper parts and throats tinged yellow, adult plumage in the autumn would be heavily worn and washed out.

The morning ended with 61 new birds of 9 species, with the expected Sedge and Reed Warblers being the most numerous but 2 Kingfishers (what stunning birds), 5 Willow Warblers, Blackcap, Whitethroat and Robin giving a nice little bit of variety.

Grasshopper Warblers - Age 3

Kingfisher - Age 3

Yesterday also saw a number of the group at Lycthett and there was great hope of an Aquatic Warbler with the winds and date being favourable for this species arriving on British shores. Although it was a good Morning with 72 ringed, mainly Reed warbler and Sedge warbler, there was no sign of any Aquatics. So it looks like last years tally of two, will not be repeated, since the winds have swung again and look likely to stay with a degree of westerly in them, beyond the main dates of passage for this species. The value of the mornings session was also lifted by two Sedge Warbler Controls, (controls being birds rung elsewhere) as it is this information that can add to knowledge already gained from the ringing scheme/tell us more about the movements of individual birds and their species, of which can also contribute to their conservation.

During the ringing session there were also some good birds to be seen with Osprey and Peregrine overhead.

Durlston yesterday

Mick, Mike and Gryllo put up five nets in the garden, plus later tried for Swallows with a 60ft next to the pond.

 

About 55 ringed between 0630 and 0945. A noticeable movement of Robins.

 

Redstart 2

Tree Pipit 2

Lesser Whitethroat 1

Common Whitethroat 10

Blackcap 3

Garden W 2

Willow W 12

Chiff 1

Swallow 9

Yellowhammer 1

Song Thrush 1

Robin 8

 

Plus a few tits, Blackbird, Wren, Dunnock etc

Age 3 Yellowhammer

Age 3 Redstart

Nightjar migration motorway

Simon and Mike ventured out to Woolgarston, near Corfe Castle last night for the first major attempt this year at ringing Nightjars at this site.

It still seems that the Chalk ridge could be a Nightjar migration motorway with four birds ringed and another perching on the pole. This brings the site total to 38 Nightjar.

Two of the evening's four Nightjar. All were Age 3 - hatched this year.

SRG out in full force

Today saw the three main ringing sites being manned by a collective of group members.
Although fairly quite it was great to see the group out in full force and catching a nice variety of birds.

Brief summaries of the mornings events are as follows:

Lytchett Bay

49 new birds inc 2 Kingfishers. 

Grasshopper Warblers are avoiding us this year. Still not a sniff of an easterly.

Birding was better with the fields looking in the best condition for birds that I have ever seen. Wood Sand was strutting around in the open, at least 4 Common Sand, 1 Whimbrel, 8 Green Sand, 5 Greenshank and 17 Little Egrets plus Snipe and Lapwings.

Durlston NNR

51 new birds with impressive numbers of Garden Warblers continuing (12).

2 Tree Pipit, 1 Redstart and 1 Lesser Whitethroat provided nice variety.

Others included:
Wren 1
Robin 1
Robin 1
Sedge Warbler 1
Whitethroat 5
Blackcap 2
Willow Warbler 24
Greenfinch 1

Well over 20 Tree Pipits passing through, with near misses of Sparrowhawk and Green Woodpecker

Fleets Corner

Update to follow

The vast majority of Garden Warblers seen at Durlston in autumn are 1st year birds, so it is always nice to see adults with their clearly defined worn and slightly bleached tertiaries and primary wing tips.

2 of the several Tree Pipits seen and heard at Durlston today. Note the buff, tipped edge to the coverts and tertiaries and overall fresh appearance.

Whilst doing a net round a flash of orange streaked in front of me and landed in the net pocket. No mistaking this beautiful Redstart.

A common breeding migrant to Durlston, Lesser Whitethroat usually hold onto a handful of territories across the reserve, with this year being a particularly good year. The dull olive, grey iris and lack of white on the tips of the 5th tail feather identified this as a young bird.

Wader surprise

Bob and Mike had a decent morning at Lytchett Bay last Saturday with over 70 birds ringed. These were mainly Sedge Warblers. The surprise of the morning came shortly after dawn when a Common Sandpiper was flushed into a small wader net that was erected in the slim hope of catching a Green sandpiper or two. Not complaining though, a lovely little wader!



 

Hopefully, there will be even more waders ringed at Lytchett this autumn/winter.

The fog succumbs all

Thick fog and strong winds hampered our efforts at Durlston NNR this morning.
Still lots of birds around up until yesterday with this mornings weather keeping wise wanderers hunkered down and away from the elements.

Things did however tick over throughout the morning with 27 new birds ringed.

Garden Warbler for most of the morning was the most dominant bird, until Willow Warbler eventually took over. Other birds included Goldfinch, Bullfinch, Blue Tit, Robin, Reed Warbler and , Whitethroat.

Interesting to see one Whitethroat showing true site fidelity. First retrapped on 2nd May this bird has now been retrapped 5 times - including this morning

Highlight of the morning however included a man calling for our attention , saying that he had found a 'Swallow' on the downland.
He then returned to his car and brought back a young Swift.

Presumably brought down by the change in weather, the bird returned home with me to recuperate along with several helpings of meal worms.
Seemingly stronger and brighter i released the bird this afternoon over the green in front of the house. It took to the air a little wonky but soon cruised off around the corner and wasn't seen again. Fingers crossed for its safe return to Africa.




Posted by Simon Breeze

Autumn migration is a GO melo GO

Blog courtesy of Gryllos blog
http://gryllosblog.wordpress.com/

Shaun and I met at 0600 at Durlston and as there were only two of us we only erected three nets. As on Saturday we were very busy from 0630 to 0730, then it tailed off quickly. Apart from the 76 Willow Warblers that we ringed, the most notable feature early on were the number of Garden Warblers (22 were in total, a new record for the site) and two Common Redstarts. By midday when I packed in we had ringed 117 birds
At 1030 I extracted a Melodious Warbler, this is a scarce but annual migrant in Dorset mainly in August, breeding as close as northern France. However nearly all Dorset records come from Portland and although I have seen several in the field I have never seen one in the hand. Unfortunately Shaun had to depart for work at 0930, so I was alone when it was trapped, but Hamish Murray was still in his office nearby and was able to get to see the bird.
Melodious Warblers belong to the genus Hippolais, members of which have typically wide based bills, square ended tails and short undertail coverts. Melodious is best told from its closest relative, Icterine Warbler, by the short primary projection, i.e the degree to which the primaries extend beyond the exposed tertials. Compared to the Willow Warbler that was trapped at the same time, it had a similar wing length of 66mm but was a larger, stockier bird with a much heavier bill.
This was certainly the highlight of my ringing this year, I just wish there had been another ringer present to enjoy it.

The plain face caused by the weak supercillium and pale lores, along with the stout, broad-based bill indicates a Hippolais warbler. The visible primary projection is only about half the length of the exposed tertials (equal in Icterine), with 7 primary tips showing. The tail projection beyond the tip of the primaries is at least twice the length of the exposed primaries (equal or less in Icterine) and the 1st primary extends well beyond the primary coverts (equal in length in Icterine).

Autumn migration is GO

Gryllo, Mick and Shaun made 4 trips to Durlston over the last week with the peak of birds quite bizarrely coinciding with a Bioblitz on Saturday 10th Aug - A total of 246 birds caught that day.

Heres what Gryllo had to say about the morning:

What an excellent morning.

 

Started well when Shaun and I saw a young Badger at the entrance to the park at 0530.

 

Fairly quiet for birds 0630 - 0730 when a massive wave of Willow Warblers meant we had to furl some nets. Managed to ring and release all by 0745 just in time for the public demo when numbers trapped returned to normal. Some 15 birds in the hand, of 7 species, were shown to the assembled group of about 20 visitors.

 

Also a good array of butterflies on the buddlia in the garden included many Painted Ladys and a Dark-green Fritillary.

 

The moth traps were interesting too, examined at 1000 when the ringing was quiet.

 

Totals

 

Tree Pipit 1

Swallow 3

Blue Tit 1

Great Tit 1

Dunnock 2

Wren 1

Common Redstart 1

Garden Warbler 1

Blackcap 1

Common Whitethroat 5

Sedge Warbler 10

Chiffchaff 2

Willow Warbler 211

Chaffinch 1

Greenfinch 2

 

Total 243 birds ringed of 15 species plus 1 retrap Willow Warbler from a couple of weeks ago.

Spring / Summer Roundup

With this spring/summer being rather quite for bird migration the groups numbers were down of previous years.
Members other commitments also reduced the totals but a brief summary of what SRG have been up to over the summer includes:

- Several Nightjar sessions around Wareham Forset, Canford Heath and Lytchett Bay.
 - A few more attempts to catch Whitethroats at Durlston NNR for a possibly RAS.
- Paul and Simon joined Jason Fathers for a few Pulli sessions including Kestrels, Little Owls and      Barn Owls.
- A few sessions at Lytcett Bay reed beds to catch Beared Tit, Reed Bunting etc
- A few very quiite sessions at Durlston catching residents
- plus several members garden sessions catching common garden birds.

Now that Autumn (well in the birding world anyway) is here things are really starting to pick up - watch this space...