Swallows on the move

Mick, Ian and Simon had another busy morning at Durlston, although not for the first three hours when we just ticked over.

 

There was a huge passage of Swallows and a substantial one of Meadow Pipits which were mainly all passing through fairly fast and staying high.

Sample counts of 50 - 100 per minute just over the ringing station. Extrapolate this over the three hours from 7 - 10am when the passage was strongest and you get between  9 and 18,000 birds just over the highest part of Durlston alone.

The Swallows weren't interested in stopping around our nets but we still managed to ring 42.

 

Other than that between 500 and 1000 Meadow Pipits flew east along with a few Goldfinch.

Ringing highlights included a Grasshopper Warbler and a Reed Warbler and there was a notable influx of Blackcaps

 

Total ringed - 125

Chiff fall

Busy morning for Mick and myself at Durlston NNR
103 new birds with no retraps from just 3 nets caught within a fairly short time frame of 6.30-9.00

Conditions became fairly windy so we shut up the nets as soon as we emptied them. The wind didn't seem to affect the birds as they were heard and seen all around the surrounding vegetation for some time.
Loads of Meadow Pipits also passing over but as we needed to shut the nets to process what we had we didn't get the opportunity to catch and ring any

Totals included

Chiffchaff 79
Willow Warbler 3
Blackcap 18
Whitethroat 1
Robin 1
Wren 1

To date the annual race between newly ringed Chiffs and Willows stands in favour of the later with 622 Willows compared to 175 Chiffs. However as we can see from this mornings total Chiffs are now starting to dominate, so who knows what is yet to come.

Posted by Simon Breeze

A Bat, a Beetle and a Goatsucker

Last night (Tuesday) saw Terry and Catherine make yet another visit to Canford Heath where 2 more juveniles Nightjars were caught.



A classic Age 3 wing (a bird of this year)
The plumage being all fresh and the secondaries showing the lovely orange arrowheads at the tips.

A visit on Sunday 1st September also resulted in 1 juvenile, this is 6 juveniles in the last week, with much of the heath not having been covered, suggesting that Nightjars have fledged a good number of young and therefore 2013 being a pretty successful year. This is great news since the last two summers have been so dire, horrendous weather and major lack of insects would have certainly taken its toll on these mystical birds. A proper summer was certainly well and truly called for this year and a tonic for all I think.



A cracking Sunset over the heath

The night of the 1st also produced a Bat, which looked interesting as was not one of the commoner Bats, a look at the photos the next day identified it as a Bechsteins, a rare Bat indeed and a great record. In addition to this a Beetle was also discovered, that was obviously a Longhorn but was very large and not something we were familiar with. This too was not common, though not rare either, it is called a Tanner Beetle and from literature read, it suggests its confined to the southern part of the UK where it is local, it is the largest of the UK native Longhorn and also one of Europe's stoutest, great stuff and another good record for the heath.



Tanner Beetle (male) one of Europe's stoutest longhorns.