Out for an Airing

Great morning at Cooper bridge this morning with Dave Sowter. Nice to see him out in the fresh air again.

23 Birds Caught mainly Blue Tits and Gt Tits with a few Bullfinch, Greenfinch, Robin, Blackbird and Long Tailed Tits.

Back Home in the garden this week 13 More Starlings Ringed, the markings on these birds are fantastic.

Nice Weather for Coots

After an awful week weather wise,

{only been out once to Cooper Bridge which was quite with a new Gt Spotted Woodpecker ringed in with a few more Tits and Greenfinch}

Today I was invited out with Kane to catch and colour ring Coots.

Kane Brides and Steve Christmas have started Colour ringing Coot in the North west area to look at wintering site fidelity/dispersal to breeding and moulting sites and to get more understanding on Coot movement.

I met up with Kane at his house for 8am and of we went loaded up with 4 loafs of bread and all the gear, well rings and pliers.

A fantastic day with 10 more Coots Colour ringed

Over 60 Coots have now been individually colour coded so far.

Also ringed today

2 Male Mallard

1Male Tufted Duck

4 Canada Geese

9 Mute Swans 6 of them ringed 3 being retraps

Coots are being ringed with 3 colour rings 2 on left leg and 1 above metal BTO on Right leg

Colours being used are Light Blue Dark Blue White Black Green Red Orange Yellow Pink and Purple

Any sightings of these birds would be gratefully received and can be sent to kanebrides@googlemail.com

or reported to

http://www.ring.ac/

All sightings will be acknowledge with full ringing and re sighting information.

Yesterday

Out Yesterday with Andy and Aiden from Bishop Monkton Ringers. We set 3 nets at Timble for Redpoll , Redwing and Goldcrest . A steady morning with only 4 Redwing and another 6 Redpoll , 10 Goldcrests 2 Reed Bunting and a Gt Tit.

Also ringed at Ringstone edge this week with 10 Goldfinch 4 Bullfinch 2 Blackbirds

4 Starlings and a Wren ringed.

More Redpoll

Managed to get out for a couple of hours before the weather kicked in during the last few days.

another 20 Redpoll ringed with 4 Redwing, 5 Blackbirds 2 being Continental bird's, few more Goldcrests and Coal Tits another Jay and a Drake Mallard that came to close to the car while we were ringing

Redwing ageing as well as Tail shape white wedges show on the young birds

Tertials

Twite season ends

Reports this week from Dr Guy Anderson down on The Wash at Terrington Marsh that he had a good flock of Twite with a mixture of colour rings some Nicks and some ours from this Autumn RED/WHITE above Pink and a few 2008 birds and 2007 birds.

So they are on there way again.

This year i have caught 307 Twite in the Pennines with 227 of them being new birds

{Unringed}

Since August i have ringed 143 birds that were born this year.

That with Nicks pulli project of 250 birds

makes 393 1st year birds ringed in 2009.

Also report of unringed Twite still being seen, so all in all not a bad year for this cracking little bird, again lets hope all is being done to try and improve Breeding grounds, wintering grounds

feeding areas etc so this bird can keep making its journey back and fourth for years to come.

Meadow Pipit Turns up

Just got news of a Meadow Pipit we ringed at Kex Gill Quarry in 2007 {two pink rings on left leg} was recaught at Thistledown, nr Nympsfield in Gloucestershire on 13/10/2009 . Nice to know they are still out there.

Thanks to Phil Williams for letting us know.

Also had a quite week as have been laid up with the most awful cough since Sunday

managed to open net in the garden with a few more Starlings ringed

and the Goldfinch number is now touching 70 well 69.

hope to be out at the weekend weather don't look good.

Timble

Another great morning at Timble with 35 more Redwing Ringed and 26 Redpoll.

Also 4 More Goldcrest and Coal Tits and Blue/Great Tits.

Good Flock of 29 Crossbill near nets but not playing.

Like most Thrushes you can Age Redwing on Tail Shape

The rounded tail feathers belonging to the Adult birds

Euring age 4

{Hatched before current calendar year}

Pointed tail Feathers belonging to the juvenile bird

Euring age 3

{Definitely hatched during current calendar year}

More Redwing

I Could not make it out today more's the pity. Andy reports another 32 Redwing ringed and 6 Redpoll.