Last Week

The Weather put a stop to anything going on Thursday Friday last week. Wednesday another Canada Goose ringed down in Ramsey Harbour and 2 More Rock Pipits ringed. 

Hope to meet up with Kev this week and start Colour ringing Rock Pipits

Yesterday went up to the point of Ayre to catch some Linnets and to see if any Twite were about . I was set up for 08:00 Very quite with only 9 new linnets caught and a retrap from 28 August . I packed up at 1130 and headed down to Port Lewaigue.

Nice and calm at Lewaigue 

7 Blackbird ringed 

1Dunnock

and a Male Blackcap

40 Blackcaps ringed at this small site this year

Remember these

Back in June this year Kev, Adam and i all met up at Maughold Head to ring at the Cormorant Colony. A memorable day with over 60 Young Cormorants ringed.

This week Kev got a control back from the BTO saying that a Cormorant had been found dead floating in water at Tyttenhanger Gravel Pits, Hertfordshire, England on the 20 August.

A distance of 394km and only 64 days after being ringed by Kev in the nest

A Shame but quite a journey for such a young bird

Twite on the move

Deja Vu,  Back in the Pennines i used to be part of the North West  Twite project catching and colour ringing Twite at  four different Sites for a great friend and mentor of mine Dave Sowter. I knew the isle of Man had wintering Twite in small numbers and it was great to see a photo of a few taken by Bill Callow at Ramsey harbour on the 16 October. On closer inspection the back bird had a colour ring on Green above White. I emailed Dave and told him about the ringed bird he came back to me saying it was definitely ringed by Rob Angus and his team of ringers up in Machrihanish, Argyll. Dave replied saying

"Machrihanish team responded  with great cheer to me, as they have also has one at Heysham last few days and today had a photos of a Duddon estuary bird"

They have ringed over 400 Twite with Green /White the left leg

Photo by Bill Callow

Click to enlarge

Redpoll, Swans and Geese

See more at grayimages.co.uk

A Beautiful morning today and no wind. So i decided to head up above Ballaught to the plantations on the tops for Redpoll.

13  Redpoll Ringed and a BlueTit in the first 2 hours then the wind got up so i packed up.

Headed back down to Ramsey Harbour for High Tide.

2 Canada Geese ringed

and a Mute Swan control U3465

 Which when i look back at the Manx ringing groups records says it was ringed in Ramsey 1993 as a 3 

{juvenile} and has been reported 6 times in 17 years see map

Press for bigger image

Port Lewaigue

A cracking Morning down at Port Lewaigue to day.

 Birds ringed

10 Blackbirds  

1 Redwing

1 Treecreeper

2 Song Thrush

2 Long tailed Tits

1 Goldcrest

and a Female Sparrowhawk control

I text Kev to see if it was one of the groups rings , he came back straight away saying it was ringed in July 2009

as a chick up the top of the island. Distance of around 14 km.

More Mutes

A great day out today with Kev, we decided to try and catch some more Mute Swans after yesterdays success. Kev got to mine for 9 am and we decided to go for Rock Pipits at  Port Moore as high tide was not until 12 so no use going for swans till then. 

After 20 mins down at Port Moore and no Rock Pipits interested we packed up and headed for Ramsey Harbour. We set up our Ottenby trap for the Turnstone and tried in vain to walk a few towards it . 3 times we tried and as they got up to the leads they flew.

Ottenby Trap

1 Rock Pipit ringed

We walk across to the slipway by the new swimming pool and caught a Canada goose  then we noticed the Mute Swans near the swing bridge .

30 minutes later we had caught 5.

U7291 One of the mute swans i caught yesterday was caught again and this time a colour ring placed on the left leg

3 new Mutes were ringed with BTO Metal on right and colour ring on left 

the last was just ringed with BTO metal as we have now run out of Colour rings {Darvics}

hopefully will get some new in soon.

We decided to go down to the white bridge at Poyll Dooey to see if any wildfowl were down there

as you approached the old ford you see this sign 

as we drove to the car park we looked back in surprise to see this

just goes to show short cuts do not always work

Also this week 19 more Linnets ringed up at the point

13 More Goldfinch in Garden

Kev, Chris and kay caught and ringed we think the first Gt Spotted Woodpecker on the isle of Man 

on sunday this does not include the Calf of Man

see Kevs Blog for details

A Mates Control

Today as the weather was to windy to mist net i decided to go for a drive into Ramsey. Just passing the swimming pool there is a slipway and i noticed a load of Mallards sat there. I parked up and decided to feed the ducks to see if i could ring a few. As i started feeding 3 Mute Swans came off the water and straight up to me , 2 were ringed with BTO metal rings and no Darvic rings. I decided to catch them both and read the rings .

One was an old type ring and the numbers and letters were badly worn i could just see 7291 

the other was ZZ7452.

I emailed Kane from WWT to tell him the news and he came straight back saying he was certain that ZZ7452 was ringed by him and would get back to me.

I emailed Kev as well and he is pretty sure that 7291 could be U7291 which had been given darvic A68 ON 21/02/1998 in Ramsey.

Kane rang back to say  

ZZ7452, was ringed as a 5 Female on  04/10/2008 at Whitehaven Harbour, Cumbria. 
No further sightings!

60km is the distance to Ramsey!

Mute swans Ramsey Harbour

So the day started with very little ringing and ended up with a control from Whitehaven by a great friend of mine. And a Swan from Ramsey over 12 years old

OOH and 1 Male Mallard ringed

CLICK FOR BIGGER IMAGE

Blue Tit Control

I caught a  Blue Tit in the garden last week a Control born this year . We thought for a few days it was the first to come over the sea from the mainland but found out it had been ringed on the Calf of man. Not a bad distance for a Blue Tit  

25 Miles as the crow flys

Please check out Kevs blog to see the info he got back on the Storm Petrel Controls we got in August

The theme of Red continues

Out again with Kev yesterday , a slow morning but good laugh  with 4 more Redpoll ringed and a few more Goldcrest. More Goldcrest went through the net than in it when you think they weigh  around 4>5 Grammes its not surprising. We packed up and said we would meet up at Smeale in the evening .

All the conditions were spot on for a bit of wader netting we set two 60FT two shelve nets in a lagoon left by the spring high tides. All full of seaweed and flies and food, not a bit of wind either the nets just hung dead straight. Not many evenings in October when you can say that up at Smeale. 

After 3 hours we got 1 Redshank, better than none. Not a wader about we even walked up and down the shore line to try and dazzle and didn't see a thing.  

Today i was up at another plantation looking for a good spot to put nets up for redpoll.

6  Redpoll ringed

1 Song Thrush

4 Goldcrest

1 Wren

1 Coal Tit

Redpoll Recce

Kev and i met up for a spot of plantation reconnaissance,we are  trying to find some small height plantations so we can start to ring some Redpoll and Crest.

We decided to try at Crinkle reservoir.

A great Morning with 18  Goldcrest 3 Redpoll another species to add to this years list 

61 Species ringed this year so far .

3 Robins

1 Dunnock

1 Wren 

2 Coal Tits

1 Chaffinch 

4 Gt Tits.

1 Blue tit

After Dinner we decided to go to Niarbyl to ring some more Rock Pipits

4 Ringed 

and a Robin 

Quite

Been a quite week with a bit of ringing in the garden this aft .

10 more Goldfinch ringed and a few House Sparrows

A new visitor to the bottom of the garden today 

2 wigeon dropped in just as we sat having a Cuppa

I have been out and about this week doing a spot of birdwatching and photography

winter is well on the way 

i had

a Barnacle goose down at Laxey harbour

a Pinkfooted goose down at Derbyhaven

and a couple of Red Throated Diver at the Ayres 

Mute Swan A84

Just got this back from Kev

Mute Swan A84 was ringed as an 8F on 08/06/2006 at Eary Dam, Foxdale.

It was resighted on 23/01/2007 in Ramsey Harbour and then resighted again on

17/01/2008 at Ballanette, Lonan.

Now in Laxey

Last few days

A couple of mornings spent down at Port Lewaigue  this week  brought a few late warblers 

 4  Blackcaps

 1 Chiffchaff

 9 Goldcrest

 2 Blackbirds

 2 Robins

 2 Dunnocks

Also been trying for Gulls with large spring trap but they are getting wise to it and staying away.

T1XB was seen again yesterday near the pier in Ramsey

3 Rock Pipits ringed at Port Moore this week, we hope to start individually colour ringing these soon

also 3 Meadow Pipits, Robin and Goldfinch.

Port e Vullen {Garden}

12 Goldfinch

7 Siskin

1 Blue Tit

1 House Sparrow

A Trip down to Laxey harbour today for Gulls and a look round 

2 Mute Swans in harbour with a Barnacle Goose 1 of them with a colour ring on A84, i have passed this on to Kev.

I noticed A83 in Ramsey harbour about a month ago. I passed this on to Kane Bride from WWT and this is what he came back with A83 was ringed with BTO X2284 on 13/04/2006 at Billown Mansion Dam Isle of Man SC2669

update

Better shot this morning showing the Gt Spotted Woodpecker to be a juvenile.

Rare Visitor to Garden

Now, coming here to live 6 months ago if this bird would of landed on my feeders back in Halifax i would of been pleased to see it as they are Great characters. 

But to have one on the feeders in the Isle of Man is great as this bird on the island is a bit of a rarity with only a couple of sightings a year. This year definite proof of breeding has been recorded so things are on the up i hope for this species. 

Gt Spotted Woodpecker  Port e Vullen

In between wind and rain

 I was out again with Kev on Monday down at Port St Mary. Placed the Gull traps out again and drew a blank.We decided to go for Rock Pipits and caught another 6. The rest of the week in between the wind and rain i have netted in the garden with 36 new birds being ringed

11 new Siskin  112 ringed in and around Garden

11 new Goldfinch

6 Blue Tits

3 Gt Tits

1 Chaffinch

3 House Sparrow

1 Dunnock

Garden

Also set woosh net up at the Point of Ayre  

23 New Linnets ringed and 2 retraps

1 Dunnock

2 Meadow Pipits

6 Rock Pipits caught at Port Moore

2 retraps from August