3 Types of Pipits

With a nice still morning i decided to place a 30ft net down at the rocks in Ramsey Harbour for Rock Pipits. We are individually colour ringing them and have been using spring traps and call to catch the birds. As the seasons change so does the behaviour with hardly any response to call now and what it seems is a dominate male at most sights which as soon as he hears the call he chases all the other birds that come near out of the area. 

So no wind and a mist net was the way to go. 

2 Rock Pipits bounced out the net with in the first 10 minutes .

I decided to walk down the beach away and walk back towards the net as i got close there in the net was the Water Pipit which has been about for over 3 weeks now.

Nice result and a bonus.

Water Pipit

Water Pipit

Water Pipit

Tail feathers T6 T5 showing white wedge characteristics of Water Pipit

Rock Pipit Tail

Water Pipit underparts bright and clean with lighter legs

Rock Pipit underparts very diffuse streaking 

Rock Pipit Colour Ringed

Meadow Pipit

 As the tide was coming in i packed up and went down to Port Mooar where i set up a 40ft 2 shelve net

4 Rock Pipits colour ringed 3 were retraps from August so colour rings added

2 Meadow Pipits  Ringed as well which i think bring this species total to over a hundred this year.

So a great day for getting you eye in on Pipits

Winter Sparrow

Nice Morning yesterday with 22 more Linnets ringed (273 ringed so far)  and a Young Male Stonechat up at 

The Point Of Ayre.

In the afternoon i set up in the garden 

6 Goldfinch   (133 ringed in garden in 2010)

3 Blue Tits  ( 59 ringed in garden in 2010)

2 House Sparrows (106 ringed in garden 2010)

2 Siskin (121 ringed in garden in 2010)

1 Chaffinch (54 ringed in garden in 2010)

1 Robin ( 11 ringed in garden in 2010) 

1 Gt Tit  (25 ringed in garden in 2010)

1 Coal Tit (16 ringed in garden in 2010)

This morning i was waiting in for a delivery so opened the nets again 

another 15 birds caught,   as i walked up the garden towards the net i got a flash of white on the head of one of the birds i thought Snow Bunting as i ran up the garden.

Then i saw a Partial albinism House Sparrow d'oh, 

nice looking winter Sparrow.

Last Few Days

I was Back up at Tholt e Will Plantation on Monday no Redpolls or Crossbills seen.

First bird in the net was a female Goldcrest a Control with a BTO ring on. Straight away i thought great it will be a bird ringed on the East Coast moving through. 

I text Kev to check to see if it was one of the Bird Observatory ring strings on the Calf of Man, these are separate to the Manx ringing group.

He came back later in the day to say yes it was ringed on the Calf on the 12 October this year so bang goes my theory. Never mind nice little movement of 19 Miles.

8 Long Tail Tits

1 Coal Tit

also ringed

On Sunday i drop Niki of shopping at St Johns and went down to Peel to try for some Gulls

in the big Moudry spring  trap

3 Herring Gulls Ringed

Yesterday started of at Ramsey harbour, it was very quite

1 Rock Pipit Colour ringed

I then went back to Peel

1 Female Mallard Ringed

2 More Herring Gulls colour ringed 

over 60 Herring Gulls now with Yellow Black Darvics on left leg

Out and about this week

No Ringing news but its been a good week for birding with a Black Redstart down at Ramsey Harbour

this week and a Water Pipit as well.

Black Redstart

Water Pipit

Nice drive round today with 6 Red Throated Divers up at The Point of Ayre

and 14 Goldeneye in Ramsey Bay

Red Throated Diver

14 Goldeneye Ramsey Bay

Sand Martin Control

Kev sent me the details of the Sandmartin i controlled at the point of Ayre back on the 29 July this year 

interesting stuff

Sand Martin L159213 was originally ringed at Carey's Sand Pit, Ballycon Edenderry, Offaly, EIRE on 05th June 2010. It was caught at a breeding colony and was an adult female with a brood patch indicating it was nesting.

It was then caught by me near the Point of Ayre at a breeding colony on 29th July and 8th August 2010. It was still showing a brood patch and was believed to be nesting there. A distance of 223km and 55 days between captures.

A very interesting movement mid-season. Had its nesting attempt failed at the first colony in Eire and moved on, locating the colony near the Point of Ayre?

See Kev's Blog for some details on the Storm Petrel Controls from this year.

Something X tra Special

After 3 days of Gale force winds today was a belter. I started down at Ramsey for Rock Pipits  with no joy at all. I then thought no wind lets get a net up for Redpoll at one of the Plantations. 

3 hours later and only 4 Goldcrests and a Gt Tit ringed :-(    7 Crossbill flew into the area :-)

They perched high up about 50ft from the net, now me and Andy back in Yorkshire have tried to catch these birds so many times. They have been sat right by the nets on many an occasion and never gone in.

I had my big lens with me today so i decided to get some shots of them.

As i got closer and closer i realized i was near the net . I walked away

as i looked back 2 males and 2 females flew towards net.

i waited for a couple of minutes and saw 2 males and 1 female fly away.

As i walked to the net there in the top shelve was the 2nd female. 

what a bird

see more at www.grayimages.co.uk

Out and about

A quick trip up to the Point of Ayre this morning to put some seed down at the woosh site, on the way up noticed we now have 2 Whooper Swans in Glascoe Field P9X still here and now has a companion and is alot closer than before.

Then down to Port Lewaigue, up to 80+ Black Headed Gulls feeding on the sea at high tide a quick scan through them and a Mediterranean Gull was spotting.

Very quite in the scrub at Lewaigue.  I decided to put one forty ft net up .

Birds ringed 

 1 newBlackbird

2 Gt Tits 

1 Blue Tit 

Decided to pack up and set up in my garden as i have noticed a few Brambling coming in to the garden 

very quite here to

Port Mooar

A couple of hours at Port Mooar yesterday afternoon saw 28 birds ringed

13 Long Tailed Tits

2 Goldcrests

1 Chaffinch

1 Wren

6 Blue Tits

1 Robin

2 Dunnock

1 Gt Tit

1 Coal Tit

decided to try for Rock Pipits but on the way down to Port Mooar i saw a big flock of Chaffinch dive into scrub in front of car, on closer inspection up to 12 Brambling in with them so the spring traps got left and the mist net went up.

Went down this morning at high tide as i left the house i did think shall i take the big camera with me, will from now on.

I set up for Rock Pipits and sat in car watching the BH Gull taking flies of the sea. Then out of the corner of my eye a white winged Gull. Glaucous i thought mega, shit no big lens so looked in glove box where i have A 200 sigma lens stuck that on my 40D and started taking shots. The bird moved a bit closer and then flew to the right. I live about 2 miles from Port Mooar so i packed up and headed off for the big lens. Took me about 6 mins there and back and NO GULLS.

Got Home looked at photos and decided on Iceland Gull only seen one before 

ooh and a retrap Rock Pipit  from October now has colour rings on 

Iceland Gull

11 Rock Pipits individually colour ringed this week 

Tit for tat

On the 14 October i controlled a Blue Tit that had been ringed at the Calf Of Man Bird Observatory.

Kev rang me up today to say that Sarah the warden on the Calf had controlled one of my Blue Tits on the 10 October.

When i moved over to the island back in March i posted on this blog that the first thing i did was put up some nest boxes in the garden. I had a pair of Blue Tits nesting in one of these boxes and i ringed 5 chicks from the nest. Sarah controlled one of these chicks,  i have ringed a lot of Blue Tits in the nest and never seen or heard of them again so well chuffed today.

Whooos that

The Mission to try and read colour ring 

A lone Whooper swan in Glascoe field, along way off in long grass with a colour ring on in the rain no access to field .

Pull up along side field and attach 2x convertor to 500 lens. Take over 150 shots of the swan and hope it turns round or lifts it leg .

Bingo

P9X

Forward sighting on to  Kane Brides at WWT and all is revealed

Whooper Swan  P9X was ringed on 08/05/2008 in Iceland

at Vatnshlid Skagafjordur as an Adult Male

it was then seen at Lock Connell in Dumfries on 21 March 2009 by Kane

Then it wintered at Caerlaverock from October 2009 until it left in April 2010

That was the last report until now.

Mission accomplished 

thanks Kane for all the info, and off the top of your head . 

Rockits get lift off

Kev and i met at Niarbyl at 10:00am to start our colour ringing of Rock Pipits. Even though birds were about it took a good 40 minutes to catch the first one to get the project underway. The reasons for this project are as follows.

To find out about Dispersal habits of these birds

After the breeding season ends birds seem to move to small coves in numbers and winter there feeding on seaweed fly larvae. Places like Port Moore, Niarbyl, Ramsey Harbour sea defence. 

As spring start these birds disperse from these areas and breed along the high rocky cliffs and coves of the island

Also the isle of Man gets reports of the Fennoscandian subspecies littoralis as a winter visitor so hopefully we might be able to colour ring a few of these wintering migrants as well.

2 Rock Pipits colour ringed at Niarbyll this morning.

We moved on to Fenella beach car park at Peel to set up there. The birds were more obliging here with 3 more colour ringed.