Black is the colour

Today i was down at my local site Port Lewaigue. 2 60ft nets placed at 7:30

Birds Caught

6 Blackcaps  5 Males 1 Female

5 New Blackbirds 1 Retrap from October all Male

1 Willow Warbler

1 Gt Tit

1 Goldfinch retrap ringed on 17/7/10 in  my Garden 500 meters away            

1 Wren retrap from 30/04/10 

1 Song Thrush

1 Treecreeper

Today

Another Wheatear caught this afternoon and then a go at flicking some Sandmartin's as they flew low over the gorse

3 Caught

Reed Bed Species

Back in  February i cleared a net ride out of the small Reedbed site at The Dogmills.

  Today i placed a 60ft net in that ride. 

The first bed caught in this net ride was a Grasshopper Warbler. 

Grasshopper Warbler

Also Caught

3 Sedge Warbler   2 new 1 retrap from last week

Sedge Warbler

1 Reed Bunting

Reed Bunting

and 2 Blackbirds

well worth all that cutting

Back at Close Sartfield

Great Morning back at Close Sartfield with Kev and his son. 

24 new birds caught and two Willow Warbler retraps from Tuesday

                                                                        

   Sedge Warbler 2
     Willow Warbler 5 (2)

Great Tit 6

Blue Tit 3

Blackbird 3

Chaffinch 2

Coal Tit 1

Wren 1

Treecreeper 1

Female Sparrowhawk just passed the net as well

Sedge Warbler

Willow Warbler

Wheatear

We packed up around 1ish and went back to the landfill to see if the Wheatears were still hanging around, not as many as yesterday we reckoned between 4/5

2 Females Ringed.

Nice afternoon

I was in all morning waiting for a delivery by 1pm i had gone up to the Point of Ayre to put some more seed down for the Linnets. Not a lot going on Linnet wise but as i looked over the old landfill site there must of been 15 Wheatear hopping around, i got out the meal worms which had gone past there sell by date and stuck them on top of the car heater to warm up and wriggle about a bit.

3 Spring traps placed around the place an hour later i had ringed 6 Wheatear 

4 Female and 2 Male all 2nd year birds {Born Last Year}

ohh and 2 more Linnets

Close Sartfield

I was set up at Close Sartfield for 08:00 today 2 x 60 ft nets and a 40ft net. 

a beautiful day at the nature reserve with Brown Hares displaying all over the place.

23 Birds Caught

8 Willow Warbler

1 Blackcap

4 Blue Tits

4 Gt Tits  3 new 1 retrap with  a B ring on 

this bird was ringed as a chick in a nest box on the 25/05/2008 at the wildlife park
which backs onto Close Sartfield 

4 Robins

2 Chaffinch

other birds about

Female Hen Harrier over 

Snipe

Grey Heron 

Song Thrush

Back in February

Back in February i photographed an Oystercatcher's ring in Ramsey and managed to get the whole number 

FA99928

Today we got the detail back from the BTO

Ringed on the 16 November 1996 as an Adult

in Whiteford Point near Swansea

14 Years 80 days since it was first ringed

Distance of 186 Miles

Sedge Warbler makes it back

Down at the reed bed site today only one bird caught a Sedge Warbler retrap, i ringed this bird with Mark  back on the 30/07/2010. 

Never fails to amaze me how far these small birds travel and find there way back to the same small reed bed

All Sedge Warblers spend winter in sub-Saharan Africa, from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east, and as far south as the eastern Cape Province of South Africa and northern Namibia. 

This aft 2 more Adult Herring Gulls in the Garden ringed with T1XG and  T2XG

Yesterday 1 Herring Gull Ringed in Garden and colour ringed with T5XF

Linnet L623149 goes to Lancashire

I got an email of Kev saying he had seen on Seumus Eaves blogg that a Linnet L623149 had been controlled at Rossal Point Lancashire on Friday. 

L629149 was caught on the 25/09/2010 at the point of Ayre and was aged as euro age 5M. 

Fantastic, on friday i was back at the point and another 27 new Linnets were ringed with 3 retraps from

August 2010.

Last Few Days

Up at the Point of Ayre yesterday to put some more food down at the woosh net site as i pulled up 4 Twite were feeding . So i set up and 10 minutes later 3 Twite caught

 2 new birds and 1 retrap from January

also 2 linnets caught 1 new 1 retrap

Twite

I packed up and set off to Ronaldways where my old mate Andy had been working for the day.

Picked him up and an indian takeaway on the way home and a evening of stella and Iron Maiden

was had a great laught.

Up at 8 and off for a Manx full English and then a few hours spent watching Harriers Sky Dance

Then of back to the airport  to get him home it was great to see him again.

back to Leeds Bradford

Then the woosh net in the garden was set up and so far 1 rook and 1 Wood Pigeon Ringed.

Rook

Goldfinch are now back on the nyger feeder with 21 caught in the last few days 

also 

1 Female Siskin showing brood patch

1 Starling

4 Chaffinch

1 Dunnock

2 Greenfinch 1 (1)

1 House Sparrow

Wags wooshed

 The last few weeks Kev and i have been discussing where would be a good place to set up some woosh nets. Sandwick seemed ideal, so today we met up and had a test run of finding a place clearing as much weed and crap from the area and having a go. A great morning with Choughs feeding right by the net and 3 White Wagtails ringed.

Then a quick visit to Castletown harbour and another Mute Swan ringed.

2nd Gt Sp Woodpecker ringed

I met Chris from Manx Birdlife this morning at the Sulby ringing site.He had his godson Dan with him on work experience from school.

A cracking morning with 51 birds caught

31 new birds

20 retraps

Blue Tit               5   (11)

Gt Tit                 16  (8)

Coal tit                3    (1)

Long tailed Tit    1

Chaffinch           3

House Sparrow  1

Willow Warbler  1

and a  female Gt Spotted Woodpecker  only the second one to be ringed on the Isle of Man mainland.

A swift dazzle

Another 2 Turnstones ringed  tonight with Kev the wind had just started to die down as we set off.

No signs of the Alpine Swift this evening  it had showed well for the last two nights and was seen going to roost on the flats in Ramsey. A great couple of evenings spent trying to get a half decent photo of this majestic bird.

Alpine Swift

The weather has been atrocious today. On Saturday i ringed 4 Chiffchaff down at Port Lewaigue and a Chaffinch and that was it, nice to get the warblers started again. I got a call of Ted at about 7pm today saying an Alpine swift is flying round the old swimming pool and flats in Ramsey, I was out the door in a flash . As i got out the car and looked towards the flats there was this boomerang flying round . Great bird it looked as if it was going to roost on the flats so i will pop down tomorrow and see if i can get some shots in the daylight.
so the weather can be atrocious again tomorrow if this is what happens.



feeding



Cormorants get go ahead

I got some good news from Kev yesterday saying the Cormorant colour rings had arrived.

I had visited the nest site on Tuesday to see how far on they were.

Email address on ring as well

Looking at the site we will look to start ringing in May

see Kev blogg for more detail