August ends well

A great day today with no wind its been a long time since there was no wind here in the isle of Man

The day started with a garden tick, a Meadow Pipit in the woosh net with a Pied Wagtail.

Then a few Blue Tits , Coal Tits a Gt Tit  Chaffinch and House Sparrow while the coffee and toast was on.

Then a trip up to Point of Ayre 

5 new Linnets Ringed

9 Swallow

7 Sand Martins

and the day ended as it started with another 5 Meadow Pipits

Sand Martin

Swallow

Meadow Pipit

The Claw {Meadow Pipit Hide Talon}

Last Night

Nice 2 hours out with Kev last night 

4 Sanderling 

6 Turnstone

2 Dunlin

1 Ringed Plover

1 Herring Gull

All birds were juveniles and in very good shape, Full of Fat and  nice and Chunky.

yesser yesser yesser

Or Lesser Lesser Lesser!!!!!!

Kev rang me to say Antonio Gutierrez one of the top Gull watchers in Spain had emailed him.  Z97:M one of the LBB Gull chicks we colour ringed had turned up today at Pantin beach, Valdovino, A Coruna, SPAIN! A distance of 762 Miles and 60 days after
 being ringed at the Point of Ayre Gravel Pits on 01/07/2011

Great News, we know LBBG migrate down that way but to get our first sighting and of a juvenile bird as well Fantastic 

I do follow Antonio blog   and it is well worth a look.

all grown up, today.

Thanks Antonio and keep your eye out for some more coming your way

Bank Holiday weekend windout

Nothing doing this weekend due to strong winds. This afternoon spent 2 hours at Port Mooar

after Rock Pipits one Rock Pipit colour Ringed 

and 3 colour ringed birds seen.

Left Leg Mauve over Yellow ringed 06/08/2011 seen today

left leg Blue over Yellow  ringed on 23/11/2010 at Port Mooar seen today

Left leg carmine over carmine colour rings added 10/12/2010 originally ringed 03/08/2010

Ringed today and back feeding straight away

out of the car window while waiting for Rock Pipits i picked up 5 juv game birds

running in and out of cover. 

I tried my best to turn 5 juv Grey Partridge into 5 Juv Corncrake 

Not to be but nice to see

WOOSH SITE A YEAR OLD

A great couple of mornings this week up at the woosh net site with 104 new Linnets being ringed.

it will be a year ago tomorrow i started the woosh net sites up at the Point of Ayre, the reason for setting up a woosh site was to try and catch the winter flock of Linnets we always saw. Thinking the number to be around maybe 100 to 200.



Another 39 Linnets ringed today bringing the total to


 778 New Linnets ringed in a year with only
 40 recaptures
and 1 controlled bird to Rossal Point Lancashire


and still they come, as i packed up this aft some unringed birds were still landing on the nyger


The Linnet is a Red Listed Bird
this means

Red list criteria

• Globally threatened
• Historical population decline in UK during 1800–1995
• Severe (at least 50%) decline in UK breeding population over last 25 years, or longer-term period (the entire period used for assessments since the first BoCC review, starting in 1969).
• Severe (at least 50%) contraction of UK breeding range over last 25 years, or the longer-term period

Also this week another 64 Sand Martin ringed and 2 House Martins in with them

House Martin

other birds ringed this week

Blackbird
Goldcrest
Willow Warbler
Blackcap
Chaffich
Goldfinch
Siskin

Kev got some great news off Raymond Duncan up in Aberdeen this week.
One of our colour ringed Cormorants  Z6H had been seen on the Harbour wall there.
A great Movement of some 215 Miles, that's if it flew in a straight line ?

Cormorants in Nest

Saturday 20 August

I went down to Close Sartfield this morning hoping to ring some Redpoll. 

I 40ft net put up near the hide 

18 Birds Ringed

1 Treecreeper

3Blue Tits

2 Chiffchaff

4 Willow Warbler

3 Goldcrest

1 Chaffinch

1 Robin

2 Siskin

1 Goldfinch

no Redpoll only 4 seen flying over

Willow Warbler photo Fred Hodgson

Willow Warbler being weighed Photo Fred Hodgson

Willow Warbler Being ringed photo Fred Hodgson

Thanks for photos Fred nice to meet you and your wife

Yesterday afternoon and this afternoon spent at Port Mooar 

2 more Rock Pipit Colour Ringed 

Yesterday

I was out with Kev yesterday morning at the feeder site in the curraghs.

75 birds caught with 12 retraps.


Great Tit 18 (+7)
Blue Tit 10 (+4)
Chaffinch 12
Siskin 8
Tree Sparrow 6 (+1)
Greenfinch 3
Coal Tit 2
House Sparrow 2
Robin 2


A great site and many Thanks to Sue .


My great mate
Andy Jowett has been back to Visit for 4 days with his family, so we have been busy entertaining, birding, boating
rock pooling, eating and lots of drinking and generally Laughing .

Last night we got the call off Kev to say the weather down South { of island }
was cock on for trying for Storm Petrel


We met up at 10pm got 1 60ft net up and 30 minutes later we had caught 1 of these fantastic little birds

another was soon caught,  then the wind got up and that was it . 

Rock Pipits and Sand Martins

Yesterday i spent 4 hours at the woosh site trying for some more Linnets not one bird landed. I packed up and headed home. On the way i stopped off to check a small Sand Martin colony i hadn't looked in on this year. 2 hours later 33 new Sand Martin ringed.

This morning i met up with Kev down at Niarbyl to have a go for Rock Pipits, a great morning

with 10 new Rockits all individually colour ringed. It started to get busy{with people} so we packed up and headed down to castletown on the way we stopped for a greasy bacon sandwich. 

Only one Rockit caught at castletown and yes i fumbled it out of the spring trap and off it went 

 i blamed the grease on my hands and of course Kev for buying me the sandwich.

Rock Pipit

This Week

Another 50 new Linnets caught on two visits to the woosh site this week the weather has been bad with wind and rain so the mist netting has been limited

I was out with Kev at the MSPCA this week where we ringed 22 Juv Herring Gulls

that had been brought in and were now ready for release.

Also Rooks, Jackdaws, Mallards and a Eider Duck.

The rest of the week ringing in my garden in between showers and down at Port Mooar

where 3 more Rock Pipits have been colour ringed.

Garden

6 new Blue Tits  3 retraps 1 of them ringed as a chick in my nest box on the 18 June this year and still hanging around 

16 more House Sparrow, 96 ringed in the garden this year they seem to be every where, looks like they have had a good breeding season. They kicked the House Martins out of the nest on my house and the young are calling away as i type.

5 Chaffinch

2 Dunnock

1 Coal Tit

1 Rook

and a new Species for the year ten minutes ago

a juvenile Collard Dove.

Species for the year so far  69

Herring Gulls at the MSPCA

Last night and today

An evening out with Mark to set up for Storm Petrel and later on met up with Kev for a spot of Dazzling

1 Storm Petrel Ringed

4 Dunlin

2 Curlew

1 Turnstone

and a

Oystercatcher

Ringed

a Later start today after last night

6 More Linnets 

and 

2 Goldfinch at the woosh site this aft

and 

2 Juv Stonechats Ringed

August gets off to a great start

62 new Linnets ringed over the last two day with 8 Goldfinch and a Chaffinch 

14 More Sand martins ringed
5 More Rock pipits colour ringed

Mark found us another feeder site to ring at in St Johns

Mr Mrs Sloper's garden

We set 2 40ft nets yesterday at 1230

3 Hours later

 Dunnock              2

  Coal Tit                5

    Blue Tit                26

Great Tit               6

   House Sparrow 15

    Chaffinch           12

Greenfinch          1

Goldfinch             2

   Siskin                9

TOTAL                   78

Thanks Christine for all the tea and biscuits

Today Mark was at the reedbed site another 35 Birds ringed

Mainly Tits

and 5 Willow Warbler 

This aft a Kittiwake was caught and ringed