Crossbill Calamity

For several of the Cardiff Ringers, seeing a Crossbill in the hand would be a first. Today Vaf and Facey had that experience but the circumstances some what tarnished it - the Crossbill in question had been hit by a car (not the one they were driving!) and died shortly after being picked off the road. Such a shame as they are truly ace birds.

But the presence of a bird in the hand, dead or alive, does provide an opportunity to learn and the bird was scrutinised post mortem when a copy of Svenson was at hand.

The bird will continue contributing to science as it will soon be interred at the museum.

The Weekend

Our ringing this weekend is best described as "humph".

Friday night saw an attempt to catch Redshank but it turned into an episiode of "men that stare at nets". Clear skies didn't help but the distinct lack of any birds was main problem. However, it was an opportunity to admire CJ's newly built keeping box; note that this was deployed once it was clear that we wouldn't need it. A pasty and rissole from the Cardiff indoor market was a highlight.

On Saturday, with a chill in the air and it being too windy to put up nets we decided to try our hands at increasing the Coot totals at Cosmeston. Try is the operative word. With no helpful members of the public and unhelpful birds we were as successful with the coots as we were with the redshank. Eventually the temptation was too great and we ringed a few cygnet and adult swans. Attempts to catch Mallards at a different spot on the lakes were equally unsuccessful. We did manage to spring trap a Great Tit which became the first bird Wayne has ringed!

Sunday, well we decided not to bother.

We made a quick stop to the bay to try for coot.
This picture pretty much sums up the weekend

Yeah... we weren't sure what was happening either....

Very few things will put a swan off its bread.

Wayne's first bird gets a look over. We know what you're thinking "Nice spring trap".

Who's a Pretty Boy Then?

Time for another portrait:

Dutch Gull

After a bit of detective working on Dirk Raes’ fantastic European colour-ring Birding  site, we tracked down the origins of the Darvic’d Black Headed gull that we saw at Cossie Lakes on Saturday.

You can imagine how exciting it was to hear that it’s come all the way from the Netherlands, where it was ringed as an adult male breeding on an island in Veluwemeer by Frank Majoor on the 6th May 2007. 

As you can see from the E2CV’s sightings history, we are not the first South Walian yokels to report him at Cosmeston.

A big thank you to Frank for sending through this information, and we can recommend checking out his website

13-6-2007                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast eilandjes             F. Majoor

29-6-2007                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes             F. Majoor

4-10-2007                Cosmeston Lakes, Barry, South Wales                   David Gilmore      

22-3-2008                Harderwijk,                                                              Stef Waasdorp

23-3-2008                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

26-3-2008                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

28-3-2008                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

8-4-2008                 Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes             F. Majoor

10-4-2008                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

18-4-2008                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Henk van Huffelen

25-4-2008                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            F. Majoor

27-4-2008                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Benny Middendorp

2-5-2008                  Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Henk van Huffelen

6-5-2008                  Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            F. Majoor

22-5-2008                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            F. Majoor

19-6-2008                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Henk van Huffelen

13-3-2009                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            F. Majoor

22-3-2009                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

13-4-2009                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

15-4-2009                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            F. Majoor

19-4-2009                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

22-4-2009                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            F. Majoor

25-4-2009                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

29-4-2009                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Henk van Huffelen

4-5-2009                  Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

10-5-2009                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

3-6-2009                  Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Benny Middendorp

7-10-2009                Cosmeston Lakes, Barry, South Wales                   Michael Powell

7-11-2009                Cosmeston Lakes, Barry, South Wales                   Alex Bevan

13-3-2010                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

27-3-2010                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

7-4-2010                  Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

14-4-2010                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

19-4-2010                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Rob Voesten

5-5-2010                  Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            F. Majoor

21-5-2010                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Rob Voesten

9-6-2010                  Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            F. Majoor

14-3-2011                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

19-3-2011                Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Stef Waasdorp

4-6-2011                  Veluwemeer, Hoogspanningsmast Eilandjes            Rob Voesten

19-11-2011              Cosmeston Lakes, Barry, South Wales,                  Cardiff Ringers

Dippers to Ducks

The November Dipper visit on Friday to the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales' Taf Fechan Reserve saw us maintain our "new bird streak" with no retrapped dippers being caught. True we didn't catch any dippers, or anything else for that matter. This was slightly disappointing as we had been joined by Dr Larus Ross-Smith of Flat Holm and BTO fame who was hoping to pop her dipper cherry.

Spending time at Taf Fechan is never a chore, regardless of catch success. If you live in or near Merthyr and have never been there then Shame On You. Its easy enough to find, so go visit.

Our efforts on Saturday were more fruitful. Firstly we were joined on site by Wayne Morris, local BTO rep, and of course a session is never dull when Ti the Tyke is about. The session began very slowly with only eight birds caught in the first two hours; although among these was a 3 female Bullfinch which is always nice to see, and Vaf got to colour ring another Cetti's Warbler. Given the slack nature of the morning we decided to pack up and try our luck with some Coot. However, the Gods of Ringing smiled, and as we took down the nets M1 and M2 filled with birds; Lesser Redpolls, Greenfinches and a few Blabis too. We ended on 29!

Number four

Our next stop was Cosmeston where we hoped to add some more Coot to the colour ringing project. A mild November has not helped our cause so we were keen to get some more. Arriving at Cosmeston we were somewhat perturbed to find a paucity of waterfowl. Even the swans seemed thin on the ground. The Coots took some interest in the corn on offer but not enough to bring them in close enough.

Its at this point a random lady and her two children started feeding bread to the assembled birds; the Coots went mad for it. Two minutes later, after quick explanation of who we were (imagine that...), she and her kiddies were showering our feet with bread and two more coot were secured for the project. This woman will never read this blog but we would like to say a massive THANK YOU for your help! A spin off of this ladies assistance was Wayne's first time holding a coot; an experience best described as shitty.

Its amazing how few people will throw bread at a strangers feet on request, so with few birds coming to corn we had to be content with a Mute Swan and a Tuftie. We could have done many more of the former but we like to keep them in reserve for the Very Quiet days.

The Man that Stares at Ducks

We ended the session with resighting a darvic ringed Black-headed Gull. It'll go through the proper channels of course but if you know any thing about E2CV (white with black lettering) then let us know!

Sunday was a day of rest.

A picture speaks 1000 words

This picture tells you everything you need to know about today's session.
Seriously, we don't want to talk about it.

Snipe Hunt

The pursuit of Cetti's Warblers may well be a fool's errand, but at least the by-catch can be interesting.
The new Stanley and Livingstone nets aka M (Machete) 1 and M2 netted a new Goldfinch, a retrap Kingfisher, Blue Tit and one of these pointy-mouthed stripey birds.

Sidney was thrilled with his new Ga-ga inspired sausage jacket

Run of Redpolls

Saturday's visit to the bay resulted in a decent catch ; especially when compared to JOV's and Facey's effort the day before which only resulted in a tiddly catch of about 10 birds.

However, the Gods of Ringing must have been smiling for us on Saturday as the pages in CJ's notebook steadily filled to a grand total of 67 birds. Lesser Redpoll domintated the catch, as ya can see below, with Goldfinch and Blackbird taking second and third place respectively.

	new	retrap	total
Blackbird	12	3	15
Blackcap	3	0	3
Blue Tit	1	4	5
Cetti's Warbler	0	1	1
Chaffinch	1	0	1
Goldfinch	11	0	11
Lesser Redpoll	18	1	19
Long-tailed Tit	4	2	6
Reed Bunting	1	0	1
Robin	1	0	1
Siskin	1	0	1
Song Thrush	0	2	2
Wren	1	0	1
Total:	54	13	67

The retrap Cetti's warbler left with a nice set of colour rings, ready to do its bit in unravelling the mysteries of its species over-wintering strategy.

CJ and JOV made a sterling effort of cutting two new rides; names have yet to be decided but Stanley and Livingstone were suggested.

Ti did blindingly well in not only ringing a robin but also correctly aging it too! While his dad, Billy Whizz, as normal scored top marks for his contribution to the session's shared snack rations; hopefully others will follow from Billy's example... hint, hint, hint.

Hat Trick!

The God’s of ringing clearly got up on the right side of bed this morning, delivering three new species to “the office site”. First up, Song Thrush; regularly seen around the industrial estate that hosts the site, but today was the first time one has ventured in to the nets.

The second newbie was somewhat larger; Magpies aren’t often caught by us so it was nice to get one today. Magpies are beautiful birds, especially up close – just look at their iridescent green tails or blue wings.



That beak is as strong as it looks.



Granted, much more amazing in real life.

There was an intention of showing the aging criteria for the species, but the camera was in a fickle, fickle mood. So this is the next best thing:



From Svensson (1992) - today's bird had a first primary

like the on on the left making it and adult. The second

primary also aids with aging; the black tip to the feather

is only 3-15mm in adults, but 16-47mm in juvs and the

border between the white and black is not as distinct.



The outing to the office site was actually aimed at Mistle Thrush. There have been plenty about the place recently, but as the morning wore on with no Mistles in sight it began to look less and less likely. However, in true Hollywood style, just as the rain came in and the nets were about to be taken down, one bird found its way in to one! Only the 10th we've ringed.

The only other bird caught was a retrap Great Tit, with a Lotti flock and a Bite* of Blue Tits skilfully evading the nets.

*term for more than one blue tit.