Habits and habitats

A bit of site maintenance in the rain at one of our woodland sites resulted in a new net ride and a load of sycamore cleared. The latter in the hope of creating some nice glades and regeneration of anything except, well sycamore.

On the way home, with hypothermia setting in and four loaves of bread in stock, we couldn't resist another attempt at gulls at Roath Park Lake. With no gulls about we turned our attention to the water fowl, finally breaking the RPL curse by catching and colour ringing our first coot there! Good work CJ. We've now used up a staggering... wait for it... 9 colour rings from the 100 we've been allocated. It is going to get cold soon isn't it...?

Three Canada Geese and a Greylag later we decided that dry clothes and a warm drink were in order so headed home.

A reused picture to add some colour. It is relevant; it was taken at RPL, shows a
Darvic ring, and is of a species we caught today. We also saw a Darvic wearing GREGO; FX6.

Gull : Bread Ratio

Yesterday we achieved a ratio of 1.2, that's six gulls caught for an expenditure of five loaves of Asda's 'Cheap n'Nasty' ® brand white sliced bread. Some scope for improvement remains, we feel.

Our tally was five Black-headed and one Lesser Black-backed.  Here's a sample:

Also present was this colour-ringed LBB, ringed as a second-year by the Severn Estuary Gull Group at Gloucester Landfill on 26-Nov-05:

Thinking of Summer

Christmas ringing so far has been rather unproductive* (Bah-bleedin'-humbug). So with wet and windy weather gripping much of the country, a bit of a look back to summer is needed to lighten the mood.

We've been looking at the swallows breeding at the Cardiff Riding School (red marker) since 2006, and this year proved to be the second most productive year since then. This year, 20 pairs made their homes in the stables, stalls and barn, with at least one other in the indoor school building (think massive metal shed; its a bugger to monitor, so we don't report on those). Each year we produce a poster about the swallows' season for the Riding School's staff and punters; it gives the headline news from this season and you'll find it at the end of this post for your perusal.

View Swallow Sites in a larger map

There were a further 3 and 2 pairs respectively at Blackweir Ambulance Station (blue marker) and at Bute Park Nurseries (green marker); giving us a total of 27 or so pairs; not a bad total for an inner city location. We didn't do much nest recording at these latter sites but they fledged around 25 youngsters – you can do the maths for the total number of fledglings produced in the parks as a whole.

These additional sites also mean we were able to register the project as a RAS, albeit RAS Lite compared to the number of pairs covered by some Swallow RAS project.

We think we have found all the swallow breeding sites within the parks but if any local birders are reading this and know of any other sites out there, then please let us know (either post a comment here or email us at cardiffringers@yahoo.co.uk.

As always we'd like to extend a big thank you to the staff of the Riding School, the Ambulance Station and the Nursery for allowing us access to the sites and putting up with us throughout the summer.

*e.g. yesterday; three potter traps, 6 hours, no birds...

J

Whoosh! Another new species for the stables.

Frustrating Friday

It was a simple plan; a quiet Friday morning coot catch at Cossie was bound to result in good numbers of the species. By now Vaf and Facey should know that such a simple plans are doomed to fail.

It didn't help that Facey was ten minutes late meaning the opportunity to catch in the presence of "Bread Man" was lost. Bread man is a gent that arrives at the lakes and literally empties bin bag loads of bread in to the water. He arrived, he emptied, he left. The birds, full of bread, weren't prepared to come That close.

While we watched crestfallen as the coots kept their distance, we did manage to secure these:

Voila! Le Tufted Duck fem



Pleased as punch, but no Facey, its not a coot...



Vaf and Facey were of course disadvantaged by a distinct paucity of coot... 

Fingers crossed and warmer socks, we'll be catching more coot in the next few weeks as the weather gets colder...

Here Cooty Cooty Cooty

Its been a while since our last post but don't worry we haven't left the country (yet). The weather hasn't been conducive to ringing of late; a tad on the windy and/or wet side. With the weather improving we decided to head to Cosmeston to ring Coots on Saturday.

During our several Coot ringing outings, CJ has steadfastly declined the opportunity to ring one (when one has been available), preferring his first to be one he'd caught himself. On Saturday the first Coot both caught and ringed was by CJ, affording him much quiet pleasure. It was also Wayne's first Coot ringing experience.

As the weather is getting colder the Coots are becoming slightly bolder, but still all we could muster was five, caught in quick succession. Given the time of year there aren't as many Coot as we'd expect, and without safety in numbers they are still a little bit too wary for a big morning's catch. There is, on the whole, a bit of a dearth of waterfowl on the lakes compared to most years. Either that or the last two winters have spoilt us.

With the Coot on to us, we broke camp for another part of the lake to try for what some would call "proper birds". Sadly, despite a myriad traps, all we could achieve was a retrapped Dunnock. But we did get some Mallards - important G closing practise for the assembled trainees. 

Finishing on five new Coot, three new Mallard, and a retrap Tufted Duck, plus the Dunnock, and covered in 'fowl crap, we headed for breakfast.



Ti did an excellent job of releasing the morning's customers.

With the morning's session complete, and breakfast consumed, the group dispersed. On the drive home CJ and Facey decided that a bit more ringing was in order, so headed to the Stables - adding a retrapped Robin and 13 new Long-tailed Tits to the day's totals. This brings the Stables' total for the year to 211 new birds; a bit of a milestone as it's the first time we've breached the 200 mark here. It might not sound a lot but for a site where once the nest boxes are empty and the Swallows have departed, all that is caught is the odd Blackbird, Dunnock or Robin and we are quite pleased. You never know, we might make the dizzy, dizzy heights of 250 before the year is out. You have to have dreams people, you have to have dreams.

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