Saturday 11/08/2012

Last Sunday the volunteer group were working in the park. The first task was to remove the Himalayan Balsam along the river between Cardington Lock and the Canoe Slalom. It seems a shame as this is a beautiful flower as seen below:

Himalayan Balsam flower

However as you can see below it is an extremely invasive non native species and soon takes over:

Himalayan Balsam

Having removed several blocks of this plant during the morning we moved over to the Finger Lakes in the afternoon where we removed 3 boat loads of Water Soldier from the east lake. This is another invasive species which is rapidly taking over the Finger Lakes this year. The plants sit below the surface and then rise up at flowering time.

This morning it was quite a foggy start over the main lake and the light was a little disappointing after yesterday mornings glorious start. I did catch this group of Canada Geese coming in to land in front of me and the main lake dipping platform is a good place for a Tern fly past.

Canada Geese

Common Tern

As I walked down to the dipping platform I had 12 Blackbirds on the New Meadow and 3 Greenfinch in the hedge by the Labyrinth. DK joined me at the dipping platform and immediately trumped my Blackbird and Greenfinch counts with 15 and 10 respectively.

EG was ringing in the Rough again so we stopped to have a chat and obviously brought some luck as the first birds of the day were extracted from the nets. A Green Sandpiper flew over calling. This Bullfinch was hanging around most of the time we were in the Rough but was avoiding the nets, at least until we left.

Bullfinch

Generally it was quiet with birds of note being the 8 Swallows over north east at the STW bridge, a Kingfisher by the main lake at the Visitor Centre and 2 Swifts in the same area. There were quite a lot of calling Chiffchaffs and we also had a singing Willow Warbler on the corner of the Finger Lakes opposite the Beach.

The sun eventually burned through the clouds and I had a very pleasant wander around Mowsbury Hillfort Nature Reserve. Goldcrest was note worthy among the birds and there were also a variety of butterflies around including Peacock, Brimstone, Large White, Green-veined White, Meadow Brown and Speckled Wood. A Brown Hawker Dragonfly was hunting in the Orchard.

Ahhhh... Babies!

Todays bird ringing session - CES visit 5 at Priory Country Park - was dominated by juvenile birds.

41 birds of 13 species, 32 new & 9 retraps (retraps in brackets).

Chiffchaff 4 (2) - 5 of these were juveniles
Great Tit 4 (0) - all 4 juveniles
Wren 1 (1)
Blue Tit 7 (0) - all 7 juveniles
Long Tailed Tit 1 (0) - a juvenile
Bullfinch 1 (0) - a juvenile
Dunnock 1 (2) - of these 2 were juveniles (the other being a retrap adult)
Blackbird 4 (0) - 4 new juveniles
Robin 2 (1) - including 1 new juvenile
Blackcap 4 (2) - including 1 new juvenile
Greenfinch 1 (0)
Chaffinch 1 (0)
Song Thrush 1 (0) - a juvenile

That's a total of 27 juveniles. If you are interested in totals from our other CES visits, please click here.

Here are some of the cast from today:

Above: A juvenile Blackbird on the left and an adult female on the right for comparison.

Above: A juvenile Song Thrush - note all the thorn shaped markings on the wing.



Above: A juvenile Chiffchaff.

Above: A juvenile Robin (left) and adult Robin (right) for comparison. It will be a while yet before the baby Robin gets its own red breast - it has to replace and grow more feathers before that happens.

Above: A juvenile Bullfinch

Last weekend, we made a visit to 'the crescent' where we caught 20 different adult Reed Warblers moving between the reed bed and surrounding vegetation. Of the other 10 birds we caught, of note was our first juvenile Blackcap of the year.

Ringing stoatals!

Yesterday, I was at Priory Country Park. On the non-bird front, I saw a Stoat! On the bird front, in order of appearance, ringing stoatals were: New (Retrap)

Blue Tit 9 (9)
Long Tailed Tit 0 (4)
Dunnock 1 (4)
Blackbird 1 (0)
Song Thrush 1 (0)
Bullfinch 2 (2)
Great Tit 11 (8)
Wren 0 (1)

53 birds of 8 species.



Above: One of four Bullfinch.

Bird Ringing: Totals for CES Visits 6 & 7

CES Visit 6 (26/06/11)

Totals: 29 birds of 10 species: (retraps in brackets)

Robin 6 (0) = 6 [all juveniles]
Wren 3 (1) = 4 [2 juveniles]
Reed Warbler 6 (0) = 6 [5 juveniles]
Garden Warbler 2 (0) = 2 [1 juvenile]
Blackbird 2 (1) = 3
Dunnock 3 (0) = 3 [all juveniles]
Whitethroat 2 (0) = 2 [all juveniles]
Blue Tit 1 (0) = 1 [a juvenile]
Song Thrusth 1 (0) = 1 [a juvenile]
Blackcap 1 (0) = 1

A ringing demonstration was held during the morning - the highlight of which was a Song Thrush.

CES Visit 7 (03/07/11)

Today, the new CES period started so I decided to squeeze in Visit 7 of 12. I had high hopes after my success at Sandy Smith Nature Reserve yesterday (click here for more details).

The wind was virtually non existant for once. It was very sunny to start with the second half of the session very cloudy.

In order of appearance, the totals were: 35 birds of 11 species: (reptraps in brackets)

Great Tit 1 (0) = 1 [a juvenile]
Dunnock 8 (3) = 11 [8 juveniles]
Wren 1 (1) = 1
Blackcap 5 (1) = 6 [5 juveniles]
Robin 3 (1) = 4 [all juveniles]
Chiff Chaff 4 (0) = 4 [3 juveniles]
Reed Warbler 1 (0) = 1 [a juvenile]
Whitethroat 2 (0) = 2 [1 juvenile]
Chaffinch 1 (0) = 1
Blackbird 1 (1) = 2
Bullfinch 1 (0) = 1 [a juvenile]



Above: A juvenile Bullfinch.

My high hopes didn't get realised but I have no grounds for complaint! Thanks to David Howes for helping and to DK & DB and JM (ranger) for stopping by for a chat.

Being all at sixes and sevens for the last couple of weeks, we'll be have to wait a while before we're after eight!