A Ringing Trip to Cyprus

In April I was able to join up with my ringing group in Cyprus to enjoy 8 days of getting to see and ring some fantastic birds. The group has been visiting this particular region of Northern Greek Cyprus for the last 20 odd years. Not only does it provide a nice place to go on holiday, the ringing is also very important in the understanding of migratory birds and where they go. Cyprus is one of Europe's busiest migration routes and every spring thousands of birds pass through the island as they make the jump from Africa into Europe.
Unfortunately, as you are probably aware, ringers aren't the only people catching birds. The illegal, and frankly absurd, delicacy of songbirds in the Mediterranean fuels the trapping of migrants on a huge scale with Cyprus being the epicentre. Lyme sticks, mist nets, box traps... you name it and the Cypriot hunters are using it to catch migrants. This is having a huge effect on migrant bird numbers and makes it even more important that we continue to study them through ringing to see how we might possibly try to combat this issue and help the birds.
Ringing took place at a number of sites in the picturesque landscape - olive tree plantations, marshes, scrub - and I was able to ring 14 new species as well as adding a good number of birds to the life list.  The scenery was really surprising to me, as I had no idea what to expect. I found an incredibly beautiful landscape with high crags and hills mixed in with old English type farmland alive with Quail song and Corn Buntings.
In summary, I had an awesome 8 days surrounded by very skilled ringers and extraordinarily friendly people. The birds weren't bad either - pictures are below!

Cyprus Wheatear. Dipped the Cyprus Warbler despite trekking across the scrubland mountains in the heat of the afternoon!

Great Reed Warbler

Spotted Crake. First one caught in 20 years of the group visiting Cyprus

Little Bittern

Ortolan Bunting

The most common birds but certainly one of the smartest - Sardinian Warbler

Retrapped Black-headed Bunting that must have recently arrived on migration to its breeding site.

Scops Owl! Rumour has it they're soon to be separated into a new Cyprus species...

Male Black Francolin. Awesome!

Ringed a few of these Spanish Sparrows. One of my favourite birds I've held.

This was pushing for bird of trip for me personally. Nightingale.

Collared Flycatcher was the final bird of the trip and my last new species treat.

A Poem about Crows

The crows are by far my favourite family of birds. The way they look, their intelligence, charisma,and years of mythology and superstition really captivate me. As such, I wrote a lengthy poem covering most of the species of crow that we get here in the UK, as told by the Jackdaw...

Corvid

Allow me to guide you, 

on a tour of my family tree.

But before we go I warn you, 

you may not like what you see. 

Welcome to the black parade,

all clad in death and fear.

When we approach with raucous cackles,

the end is surely near.

Let us start with the henchmen,

the most well known of our kind.

In his dark and fearsome heart,

no remorse there shall he find.

They are the frontline of the clan,

the backbone of the brood.

Turning cheer of fields, woods, and parks,

into a much more sombre mood. 

Now we meet the joker, 

with his rattling serpent laugh.

In two toned coat tipped emerald cloak,

he eyes the creatures cross his path.

For it is not only things that shimmer, 

that catch his beady eye.

He has a taste for song birds,

and it is on these that he will spy. 

He waits atop his sentry post,

for their nests to be revealed.

When he knows he'll get them,

no matter how concealed. 

He wears a shroud of folklore,

hidden under veil of myth.

His cunning lets him fashion tools,

this feathered wiley blacksmith. 

Men of the land believe him the devil,

mischievous tricks does he play.

But he'll spare you that if you tip your hat, 

and send you on your way. 

Sibling bird with lipstick bill,

this bird is called the Chough.

But we banished him to windswept coasts,

for he wasn't tough enough. 

CAW! Comes cry from treetop towers,

as we meet our country brother. 

For while they may look like the crow, 

they are far different from each other. 

With skull grey mask across their face, 

they survey the rural scene.

Floating behind the tractor's teeth,

exploiting the ground where it has been. 

They strut across the picturesque,

a marauding army donned in black.

Plundering the wealth the fields bring, 

and that corvid mind they do not lack.

You can find them by the roadside,

hunched over deaths new soul.

Picking at the blood and eyes, 

keeping true to ghastly role. 

 Whilst death and fear are common here,

we move onto another sin.

For the next upon our family tree,

deceives us of the bird within. 

Burnt pink clashed electric blue,

he wears a magnificent disguise.

Yet for all this aesthetically pleasing look,

this bird is full of lies. 

He leaps around the woodland crowd,

maneuvering throughout the trees.

It it was not for that most shrieking call,

then he could melt on by with ease. 

He can shatter the very warmth of forest,

with that trademark piercing cry. 

And whilst your colours may tell us differet, 

tis with the crows your allegiances lie.

All hail the king! 

roamer of the mountain's peaks.

Our lord understands the wilderness,

and the harsh language that it speaks. 

Bold he fears nothing, 

and resides where eagles dare.

The hostility of his windswept land,

is mirrored in his stare. 

He surveys his untamed kingdom,

his figure marked against the sky.

And it is only those with wild at heart. 

that will here the Raven's cry. 

And for me? Well I'm the Jackdaw,

on death's coat tails I do not roam.

I've given up that kind of life, 

for a quiet country home.

All hail the King! - Catching Kingfishers

For those who aren't proper birders, Kingfishers aren't really a bird at all. They are that flash that streaks down the river side.  It is almost as though they have been concocted from the photons of dazzling orange and electric blue before being pulsated above the waters surface. There is no biological substance to them but the light and sound of their high pitched whistles. Perhaps they don't exist in the physical world at all. Maybe an embodiment of the spirit of the river, the very soul of an ecosystem both beautiful and delicate in one moment.

To see one in detail and have the chance to actually study these birds is something else entirely. To catch one of these sprites unawares and have the chance to watch it preen or fish is as though you have stumbled upon a sacred gem, buried deep within a river temple fit to bursting with biodiversity. It is then that you can appreciate the form of an animal crafted by evolution to deliver the final moments to the fish that swim beneath its feet. A jeweled assassin of the waterways.

To catch one is the ultimate prize. It's as if plucking a star out the sky suddenly became possible or by some powerful force you were able to hold lightning in your hand.

After 5 years of ringing I am lucky enough to say I was able to have such an experience as our group caught a pair at Creswell Crags this past Sunday. A day that will certainly never be forgotten.

The female that was caught first. Her red lower mandible tells you the sex of Kingfishers

The detailing on these birds is out of this world

That flash of blue

Male (foreground) and female side by side

One of the BEST ringing experiences I've ever had

Exploring Potteric Carr

Today I paid a visit to Potteric Carr, a Yorkshire Wildlife Trust reserve just on the outskirts of Doncaster, with a local bird group I am a member of. The site reserve itself is over 500 acres in size and has been growing over the course of the fast few decades as more and more land has been acquired. It has a long history of use and had been drained multiple times during its long history with humans whilst also being part of Hatfield Deer Chase at the time of Henry VIII.
Nowadays it is comprised of a many different habitats including wet woodland (also known as Carr Land, where the the reserve gets its name), open water and scrub. The main habitat type is reed bed however which comprises vast swathes of the area and surrounds almost all of the open water.

Like most reed bed reserves, Potteric Carr entices you in with charismatic species such as Bittern and Water Rail which you will almost definitely fail to see.

I spend far too long looking over scenes like this to never see a Bittern.

 The reserve starts in the very large and new visitor centre which looks more like you're walking into an office block for a 9-5 shift than it does to spend a day birding. Outside the visitor centre is a small feeding station which only needed a tumbleweed blowing across it to be more devoid of life. It wasn't the most scintillating start.

Once the group had gathered together and entry fees were paid, we set out on our way. The first hide we stopped at overlooking a small lake surrounded by reeds included the regulars such as Teal and Mallard etc but was also where we picked up my first new bird for 2015. Nothing outrageous (and we went on to get into double figures during the rest of the day) but a pair of nice Snipe decked out in their sublime camouflage were great to see in the scope.

The next hide held an even greater delight however. The first thing we noticed was a solitary Little Egret sat in a tree in the middle of the lagoon preening itself and generally looking stunning.

Always gorgeous

A member of our group then pointed out a bird down in the corner by the reeds that was probing around feeding which soon took all our attention. A Water Rail. Notoriously shy birds that live out their lives skulking about amongst the reeds, this one gave long, brilliant views to all the group and added another bird to my 2015 list.

Water Rail

Further round at a hide overlooking a feeding station (in front of a lake of course, all the hides here seem to come with mandatory lakes) we got nice views of Reed Bunting, a Jay that came into the bird table, a small vole that warily popped out for some seed when the Jay wasn't around as well as Chaffinch, Blue, Great and Coal Tits. Unfortunately the Willow Tit gave us the slip and must have coerced the Brambling into following suit as he wasn't around either.

A short stop followed at the excellent cafe for a top notch bacon sandwich (that almost went straight in at number 1 for the highlight of the day) and then three of us had a quick look in one of the hides nearby. We'd been told by somebody else that there was nothing to see in the hide but as it's always those hides that turn up the best species when you choose to ignore them, we decided to pop in. It wasn't long before we were rewarded too. Drifting in over the reeds came a female Marsh Harrier that came straight forwards, banked in front of the hide before heading off out of sight. A mesmerising thirty seconds or so.

Once the group had assembled post brunch we set out off to the larger lakes. This included a little stop off at a smaller patch of water where we picked up a nice Kingfisher (strangely getting mobbed by Black Headed Gulls - a behaviour which I had never seen or heard of before). Upon reaching the larger lakes, I resumed my identification battle with juvenile gulls underneath the swirling flocks of over 100 Lapwing. I was able to nail the Common Gulls pretty easily and after a bit of deliberation and confirmation from a more experienced birder, I was successful in ID'ing the juvenile Herring Gulls. Across the other side of the water stood 5 Little Egrets, living proof that these birds' colonisation of the UK continues successfully.

A Grey Heron (left) and 5 Little Egrets enjoying the early afternoon sun

All in all the trip was a very pleasant one and we finished on just over 40 birds for the day. Even the feeding station had picked up by the time we returned to the visitor centre as it creaked under the weight of 2 Blue Tits and a Great Tit. There hadn't been any sight of the Ring Necked Parakeet that had been seen on the outskirts of the reserve over the past few days and not even a hint of a Bittern (although I'm starting to think that it's to be my next bogey bird) but that didn't put a downer on the day. Great views of Water Rail and Kingfisher and 4 new birds for the year, as well as a nice walk and social meet up made for a really enjoyable Sunday.

An unexpected garden visitor

Blackcap are a species that are becoming increasingly more common as an overwintering bird in the UK. Their presence in the winter has been recorded for a few years now but it is only recently that we have learned that our wintering birds are not are summer individuals but in fact continental ones that come from Germany and such places to take advantage of our milder winters.

Recently they have started making use of feeders, particularly fat balls, and their presence is increasing in winter gardens. I only ever saw my first winter Blackcap last January when a male passed through the garden for all of 30 seconds.

Today I was treated to much better views though after I noticed what I thought was a strange coloured House Sparrow feeding on the fat ball feeder. It suddenly dawned on me that this might be a Blackcap and after racing upstairs and grabbing the binoculars I was able to confirm that it was a nice little female that had paid me a visit. She stayed around for quite a a few minutes and alternated between sitting in the Hawthorn with the Sparrows to going back to the fat balls until she was scared off by a passing cat.

These are the birds that Valentine's Day is made for. 

Ringing at... a sewage works?

Whilst the cold becomes the main bane of bird ringers lives at this time of year, the frost it leaves on the ground does create some impressive scenery. This was on full display at a sewage works site in Bakewell that I visited earlier this year, where the minus temperatures almost had the effect of making a sewage works look pretty!

We weren’t there to admire the scenery however and after the six nets went up the birds started rolling in. There were around 100 Pied Wagtails feeding on the filter beds all morning and it was these that made up the

 majority of our catch, with about 30 of the 60 birds caught being this species. There were also a handful of Meadow Pipits on the beds and a few of those manged to find their way into the nets, an unusual catch for winter ringing in our group.

I was also able to bag a couple of new species. A nice Grey Wagtail was a special treat, but I was more impressed with the 4 Starlings I was able to ring. These were a bird that I have had many close shaves with in the past, and a species I really wanted experience of to complete the list of common birds I'm likely to encounter when I ring in my garden. They are notoriously difficult to extract from nets and have a tendency to get the net twisted around the carpel (shoulder) of the wing. This can be quite daunting when first encountered, but with a bit of practice the knack makes for an easy extraction. They really are worth the trouble too. Absolutely gorgeous birds, even in their winter plumage, and truly underrated in every way.

A great morning all in all and a nice change from the usual winter ringing at feeding stations. 

Pied Wagtails were all over the place!

This little gem of a Grey Wagtail brightened up the day.

My favourite birds of the morning. Finally getting my hands on some Starlings!

Ringing in a Winter Wood-erland

New Years Eve.

To most 21 year old's, those three words only mean one thing. Getting so unbelievably hammered that by the time you've stumbled home you'd have added about 35 new birds to your life list after misidentifying lampposts and postboxes as birds that didn't exist before you pulled them out the imagination of your intoxicated brain.

To me however, it meant something slightly different. The morning of NYE (which is apparently an abbreviation thing that everyone does now), I was off out into the snowy woodland to try and catch some birds. We went to a feeding station deep in the woodland that had been diligently fed by a member of our ringing group and was attracting great numbers of birds.

The path down to the feeding station. Half expected to see a fawn stood under a lamppost down there.

The ringing didn't disappoint either. We finished on around 70 birds and got a great mix of species including 4 species of Tit, Chaffinch, Blackbird, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Nuthatch and 2 Jays.

Always a joy to catch these. A loud joy, but a joy nonetheless.

With feathers like this I think I can forgive them.

Nuthatch. Not seen one of these in the hand for a while!

GS Woodpecker in strike pose. A millisecond after this photo was taken, blood was drawn.

The day before I had been out ringing with another chap from my ringing group to ring a garden that has large finch flocks coming to the feeders. I was expecting to do brilliantly due to the snow bringing the birds to the feeders but when we arrived it was a fairly breezy morning. Unfortunately we only finished on 10 birds and I think it was a combination of the wind blowing the net and it being against the white snow covered background of the fields that made the nets too visible. I did see my first Lesser Redpoll of the winter however, with 6 seen on the feeders and one managing to find its way into the net.


Definitely worth getting up for.

Lesser Redpoll. Nothing "Lesser" about it.

A Boxing Day showdown with an old foe

It was a cold, crisp Boxing Day morning. The sun hadn't yet risen above the horizon and all was dark and calm. One by one, cars rolled up into the field and dark figures came walking through the grassland with handheld torches lighting the way through the icy darkness. The bird ringing team was being assembled, Avengers style, for what was going to become one of the most monumental mornings of mist netting there had ever been.

The nets went up, hoisted high to catch winter thrushes and weaved through hedgerows to intersect flyways to give us the best possible chance of a high capture rate. The light came up and the birds started coming in. Each net round resulted in a about 5-10 birds at least and we finished on a total of 60. It wasn't the numbers that made this morning special however, it was one very special guest that paid us a visit.

You see, there has been one bird that's given us the run around ever since I've been out ringing and has been taunting my trainer for the whole ten years she's been ringing the site. It usually makes at least one appearance a morning and you usually hear it before you see it. As we're stood processing the birds or enjoying a drink, a laugh will come drifting across the grassland. Then comes the culprit, a flash of a lime green rump as it flies in its up and down fashion across the landscape. It will land somewhere just out of sight and then laugh again - "You can't catch me!".

And let me tell you, we've tried. We've tried nets in every position with tape lures underneath them but all that's ever achieved is bringing it closer to the net before it lets out a laugh (known as a Yaffle) and disappears off into the trees on the edge of the wood where we suspect they breed. I am, of course, talking about the Green Woodpecker.

We've had near misses too, where it's skipped up out the grass  from where its been eating ants and flew agonising close to the net. Even more traumatising was my trainer's experience of seeing it in the net, only for it to get out as she approached and fly away, laughing. It's been an on going duel, a battle for the ages, a showdown between human and bird that has seen the feathered side come out tops every single time.

But not this day.

My trainer returned from a net round with a beaming smile across her face. It had taken no tape luring, no chasing it into the net, it had just found its own way there. A gorgeous adult male - a final festive gift before we head into the New Year.

Luckily I had bought my camera with me too.

Now THAT'S a bird!

That rump - Phwwooaarrr

Things like the red line under the eye are things that go completely unnoticed until you get so close.

One of the best birds I've had the privileged to see in the hand.

Roadside Ringing and more Fieldfares!

Next to a roadside isn't the first place you would think to put up some nets and do a spot of bird ringing but, earlier this week, I found myself in this exact position. Granted, it wasn't directly by the roadside - rather it was in an orchard separated from the road by a hedgerow. Even so it was still strange to have cars hurtling past at 50 miles an hour while you're extracting a Robin from a net.

I was out ringing with a fellow called Chris Lilley, a member of my ringing group who had kindly invited me out with him to a few sites I had never been too. The week before we had ringed over 20 Goldfinches in a garden of one of his family members which gave a perfect opportunity to compare and contrast many individuals of the same species. One thing I like about catching one species regularly is the chance you get to learn how to age or sex them. I had the chance earlier in the year to do the same with Yellowhammers, and it really gets ingrained in your brain how to process the bird when you deal with such a large number of them!

The orchard, which was in somebodies large garden, contained a number of feeders and brought in many different species. We saw lots of different birds, such as Yellowhammer, Fieldfare, Collard Dove, Redwing etc, but catch rates were slow throughout the day and we finished on a meagre total of about 15 birds for about 3 hours of ringing. It wasn't an unenjoyable morning by any means however as it was nice to see a new site, talk to Chris and get my hands on my first Tree Sparrows in what must be at least 2/3 years.

Nice to see these little guys in the hand again.

Fast forward the week to yesterday (Saturday), and I was back at the old stomping ground with the usual group trying our hand at catching the winter thrushes again. This time we were more successful than ever with an impressive haul of 3 Redwings and 3 Fieldfares on the first net round before I had to leave early for work. Well worth getting up in the dark and freezing your toes off for!

It'll take something special to beat this bit of winter ringing!

Catching a Fieldfare

The winter thrush luck is well and truly in at the moment!

After a nice haul of around 6 Redwing's (probably the most we've ever caught in a year) it was now the turn of only the 4th ever Fieldfare caught on the site to turn up in the net. As mentioned previously, catching the winter thrushes is a difficult task with Fieldfare being the most difficult of the lot. 

We had been tipped off by a fellow ringer on a technique that he had used with great success to catch Fieldfare with on his site. It's pretty simple - just increase the height of the poles you stick your mist nets on. This means that when you put a tape underneath, the Fieldfare are still caught despite being a much warier bird that most often stays high over the tape. You always have to set up in the dark to catch the winter thrushes, to get them as they emerge from their roosts. So there we were, in the dark, frozen fields getting ripped apart by hawthorn in order to get ourselves a Fieldfare.

We then went about setting up the other normal nets and the morning's ringing began. We were catching fairly well (adding 2 Redwing to the year total) and I took time out to nip back home to grab a drink to help me deal with this annoying cough I had developed. When I returned it was getting well into mid morning. Certainly past the time we should be catching Fieldfare. Most definitely. 100%. No chance. Nil. Nada.

Birds don't play by the rules.

Not only had it been caught fairly late in the morning, it had also been caught in one of our normal nets and not the one we had got up in the dark to put up. Birds eh?

Luckily it could be forgiven because, not only is it a ringing tick for me, but it is absolutely beautiful. 

The morning was rounded off by one final birdy bonus in the form of a stunning first year male Sparrowhawk. Two Sparrowhawks in the space of 3 weeks, as well as a plethora of other birds, and it certainly feels like Christmas is coming early for me!