Long-distance Clara

Here's a bird with a little story to tell. This morning I caught a Whitethroat already wearing a ring (a 'control'). The number looked kind of familiar to me so I asked a few other local ringers if it was 'theirs'. It turned out to have been ringed near Tempsford in Bedfordshire, as a chick in the nest, back in June 2010!

When this information is crunched by the BTO, it'll say that the distance travelled between its nest and my place is only about 6km over slightly less than three years.

But in reality, it'll have made the journey from Bedfordshire to sub-Saharan Africa once in autumn 2010, then back the other way in spring 2011 and back again, probably the same in 2012 and has made it back again in 2013. So that's six journeys so far. Each time, it has to fatten up before leaving the UK, make its way through western Europe and through north Africa. For argument's sake, let's say it spends winter in the sahel in Senegal.

If it flew in a straight line directly there (which of course it won't have), that would be a journey of more than 2,700 miles each time. Multiplied by six, that's 16,200 miles! 26,000km!

The oldest known ringed Whitethroat was nearly seven years old, so this one has a way to go to beat that...

Curruca and communis

Lesser Whitethroat

Whitethroat

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Back from Africa

Large Skipper - quick shot grabbed with my phone. Not bad, considering.

It's not me who's back from Africa - it's the Whitethroat on the right of this photo. We caught him last summer in Beeston and again today. Since we saw him last, he's traversed the Sahara and come back again to the same patch of brambles. Mindboggling. 

The young Whitethroat on the left was caught in the same net at the same time today, so perhaps it's the male's offspring.

You expect to see tractors out in the sticks...

...but a Ferrari is not an everyday sight in Potton

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM or Apple iPhone 3GS

Blue skies above Castor

I've never seen a sky like this before. Perhaps I never will again. Living on a crowded island, there are always planes flying over at some height, no matter where you are. So thanks, Eyjafjallajoekull, for giving us beautiful blue, quiet skies for a while.

It was a gorgeous spring day, warm and sunny. These are the eyes of a male Whitethroat, the first one I've seen this year.  We didn't catch a whole lot at Castor... the hoped-for surge of birds near dusk never quite happened. Despite that, it was a beautiful day to be outside, admiring blossom, listening to Blackcaps singing (not Nightingales, unfortunately), eating cake...

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

Garden birds

We did a little light ringing this morning and caught a total of 25 birds (2 retraps) in one net.

It was most noticeable that we caught lots of Great Tits - nearly all juveniles - but only one Blue Tit, one that we'd ringed in February. Have they had a bad breeding season or were they just somewhere else?

• Great Tit, 11 (+1 retrap)
• Greenfinch, 5 (3 juveniles)
• Chaffinch, 3
  
• Goldfinch, 2 (1 juvenile)
• Great Spotted Woodpecker, 1 juvenile
• Whitethroat, 1 male
• Blue Tit (a retrap from February)
  

It was interesting to see some moulting going on. This adult male Great Tit was a good example.

After a hard breeding season, he's growing some new head feathers...

and getting some new wings

Two of the juvenile Great Tits we caught showed the same 'fault bars' in their tail feathers. When their food supply was interrupted in the nest, the feathers stopped growing properly and that's visible now. Since the patterns were the same, I wonder if they were siblings? Who knows.

(Here's a photo of a young Sedge Warbler showing similar bars)

We caught what must be the male Whitethroat that arrived in April and has been singing ever since. That was nice. It'll be even better if someone else catches him on migration later in the year.

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

Return of the Whitethroat

A male Whitethroat has been in the garden again this week. I wonder if it's the same one as last year? It's certainly making its presence known, singing from the tops of the shrubs and performing song-flights.

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995 + Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece

Ringing: Ferry Meadows CP

A day off work enabled me to join Chris at Ferry Meadows this morning for CES visit #2. Though it wasn't quite as productive as visit #1, there was plenty of interest.

The Sedge Warbler pictured above was a control. That means it was ringed by someone else at another site. We don't know where yet but the BTO will pass on details to Chris.






Dunnocks are seriously under-rated birds.


Male Whitethroat

We also caught last week's Jay again! Its bill was bloodstained - a reminder that it's not acorns that Jays are eating at this time of year... A female Reed Bunting we caught had rather unusual head markings - lots of black and could easily have been mistaken in the field for a male, but she had a whopping great brood patch.

Strangely for May, there was a significant air and ground frost when we started this morning. Couldn't resist a few macro shots between net rounds...







And closer in:

Quite jewel-like, I think.

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995

Castor Hanglands NNR

Whitethroat. Welcome back, my trans-Sahara migrating friend!




Marsh Marigolds




A very smart purple-blue-green-black Pheasant


This Chaffinch was a bit coy, hiding behind a twig...


Blossom

A truly splendid visit to Castor this morning. Two Grasshopper Warblers (the first of many) reeled in the scrub. A Nightingale started up - made me shudder and then grin like an idiot. Lesser Whitethroat rattled away in a hawthorn bush, but evaded capture on Compact Flash card... A Cuckoo sang, getting a bit over-excited and going into that crazy chuckling they do.

Many Whitethroats, Blackcaps, Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers, but no Garden Warblers... can't be long now, surely?

digiscoped photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995 + Leica Apo Televid 62 with 16x eyepiece