Fluffy babies

It's that time of year again... the time for fluffy babies.

Juvenile Robin

This one's starting its post-juvenile moult, getting the orange breast feathers

Wren

Blue Tit

Coal Tit

Great Tit

Another Great Tit

The fluffiest of them all... baby Long-tailed Tit

Captured!

I had my first attempt at ringing in my new garden today. It started well, with three birds in the net within 15 minutes, but that was the lot and I caught nothing else before finally giving up around lunchtime.

Great Tit: quizzical

Coal Tit: innocent

Blue Tit: "Grrrrr"

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640

When Blue Tits turn bad

We did some more ringing in the garden this morning. When Derek arrived it was raining steadily and we didn't think we'd be able to get any nets up at all. After a cup of coffee, things brightened up and we put up one 40' net.

We stood in the kitchen and watched birds flying over, under and round the side of the net. It was pretty dispiriting! Eventually we caught two Blue Tits and a Great Tit simultaneously, and then it got windy. So things weren't looking too good.

Fortunately, despite the wind and occasional drizzle, we did OK.

We caught two Reed Buntings (we've had as many as 15 in the garden at the same time this week), which was pretty good. This one's a male. The pale flecks on his head will soon wear away, revealing smart, plain black feathers underneath.

For a while it looked likely that the Reed Buntings would be the highlight of the morning. Then we caught this bird:

A Great Tit, you say. Not very interesting, surely. Well, the thing about this Great Tit is that it already had a ring, and it wasn't one that we'd put on. So it's come from somewhere else. In itself, that's interesting enough (we'll have to wait to find out where it was ringed).

The extra-interesting thing was that the ring was a size larger than normal - a B ring (AAs are the smallest, for things like Goldcrests and Willow Warblers, then As, and Bs are usually for birds like Greenfinches).

When young Great Tits are ringed in the nest as chicks (or pulli as ringers like to refer to them), they need the next ring size up. This is because their legs are actually fatter while they're developing!

The ring still fits OK now that the bird is a thinner-legged adult, but hopefully the person who ringed it will be really pleased to hear that one of their pulli has made it to adulthood. The reason that Great Tits have such huge families (up to 9 eggs) is because many of them - 62% on average - will die in their first year. So this guy has beaten the odds.

Now you want to know what happens when Blue Tits turn bad, right?

We take great care when handling birds, but it's a shame that Blue Tits do not reciprocate. Everybody thinks they're cute and fluffy, but this is the truth: they are fierce biters and nippers. It wouldn't let go and actually made Derek's finger bleed.

Anyway, here are today's totals:

• Blue Tit, 17 (+ 4 'retraps' we'd caught before)
• Great Tit, 11 (+ 4 retraps, including the special one)
• Greenfinch, 1
• Dunnock, 1
• Reed Bunting, 2
• Coal Tit, 2

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D

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

Garden Birds: The Movie

It's cold and windy outside, so I thought I'd try digivideoing some common garden birds through the bedroom window. It's not come out too badly, but there's no soundtrack.

The stars of the show:

00:00: Goldfinch and Greenfinch are enjoying some sunflower seeds together when

00:10: they're joined - briefly - by a Coal Tit

00:14: another Greenfinch turns up

00:18: a Great Tit and Blue Tit arrive simultaneously, then more Blue Tits and Great Tits

I'll have to try to film the Marsh Tit that's visiting every day at the moment.

Canon Powershot A640 + Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece

Bathtime again

Back to the Lodge pond to try a bit more digiscoping. It didn't help that the pond was mostly frozen, but there was nothing I could do about that...

Blue Tit

Great Tit


Coal Tit






Chaffinches

Starting to think I'm wasting my time trying to digiscope small stuff. They move too quickly!

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

Lodge lunchtime/bathtime

Male Siskin taking a dip (they were very quick so unfortunately this is the best shot I got)


Male and female Great Tits in the pond together


Male Chaffinch


Robin


Male Chaffinch awaiting his turn on the feeder


Great Tit doing the same


Male Great Tit


Blue Tit

A very gusty day which seemed to spook the birds a bit, with alternating periods of bright sunshine and dull cloud. Some more work to be done here, I think... Watch this space.

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