Once again it's been a mixed autumn migration with a good start to the early part of migration at the reed bed with good numbers of reed warbler  and sedge warblers rung  I moved the nets to my ringing site at Jerbourg for the last two weeks of September and the first two weeks of October were showing promising signs of a good autumn migration with good numbers of black cap chiffchaff willow warblers grasshopper warblers and many other migrants but once again the weather turned against me with hardly anything rung down towards the end of October and the first week of November I have managed to get out for a couple of hours over the last three weeks I have managed to catch and ring, a few birds mainly blackbirds song thrush and my first redwing of the year today hoping tomorrow will be a better day . But with the weather still being quite mild . We have not seen a big  movement of winter thrushes yet there was a good number of finches in the field today, but with quite a strong breeze and bright sunshine at times they were not playing ball  number of birds rung in October for the last five years in  2010 /84 birds were rung  2011/ 91 birds rung 2012 /132 birds rung 2013/30 birds rung in 2013 . The weather turned bad early with heavy rain and strong winds I only managed to ring twice that year and did not go back until the spring 2014/127 birds rung

GOLDFINCH

BLACKBIRD

REDWING

SONG THRUSH

CHAFFINCH

REDWING

  

After eight weeks in the reed bed at the Clare Mare we took the nets down on the 07/09/14 since I took over ringing at the reed bed from Jamie. This year has been my best so far. Sedge warbler this year are well up. With 297 new birds being rung with over 70% of them being juvenile birds, reed warbler are slightly up as well this year, along with willow warbler after having four aquatic warbler in 2013. It was a bit disappointing only catching one this year, but never mind  always  next year. Over the last five years sedge and reed have been up and down in numbers showing that weather conditions play an important part to the success in the rearing and success of breeding birds .In 2010 being a reasonable spring and summer. We managed to ring 141 sedge warbler and147 reed warbler, 2011 rung 169 sedge warbler 81 reed warbler, In 2012, with a very cold and wet spring and summer sedge warbler's and reed warbler were well down with only 63, Sedge and 71 reed warbler being rung with that conditions in 2013 being better sedge and reed warbler were up. with 190 sedge reed 115 rung 2014 has been an excellent year with 297.sedge Rung and 103 reed warbler being rung it seems to me that reed warbler are still struggling as reed warbler used to outnumber sedge warbler. On 14 September. I moved back to my ringing site up at Jerbourg,after the disappointment of last year with constant winds this year has proven to be a good year specially for Black Caps and grasshopper warbler. On 2 October, I caught a black cap a controlled bird that had a Museum of Brussels ring on it.

SEDGE WARBLER

BLACK CAP

A good couple weeks ringing down the reed bed spending a few hours in the morning before work and a couple of hours of the night most days  I have managed to trap and ring 380 new birds mainly all sedge surprise bird was aquatic warbler trapped and rung on the second of August a very early bird to the reed bed as we usually hope to catch these in the middle half of August with what has been rung so far this year it seems like a good breeding year of many species, birds rung so far this month are as 176 Sedge 53 reed 27 willow warbler 115 swallows 1 aquatic warbler 2 blackbirds 1 Wren 1 Robin 2 dunnock 2 black cap

Aquatic warbler
02/08/2014

 

We finished our seabird monitoring on a high with the storm petrels on Burhou on the night of 19th and 20th with 350 new storm petrels rung and 92 control re-traps it was a great weekend but this is only part of the story  once again many seabirds failed this breeding season this is due to many factors from the winter storms to loss of habitat but the biggest threat to our seabird at the moment is the brown rat on many of our offshore islets and human disturbance but on a brighter note I am now back down the reedbeds at the Clare Mare with eight nets up in the reedbeds and has been a good start to the autumn season spending two or three hours ringing in the morning before work over the last couple of days I have managed to to ring so far 92 swallows 36 sedge warbler 27 Reed warbler 15 willow warbler 1 Robin 3 wrens and one dunnock hoping the weather stays good week i would like to thank Phil and Paul for their help with the storm petrels and a big thanks to the Alderney wildlife trust and the states of Alderney for allowing us to ring on Burhou one of the most important seabird breeding grounds within the Bailiwick of Guernsey and Channel Islands.

sedge warbler

Robin

 

I spent this weekend cutting rides out down the claire mare reed beds start ringing when we get back from Alderney next weekend from doing storm petrels the last of our seabird monitoring this year while down the Claire mare I put up one 60 Mist net mainly for swallows managed to ring 30 swallows and to reed warblers and one controlled reed warbler that I rung on 30 July 2012 as an adult male hoping to go back Wednesday evening to do some more swallows whether permitting


swallows

After a very successful Canon netting week with the North Thames gull group and the Guernsey seabird ringing group at our local tip with over 1000 new gulls rung to which over 300 were lesser black back gulls Paul Veron target species. It was now time to start our seabird ringing and monitoring around the Bailiwick of Guernsey this year is being a year of mixed fortunes. We are now about midway through the seabird season. Our first trip was up to the humps North of herm to visit Godin and Longue Pierre to ring cormorants which was quite successful once again this year we have managed to ring about 40 cormorants with metal rings and colour coded rings this year on two of our main breeding colonies the largest being on Longue Pierre with about 25 breeding pairs and Lihoumel with about 14 breeding pairs. Our first visit to jethou and two islets on 16 June two ring shag  little egrets and early gull chicks was of mixed fortunes with most of the nests empty on both shag and gulls it was not hard to see that there was a problem on  the two islets and Jethou we only managed to ring 22 shag and a handful of gulls it looks like the biggest threat to our seabirds is the brown rat as we noticed a lot of rat workings and even saw two or three rats scurrying through the undergrowth though the shag numbers have been dwindling over the last few years has this been the problem all along total of seabirds round so far this year not counting gulls is 40 cormorants 69 shag nine guillemot though the egrets heve bred well no Crevichon we were too late to ring any there was about 30+ young birds on top of the brushes all fledged and took to the wing as we approached

With the weather not being very good this winter with heavy rain and strong winds I have not managed to do much bird ringing this year so far but with improving weather over the last couple of weeks I have managed a couple of sessions ringing up at Jerbourg and one weekend in Alderney. With the total of birds rung this spring being  hundred and six and 13 guillemot and one gannet at the GS PCA with the spring  nearly over I'm hoping to get two or three more sessions up at Jerbourg the the best bird of the year so far was a Nightingale trapped and rung in Alderney on the 22/04/14 the total of birds rung is as follows out the GS PCA one gannet 13 guillemot one sand Marton 18 swallows one house Marton five wren 4 dunnock 1 Nightingale 4 blackbirds 2 song thrush 6 white throat 29 Black cap 12 chiffchaff 8 willow warbler 1 blue tit 2 great tit 2 green finch 2 gold finch with the seabird season just about to start myself and Paul and Catherine took a trip to lihoumel to look at cormorants for colour ringing but the young birds were not ready yet so we are looking to go back in about two weeks time. On 18 May we will be doing  are seasonal Canon netting of gulls at the tip with the North Thames gull group.

After a poor end to 2013 and a very poor start to 2014 with strong winds and heavy rain, I have not done any ringing apart from 4 Guillemot at the GSPCA this year, Iam looking forward to get some nets up this weekend at Jerbourg with the winds from the south to south-east force 2-3. Iam  sure Colette my partner will have the flags out and a bottle of wine open, As she has come close to kicking me out with me being home at the weekends or getting home before 10am, With the late spring of last year when it finaly arrived most migrants whent straight over the top us because of clear nights ringing was nearly at a stand still with not meny birds grounded and with Colette being taken ill we did not do much sea-bird ringing but it seemed like the autunm migration would be good when i move down to the Claire mare reed beds and started catching a good number of Sedge and reed warbler,with the best of the reed birds being 3 aquatic warblers then the weather turned bad when i moved back up to Jerbourg from about September till the end of the year I think i managed about 6 days of ringing.  The totals for 2013 are as follows,  Shags 2  Marsh Harrier 2  Kestrels  2  Common Sandpiper  1  Herring Gull  1    Barn Owl   3  Sand Martins  3  Swallows  170   Meadow pipit  1   Wren  19   Hedge Accentor  31 Robins  13  Whinchat  2  Blackbirds  26  Song thursh  12   Redwings  13  Grasshopper Warbler  1    Sedge   Warbler  190  Siskin  1  Aquatic  Warbler  3  Reed Warbler  115   Whitethoat  2  Blackcap  20  Chiffchaff   40   Willow Warbler  43   Goldcrest   3   Firecrest   6    Pied Flycatcher  1   Long tailed tit  4  Blue tit  6   Magpie  5   Crows  4  Chaffinch  3   Greenfinch 14  Goldfinch   7   Linnets  16  Great tit  13  Short toet treecreeper  2