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 

After a dissapointing week with some body stealing the crop of wildbird seed in the field at Jerbourg
myself and Phill went to a new ringing site yesterday after setting up 3 nets we had a good couple of hours trapping and ringing 10 Blackbirds   witch were mainly   of conternental race   5 Song thrush   5 Great tit   2 Goldcrest   1 Firecrest    1 Wren    3 Black cap   1 Dunnock   it turned out to be quiet a good morning fingers crossed  for the weather to stay good meny thanks to the land owner who allowed us to ring on their property here are a couple of photos from yesterday  Black cap  and Great tit

It was a late night with a early morning i was watching the disapointing start to England ashs tour
with not a lot of sleep I met Paul Veron and Phill at Pauls house at 7.15 am hopefully to catch some Gulls when I got there the trap had already been baited. With some Gulls flying around we sat down with a cup of tea and a chat whilst waiting to see weather the Gulls were going to play ball.  Id only just started my cup of tea and looked out at the trap the trap was already full of Gulls so the tea had to wait we only took one catch but it was well worth it with a total of 126 Herring Gulls    to witch  76 
were first year birds  25 adults the others were either re-traps  or second or third winter birds meny thanks to Paul for aranging  the ringing session

It was great to get out this weekend to do some ringing, With the winds N/E 2/3 we whent up to Jerbourg at 7.00 and put up three 60ft net mists, although there was not much on the ground there was some good visible migration with redwing ,fieldfare and a few skylarks going out to sea and 200+ starlings coming in off the sea it was good to be out after several weeks of wind and rain Colette my partner put out the flags and had a party that I was out from under her feet .We did manage to catch
12 redwing       2 wrens      1 great tit      7 dunnock      1 firecrest       1 black bird       and   1 linnet
fingers crossed the weather improves.

After a great week away at Paul Ropers we arrived on friday Paul picked us up from Stanstead airport
and drove up to Pauls house on the Saturday morning it was an early start to get to the tip for some
cannon netting of Gulls we met the rest of the team at the tip we took three small catches of Gulls
including Black headded Greater black back Herring gulls with a couple of Lesser black backs and
one yellow legged gull  it was a good morning ringing
on the Sunday evening Paul, Mich , Cris and myself went to set up some mist nets on farm land
after the nets were up we spent a couple hours trying for a Tawny owl with no success we closed the
nets up and went back to Pauls 6am the next morning we set off to the ringing site and opened up the nets just before dawn hoping to catch Yellowhamer there were plenty of Yellowhamer in the hedge row we seemed to catch every thing else but Yellowhamer we had one net set up at a in filled
quarry in between two fields set up for Sky larks or Meadow pippets near the end of the mornings ringing we were taking down the nets Paul went to take the net down and came back with 10 Yellowhamers  .   With a trip to Northfolk and to Rye Meads it turned out to be a great week away  with many thanks to Paul and hie partner Lorraine for putting up with us all thanks again some pictures of Yellowhamer and a Teal we rung at Rye Meads

Jerbourg has started off very slow this autum with only a hand full of birds being rung
there was good movement of Swallows a week or 2 ago but I could not find any roosts
in the maze I must have covered the whole of the island looking with the winds being in
the eastly quarter and the weather being good i think most of the Swallows and early migrants
went straight through hopefully I will have a good week with the North thames Gull group
this coming week my self and Mich leave Friday for a week of ringing / birding and not
to be unsocible a drink or two

With August over it is proving  to be a good year for ringing in the reed beds at the Claire mare
with Sedge and Reed warblers being well up in numbers from last year I am hoping to continue to
carry on ringing at the Claire mare for another 2 weeks as with the sea bird season being late I
think that the land birds can be late as well  August totals are as follows
Commonn sandpiper   1 ,     Sand martin  1 ,  Swallows 164  ,Wrens 6   ,  Meadow pippit  1
Hedge accentor  6  ,   Robin  2  ,   Whinchat  1  ,   Blackbirds   5  ,  Song thrush  2  ,   Whitethroat   2
Black cap   2  ,  Reed warbler  92  ,  Sedge warbler 186  ,  Aquatic warbler  3  ,  Chiffchaff  8  ,
Willow warbler  25 ,  Pied flycatcher  1   ,  Green finch  6  ,  Gold finch  6  ,
many thanks to the two trainees  Mich and Phill