After a long mild winter , I was hoping that the spring migration would be somewhat better, but with clear nights . A lot of our migration is going overhead with only a scattering of birds making landfall though it seems migration has been very slow this year with birds being held up in Africa and southern Europe due to weather conditions. We can only hope that the next couple weeks get better . It has been that slow that I'm not even tried for swallows of an evening I was hoping to get up to Alderney this weekend with the winds all week being a light force 1 to 2 and from the south the south-east but as always the forecast changes to the weekend with northerly winds predicted 5 to 6 will have to cancel my trip fingers crossed for next weekend but hey no a more cheerful note we did manage today to get up to the humps with the help of  the Guernsey Sea fisheries, who took a team of four of us to Godin, we left St Peter Port harbour at about 8.50 and headed to the humps on the way up . We passed jethou and Herm
we managed to count at least 18 puffins on the water. As we got closer to the humps. There is also a good number of guillemots rafting nearby. After about 20 min. We held just of Godin on the Leopard S the sea fisheries boat while they launched the rip myself. Paul Catherine and Vic were put ashore once ashore, we had a small discussion on how to approach the cormorants as this some of the chicks were quite big, it was decided that we would take one nest at a time and and tried to round the bigger chicks back towards the nests. This seem to work well as we approach each nest and with keeping the birds tight to each other. We would place a blanket over four or five birds. This is the first time we have used this method and it definitely helps keep the birds calm while I metal ring and Paul putting the colour rings on. We moved slowly through the nesting site keeping a tight ring round the birds as yet I do not have the exact number of birds that we managed to ring as Catherine was taking the ring numbers and the colouring as myself and Paul rung the birds Vic had brought some slate and some broken patio slabs with him so that we could try to give the common terms chicks somewhere to hide and give them some protection from the gulls after last year. Fingers crossed they return

   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