Supporting RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

On 19th January members of Northants Ringing Group supported the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch event held at Stanwick Lakes.

Group member Dr. Ian Wrisdale, who rings at Stanwick Lakes, organised the group demonstration and members of the RSPB Mid Nene local group also provided guided walks, bird food making and a nature quiz.

It is estimated that nearly 200 members of the public came and enjoyed the event and the interaction with both adults and children was excellent, and the ability to give attendees the opportunity to see close up the birds they see in their gardens was very rewarding.

Birds processed on the day were;

Blue Tit.                15 new and 4 retraps.
Dunnock.                7
Great Tit.                7 new and 3 retraps
Long-tailed Tit.       2
Redwing.                 1
Robin.                      5
Wren.                       1

The photographs below were supplied by Liz Williams. Nature Engagement Coordinator, Rockingham Forest Trust, Stanwick Lakes.

Stortons Summer migrants.

 

Stortons Nature Reserve provides ideal habitat for many of our summer migrants to breed. Over the years Northants Ringing Group has been fortunate to catch a wide variety of these migrants, and we have also been very lucky to recieve notification from BTO that some of the birds, originally ringed at Stortons, have been recovered outside of the UK on their migration.

The evolution of a nature reserve

 

The Stortons Pits nature reserve story.

Sometime in the eighties, Chris Payne took a picture of a redundant gravel pit from the top of the old Express lift tower. Decades later a second picture was taken from the exact same spot and from these two pictures this video was produced. The video is meant to be an animated illustration of how you can start with an ugly duckling of a gravel pit and create a beautiful swan of a nature reserve. The project began in the late nineties and was modified with the construction of the Southern Development Link Road and the associated flood relief scheme.

The task of nurturing and managing the site was given to Northants Wildlife Trust now known as, The Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Northamptonshire. Wildlife BCN has done a sterling job, together with their band of enthusiastic volunteers. The trust has created an impressive diverse habitat, which is a haven for a wide range of wildlife. After decades of development Storton’s Pits is now an urban reserve surrounded by, roads, sports stadia, housing and industrial/retail outlets.

The eastern end of the reserve had a large open area which was planted with phragmitis to create a reed bed. This is now considered to be Northamptonshire’s largest reed bed and is host to a significant proportion of nesting summer migrants. Storton’s is also the focus of the Northants Ringing Group activities and is an important site within the group. The eastern end dissected by the reed bed, is split into two sides. The north side is reed, scrub and some wood habitat, which is used throughout the winter with some ringing in summer. The south side is primarily a summer ringing site and has a large meadow area with reed, scrub and wood.

All ringing data is submitted to the British Trust for Ornithology, to produce impartial science, communicated clearly for the benefit of birds and people. 

Starlings at Stortons

Last week members of Northants Ringing Group conducted some ringing at Stortons Nature Reserve, Sixfields, Northampton.

Arriving before sunrise we were treated to the spectacle of thousands of Starlings leaving their nightime roost in the reedbeds.

As we were leaving for the day the sight of a murmuration was a fabulous end, as agin thousands of Starlings returned to their roost. This time they drew the attention of a Sparrowhawk, hoping to take advantage of this mobile diner, but without any visible success.

Sunday ringing at Stortons

 

Ringing Session at Storton’s Sunday

A ringing session was held at Storton’s on Sunday where the bird ringing was of secondary importance. We had gathered to celebrate the life of Julie Donohoe a cherished member of our ringing group who we lost just six months ago. Julie’s husband Ken had asked if the family could come along to one of our ringing sessions and he was joined by daughter Clare, and son Andy. They wanted to experience why anyone would get up at silly times in the morning to go bird ringing. It was quite an emotional morning but also lovely at the same time.

The bird count was steady with the typical titfest for this time of year with three Redwings, a Cettis, and a Chiffchaff giving a bit of quality. The star bird of the day was a Grey Wagtail, the first of its species to be ringed on this site.

The team gave the family a demonstration of all aspects of bird ringing and explained the importance of cake and coffee when ringing. One of the numerous re-traps was a Bluti Julie had ringed back in 2023, so quite an emotional experience for the family.

A small Oak tree Julie had grown from a seed was planted just off one of the feeder rides, an area where Julie would have made many extractions.

“I first met Julie down hear as a volunteer with the Wildlife Trust and like a lot of people she took up ringing which is very time consuming. She loved being down here with the birds and camaraderie, but the most important part of the whole thing were the Jaffa cakes.” John Woollett

IN MEMORY OF JULIE DONOHOE

"Never knowingly on time"

RINGING SESSION AT STORTONS

 A ringing session took place on Wednesday 13^th November at Storton’s pits nature reserve, targeting Redwing and Goldfinch. The team were not disappointed and recorded one of the highest totals for ringed Redwings on this site. 126 birds were processed of 14 species, including 71 Redwing and 17 Goldfinch. As no feeders on this part of the site, tits were very limited. One of the three Blackbirds caught, was thought to be a continental male.

Details as follows

                New                              Retraps

LOTTI           3                                4

WREN          1                                2

CETWA        1

CHIFF          2                                1

REEBU        1

GOLDF      17

BLUTI         6                                2

CHAFF       2

BLACA       2

GREFI        2

GRETI        1                                 1

DUNNO     1                                 3

BLABI        3    

REWI       71

TOTAL      113                           13        Grand total    126

Red Kite.

 Yesterday, 9th November,  at about 4pm more than seventy Red Kite were seen gathering over Roundhay Farm in South Northamptonshire. It is believed that these birds may be roosting in Yardley Chase, a large area of deciduous woodland. The number of  kites seen in the area has been increasing over the past weeks,

BIRD RINGING SESSION AT STORTONS

Bird Ringing session at Storton’s on Thursday 24th October .

A small band of multi layered ringers rolled up just before dawn. Well insulated for a typical October day, but by mid-morning layers were being discarded as the weather was more Spanish than St James.

A total of 58 birds were processed, of 14 different species. Most of the summer migrants have now departed and the mixture of birds was typical of an Autumn/Winters day ringing.

Greenfinch have been having a tough time of late, but on site during the breeding season there was quite a vocal presence of calling males. Today’s Greenfinch’s were all born this year, which could be a sign of a good local breeding season for this finch. 

Details of birds

New                                      Retraps

WREN                  4

GOLDCREST       4

CHIFFCHAFF       3

BLUETIT               7                        9

REED BUNTING  1

GOLDFINCH        6

ROBIN                  2                         1

BLACKCAP          1

DUNNOCK           4

GREAT TIT          2                         7

GREENFINCH     3

CETTI’S WARBLER                      1

MOORHEN          1

WATER RAIL                                2

TOTAL OF 58 BIRDS   14 SPECIES 

We also colour ringed our first Moorhen as part of the National Moorhen colour ringing project. The project is led by PhD student Aurora Gonzalo-Tarodo for the Waterbird Colour-Marking Group.

Despite being common, widespread, and familiar the Moorhen is an understudied species in Britain and Ireland. There is limited information available on its movements at local, national and international levels.  

To address these gaps in knowledge, the National Moorhen Colour-ringing Project is coordinating efforts among a team of ringers and independent ringing groups to mark birds across Britain and Ireland. 

By increasing the number of birds ringed and the number of recoveries and sightings, the project aims to discover the seasonal movements of Moorhen, including local dispersal, spring and/or autumn migration within the UK and overseas and other aspects of their lifecycle such as site fidelity and survival.

 

The first Colour ringed Moorhen at Storton's Nature reserve

processed as an Adult female.

Well deserved recognition.

 

John Woollett, one of the founders of the Northants Ringing Group, was one of two recipients of the Oliver Rackham Award at the recent Beds, Cambs & Northants Wildlife Trust AGM on 19^th October.

John has been recognised for his many years as Warden at Stortons since it became a reserve 25 years ago.

In that time John has trained many ringers, myself and my son included, and his former trainees are still active at Stortons.

Below is photograph of John receiving his award and also a link to the Trusts website where you can read more about the recipients of this years awards and the other diverse work that the Trust undertakes.

https://www.wildlifebcn.org/

Apple Day ringing demonstration. 19th October 2024

 Kenny Cramer supplied the narrative, and pictures.

On Saturday 19^th October a ringing demonstration was conducted at the annual Apple Day event at the community orchard at Woughton on the Green.

 For once, I have to be fair to the weather forecast and say that it did exactly what it said on the tin. It was definitely a game of two halves with persistent and occasionally heavy rain hampering our set-up, and causing us to huddle under our gazebo until it dried up enough to open nets. After an initial flurry of tits, we had to close up again while another shower passed through, but then the clouds broke and we were treated to an unseasonably warm and sunny autumn day.

 Always a popular event, the early rain did not dampen anyone's enthusiasm and we were soon surrounded by an eager group who were suitably impressed with the birds we were able to muster - even if this was predominantly blue tits!

 Despite the late and stuttering start, we managed to accumulate 77 birds of 8 species for our demonstration, which included 2 retraps from last winter. As mentioned, blue tits ruled the roost with 52 individuals handled and 16 great tits further bolstered the numbers. The slightly more unusual birds included singles of chiffchaff, woodpigeon, and coal tit. Dunnock, robin and lotti also gave our audience something different to look at.

 Other birds seen and heard despite the commotion of the event (and the live jazz trio) included green woodpecker, jay, red kite and ring-necked parakeet, which seem to be getting established in this part of the city.

 

Stortons Ringing

On 13th a small group held a ringing morning at Stortons Nature Reserve in Northampton. What was expected to be a fairly quiet session resulted in 100 birds being processed, 90 of which were new birds. 

Birds processed were;

Species                        New                    Retrap
Blackbird                        4                            1

Blackcap                        31

Blue Tit                           4                            4

Bullfinch                         1

Chiffchaff                        5                            1

Dunnock                          5                            1

Garden Warbler               6

Goldfinch                        2

Great Tit                          2                            1

Lesser Whitethroat          2

Long-tailed Tit                5

Reed Bunting                  1

Reed Warbler                  8

Robin                              3                            1

Sedge Warbler                1

Whitethroat                     4

Willow Warbler              5

Wren                               1                           1

The morning office.

A Hectic Weekend of Bird Ringing

Members of Northants Ringing Group have had a fruitful weekend with over 200 new birds being ringed.

On Saturday Kenny Cramer led a team of five at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve and on Sunday Neil McMahon led a team of three at Brixworth Water Treatment Works. Neil McMahon also conducted a session on Saturday morning at Pitsford Reservoir, trapping forty birds and ringing a brood of Swallows

Linford Lakes narrative by Kenny Cramer.

 Today was the kind of day where you couldn't make up your mind whether you were hot or cold. Walking round the nets was sweaty work, but standing or sitting still for any length of time had everyone reaching for an extra layer. It certainly didn't feel like mid-August!

This was another very busy session, with 162 birds handled consisting of 18 species, 148 of which were newly ringed.

As we would expect at this time of the year, warblers made up the bulk of the catch with 29 blackcaps, 22 reed warblers, 15 garden warblers, 11 willow warblers, 9 chiffchaffs, 3 sedge warblers, 3 Cetti’s warblers, and a whitethroat giving the assembled team some interesting aging challenges. 

We also expect tit flocks, and these helped to bulk out the numbers with 35 blue tits, 11 long-tailed tits and 5 great tits finding the nets. 

Star bird of the day was neck and neck between a spotted flycatcher (only the second for Linford) and a tree pipit (the fifth for Linford). See attached images of a few key ID criteria for tree pipit including short P5, short hind claw, and distinct facial markings.

Brixworth narrative by Neil McMahon.

We managed to put up a fairly full suite of nets yesterday evening and were able to start catching birds pre-dawn this morning. The Two Tawny Owls alongside one of the net rides, the Kestrel living in the tree next to another net ride and the vocal Green Sandpiper all decided they didn't want to join in though! Two bats said they wanted some bling but they were sent on their way! 

On a day of strong passage as evidenced by bird sightings in the county today, we were fortunate to find the warblers. The cloud cover remained for much longer than forecast and the wind held off for those first three or four critical hours which was ideal for us. We pretty much packed up as soon as the sun broke through and the breeze kicked in. 

This is a dry site these days as the reed bed has been lost but you perhaps wouldn't have thought that with the number of acrocephalus warblers we encountered! 

We only processed three re-traps which included an adult Reed Bunting from 2022 and an adult Common Whitethroat from a couple of years ago

Details of the catches from both sites.

Linford Lakes Nature Reserve				Brixworth Water Treatment Works
10th August				11th August
Species	New	Retrap		Species	New	Retrap
Blackbird	4			Blackbird	4
Blackcap	26	3		Blackcap	14
Blue Tit	33	2		Blue Tit	2
Cetti's Warbler	3			Chiffchaff	6
Chiffchaff	8	1		Common Whitethroat	24	1
Garden Warbler	14	1		Dunnock	4
Great Tit	3	2		Garden Warbler	1
Greenfinch	2			Great Tit	2
Long-tailed Tit	9	2		Grey Wagtail	5
Reed Bunting	2			Linnet	1
Reed Warbler	22			Magpie	1
Robin	1	1		Pied Wagtail	2
Sedge Warbler		3		Reed Bunting	1	1
Spotted Flycatcher	1			Reed Warbler	16
Tree Pipit	1			Robin	2	1
Whitethroat	1			Sedge Warbler	22
Willow Warbler	11			Tree Pipit	1
Wren	4			Willow Warbler	9
				Wren	8
Total	145	15		Total	125	3

Spotted Flycatcher                                                        Tree Pipit

                          

                           

Tree Pipit – Short hind claw.                   Tree Pipit – Short 5^th primary feather.    

All images curtesy of Kenny Cramer.

Sharnbrook Barn Owls

 The Barn Owls that we ringed on 19th June at Sharnbrook are progressing well and getting ready to leave the nest site. The video was supplied by Simon Wantling from a camera mounted on the outside of the box. 

Barn Owls at Sharnbrook

 Following on from last weeks success this morning we were again over the border, this time in Bedfordshire at Sharnbrook.

The Group had been contacted by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), who had themselves been contacted by Unilever in Sharnbrook, asking if we could review and possibly ring some Barn Owls in a box on the Unilever site.

We were guided to the site by Simon Wantling, from Unilver, and we were pleased to find four very healthy owlets in the box. These were all duly ringed and returned to the safety of their box. All disturbance and ringing is carried out under strict Schedule 1 licence requirements.

One of the Barn Owls after ringing.

All safely returned to their box.

Barn Owls at Olney Park Farm

 Last week, accompanied by Chris Payne and John Boland we checked seven Barn Owl boxes on Olney Park Farm, just over the Northamptonshire border in North Buckinghamshire.
Two of the boxes contained Barn Owls. The first had three owlets, which were duly ringed, and the second had a stunning female along with two owlets. The female was ringed although the owlets were too small at present and will require a further visit. All ringing is undertaken under strict Schedule 1 permit restrictions.

Three owlets after ringing.

Adult female Barn Owl.

Althorp Barn Owls

 

The Althorp Barn Owls which were ringed on the 28th May are continuing to grow really well with very attentive parents with the male bird now taking on the major hunting of mice & voles. The female bird could very possibly be contemplating laying her second brood of eggs very soon, if not already. Having a 4G camera 24/7 in situ, has been great to watch the chicks progress since they hatched. I've watched recently as many as 14 feeds coming in one night & evidently they cash them to one side to eat later if the chicks were full. 

Its a busy time for Schedule1 ringers around the county at the moment & all with the necessary licences being held.

It's with the kind cooperation of Earl Spencer & the Althorp Estate Conservation Managers that I have been granted access to restricted areas on the estate to survey & supply new boxes to extend their coverage of Barn Owl boxes on the huge estate. Signs are looking very positive.