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.
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.
A ringing session took place on Wednesday 13th 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
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.
processed as an Adult female.
It's aim is to highlight the
activities of the group ringing over a wide variety of sites. Reports
of ringing sessions will appear here on a regular basis and contributors will post
items of interest about the ringing process.
Our stats
guru Nick has compiled a detail list for the ringing totals each year going back
to 2002, but his coolest item on the Blog is the interactive maps under Recovery and Controls. View these maps to see the full picture of the range of
birds travelling to and from Northants. The
furthest recovery is a Redwing recovered at Beirut Airport, with a Mallard north of Moscow not far behind.
Regards
John Boland
