Ghostly Gulls

It seemed the spirit of Halloween was lingering, as a spooky, thick fog obscured all but the closest trees and the river. There was no wind and the dangling leaves of the willows trailed in the smooth flowing water like fingertips creating miniature ripples and whirlpools. Out of the white gloom came a brilliant flash of blue as a kingfisher shot down river and up into the lower branches of the willow, watching and waiting. The other birds of the river continue with their morning rituals, although it is already comparatively late in the day for them with the sun having been up for a few hours already. Ducks meander just past the old road bridge on whose worn stone you can still see the scars from tanks. Canada Geese preen themselves or feed on the grassy banks oblivious to the occasional car that appears briefly from the gloom. Overhead the harsh call of Carrion Crows and the cackle of Jackdaws echoes through the fog. Moorhens emerge from the reeds and sedge along the river’s edge with their characteristic bobbing head, circle a few times then disappear again. A family of Mute Swans, the two young still greyish brown, slowly patrol this small stretch of river. From the shrouded trees comes the twittering calls of various tits, Robins and Blackbirds, all heard but not seen.

Black-headed Gull (winter plumage)

Across the dark water stretches a footbridge, the clattering of puppy paws and footsteps its usual fare. But today it has a mist net covering its length, rising high above its barrier. The lure of food brings the ducks, swans and even the Moorhens closer to this bridge, and with them come the Black-headed Gulls. Brilliant white underneath, with silvery grey backs and bright orangey red legs and bill, they bounce effortlessly through the air like ghosts. Their heads are essentially white, with just a smudge of black behind a bright, black eye. Twisting and turning they spy the provisions, dropping down to pick at it from the water’s surface, watching as what is not gobbled by duck, goose or swan floats down river and under the bridge. The gulls flick up and over the bridge and one falls into the trap. The large mesh net is adept at holding the larger, longer winged gull until it is removed by experienced hands. 

And so there it is, in the hand, a small elegant Black-headed Gull. All ready for a metal ring, and in this case a colour ring to add to the project looking at gull movement from the region. We know birds are often moving between the UK and the continent especially Denmark and The Netherlands. But individuals have been found further afield including Senegal and Mauritania. So where will this bird go? Who knows but it will be easier for someone to report it since it has a colour ring which means it can be identified without being re-caught.

Ringed and colour ringed

It does not take long to process the bird. Unlike some of the larger gulls that take a number of years to replace all their juvenile feathers and look adult, Black-headed Gulls are will attain adult plumage when they are just over one year old. So at this time of year, there will either be first-winter birds (so birds hatched this summer) or adult winter birds. And so with that, and its colour ring, the bird is weighed and measured and then released quickly disappearing into the smokey fog. 

To catch a cuckoo

It was a chilly start to the morning. For the first time in a while the temperature reading was 3° and next to the time of 4 am once again it was a bit of an urgggh moment getting up. This time dense mist hung low, the tops of the trees poking out and reaching into a clear sky above, fading from black through midnight blue to pale blue pink as dawn slowly broke.

Arriving at the grassland heath, bounded by forest and farmland, the dawn chorus was in full swing. Skylarks, garden warblers, yellowhammers, even a turtle dove calling from somewhere in the mist beyond. The occasional tall tree and low grassy humps of what were once, many many years ago, stump rows appear out of the mist like ghost ships. Movement ahead reveals the equally ghostly forms of small sheep, the maintenance team of this grassy heath.

The grass is wet, its tops drooping under the weight of water, as we make our way over to where a tree stands alone. Here a large mesh net is set up surrounding the tree and within the centre a speaker placed. The aim? To catch a cuckoo.

With the speaker on the unmistakable call of a cuckoo booms out through the mist, followed by a bubbling sound that many may not recognise but is the call of a female. We have barely retreated, when the responses start and one then two males start calling in response. A little further away and a real female bubbles also. Out of the mist and over our heads a male makes for the tree and the speaker; perching ceremoniously on the top of our pole! The slim grey body, long tail, white chest with barring and pointed wings resembles a small bird of prey. This is of course on purpose. For cuckoo’s do not worry themselves with rearing their chicks, leaving this for other birds like reed warblers and meadow pipits who in return develop ways of recognising the cuckoo and its eggs. What has developed is an evolutionary arms race. While host birds need to keep a watchful eye for cuckoos, they also need to worry about predators like sparrowhawks that rather than parasitizing their nests are looking for a meal. The cuckoo takes advantage. By looking like a sparrowhawk it causes birds to leave the nest area for that little bit longer, giving the female time (all 10 seconds of it) to lay her egg without being mobbed.

Misty morning... spot the cuckoo

As our percher disappears from the top of the pole, a second bird comes swooping overhead and low in towards the tree, finding its path ultimately stopped by our net which with its large mesh holds onto the bird safely.

Cuckoo in the net

And that my friends is how you catch a cuckoo! (Of course you have to have a ringing licence with a mist net and tape lure endorsement). Up close he is stunning, grey-blue, and perfect barring across a pale chest, bright yellow bill and eye.  And for this guy not only is a unique metal ring added to his leg, a satellite tag is strapped on with a specially designed harness. For cuckoos (and this seems to be a recurring theme for our wildlife) are in decline and we have lost over half of our breeding birds in the last 25 years. But the picture is more complicated than that. In some areas cuckoos are doing better than in other areas, in England for example the decline is greater.

What a beautiful bird!

This is where this satellite tagging project run by the BTO, and championed of course by the BBCs Spring Watch, comes into play. Already the data is showing interesting results with the suggestion of different migration routes and the indication that weather conditions across their range have a significant impact on survival.

Where will this cuckoo go? Which route will it take? How will it fair over the next few weeks, during its migration south, overwinter and hopefully on its return? With its satellite tag will have the answers to all of these questions... soon….

A Snipe's Tale

Back in May 2011 it was just another ringing session at Cranwich. We had been ringing in the reeds and surrounding land for a couple of years. The project was just starting, who knew where it would take us and where we would be now with it. The huge number of reed warbler nests found and monitored, the vast number of birds ringed from reed warblers and lesser whitethroats to kingfishers and reed buntings. But that was all to come. On this day it was a different bird that caught our eye as we rounded the corner and approached one of the nets. There in the top shelf was a common snipe. Never before had I held a snipe in the hand and never before had one been ringed at Cranwich.

Me and the snipe at Cranwich

With its dark brown, rufous and pale streaks, short legs, stocky body, dark liquid eyes and long straight bill the snipe may not be bright and colourful, but it is nonetheless beautiful. In the UK the snipe is widespread and resident, making short to medium distance movements, breeding particularly on moorland and in grassy upland areas. Lowland areas have seen declines in breeding numbers but see large numbers skulking around the edges of pools in winter. Our snipe was likely to be passing through with none so far recording breeding at the site.

And so we took the usual measurements, and some additional ones of the bill and head, it was good practice for our upcoming first trip to the Gambia, where we would catch more common snipe as well as painted snipe in the trips that followed.

Measuring the bill of the snipe

Fast forward three years (is it really that long!) and a well placed source at the BTO receives a recovery of a snipe, unfortunately shot dead in northern Spain. It is none other than the snipe we ringed all those years ago. It seems that this snipe was not content to remain just in Britain but was making at least one movement within the species wider range. Evidence shows us that while part of the UK breeding population is resident, numbers in winter are bolstered by migrants from the continent and Iceland. In fact throughout the Western Palearctic the species is much more migratory, moving between northerly breeding grounds and more southerly wintering grounds. More than that research indicates there are actually four separate snipe flyways with overlap between.

Snipe flyways from Svazas & Paulauskas 2006

This snipe was shot in the county of Asturias in northern Spain, falling within the North-West Europe flyway (number 2 on the map). Of course this recovery tells us nothing more than this bird was originally ringed in Britain in May 2011 and was then shot in northern Spain in January three years later. It does not tells us where this individual was breeding or where it usually spent its winter. But it does add to the overall all picture that birds are moving between Britain and continental Europe, something we would not have known if it were not for the individual marking of birds. 

The Western P's

The Western Palaearctic, part of the Palaearctic ecozone, one of eight zones that divide this planet’s surface. The Western Palaearctic encompasses Europe, North Africa, the northern and central parts of the Arabian Peninsula and a small part of Asia to the Ural Mountains. Here many birds are resident, sticking year round in the same place or undertaking short distance movements in search of food or to escape inclement weather. Some undertake migrations of reasonable distances, in Britain our winter landscape often becomes dominated with thrushes like redwings and fieldfares that head over from Scandinavia. Even common birds we think of as being here year round, blackbirds and starlings for example are bolstered by continental counterparts.

The Western Palaearctic - Wikipedia

Then there are birds that migrate long distances, not just heading for the Mediterranean but continuing down into Africa, crossing one of the largest and hottest deserts in the world to reach central Africa and beyond. It is truly incredible to think that such tiny, seemingly delicate birds such as the willow warbler, chiffchaff, whitethroat and barn swallow are making such treacherous journeys.

There are other birds also, that you may not automatically think of as migrants, waders including turnstone, sanderling, bar-tailed godwits, whimbrels, common sandpipers… all birds we associate perhaps with winter in Britain but all birds that have populations that will also migrate further to Africa. Not to mention the terns and other seabirds which breed around our coast and then migrate and winter off the coast of Africa.

Many of the migrant birds that call the Western Palaearctic home for at least some of the year are declining. The reasons are numerous and complex, an interaction of events and habits both on their breeding grounds, winter grounds and anywhere in between. We are now realising we need to find out where these birds are going and what is happening to them when they leave our temperate shores.

Where do these birds go exactly to winter? Do they return to the same places year after year? Which routes do they take when they migrate? Do different populations go to different places or the same? Do they move around when on their wintering grounds? What kind of threats do they face while there?

Just one of the ways these questions are being answered is by ringing in Africa, and this is one of the key objectives of the Kartong Bird Observatory in The Gambia.

So while out there our team targeted as much habitat for Western Palaearctic birds, including reed beds and scrub, as well as attempts for terns and waders. The effort of slogging through knee deep water, cutting rides through reed beds, getting scratched by Acacia trees quickly paid off; 280 Western P’s as we affectionately called them were caught and processed. Some had already been ringed before; including a reed warbler with a Spanish ring on it.

Intrepid ways of getting nets into reed beds - using a boat!

From species we know from home like sedge and reed warblers to whitethroats, to those that maybe more unusual in Britain but are common throughout the Mediterranean including Bonnelli’s and Melodious warblers. Waders like common and wood sandpipers, and snipe, lots and lots of snipe.

But certainly the stars of the Western P show were the blue-cheeked bee-eaters. When you think of Western P’s you don’t automatically think of these, but they do in fact breed along the north coast of Africa and parts of the Middle East, before migrating south to central and southern Africa.

The usual view of blue-cheeked bee-eaters

In The Gambia we watch them from the middle of the morning to mid-afternoon, swooping and circling in large flocks. We see them sit on the branches of trees before taking off with a flick of the wings, soaring again through a brilliant blue sky. In the past we watched with wonder, these are not the type of bird to blunder into most nets as they keep to the skies and tops of trees. They the emblem of the Kartong Bird Observatory, and it was an emotional day when in 2011 we caught the very first one. Since then the odd one has been caught on the odd occasion.

That was until one hot day in January 2014. As the morning progressed a huge flock of 400 bee-eaters began circling overhead, dipping down to take insects off the glittering surface. And here we spotted an opportunity. Until now the birds had not responded to a tape playing their calls, but with so many birds calling to each other, and the presence of food this time it just might work. So with two nets open and a tape playing between we sat back to watch and wait. Minutes later the crackled message came back over the radio at base. Bee-eaters in the net, not one or two, but loads. It had worked!

Collecting blue-cheeked bee-eaters from the net

And so like a well-oiled machine, the team worked together to remove birds from the net, ferry them back to base and to ring and process them. In total 70 birds were caught giving us an opportunity to get some good data on moult and aging with some many birds to compare. And with the technique for catching them seemingly sussed who knows how many more we may catch in future and what we may learn….

For now lets stick with piccies of Western P's from The Gambia 2014:

Photo Gallery by QuickGallery.com

Return of the bramblings

Another Christmas was over, full of delicious food, fabulous presents and wonderful family. Of course the first thing we do once the family has returned to the mother-land (in this case Wales) is to get up before dawn (not too much of an issue at this time of year) and head out ringing. Sunshine and breezey, not the best combination for ringing but good enough to see what the Farm has to offer. 

Turns out that finally the bramblings have returned to the feeders. With the mild winter thus far many of the finches that make this such a special site have stayed away, feeding in the wider landscape of the forest. With food finally starting to dwindle large numbers had returned to the feeders in the garden of the Farm, with the walk in trap in particular working effectively to catch these beautiful birds. 

We know bramblings breed in Scandinavia and Northern Russia, and then migrate south to the UK and southern Europe for winter. We have even caught a bird in the past with a Norwegian ring on it... But when they migrate which routes do they take? Do birds coming to the UK, and our Farm in particular, cross over to Scotland and then south? Or do they fly down through Europe before heading over the North Sea? And once again, ringing is helping to solve the puzzle. 

Male brambling originally ringed in Helgoland, Germany

Today among the 15 or so bramblings we caught, one, just one had a ring on that read Helgoland. Helgoland, a small group of islands located off the coast of Germany with their own ringing scheme. At some point in the recent past (OK I sound like a Doctor Who episode now!) someone on that group of islands caught a male brambling, either on its way south for the winter or returning north to breed. Now, on a mild, breezey, sunny winters day that very bird was caught in our trap in a Suffolk garden!