Ringers to the Rescue

It happens more often that you might think. Birds getting into buildings. It could occur for a number of reasons, perhaps they find their way in for a warm, dark place to roost for the night. In extremely cold conditions, a warm dark building has a particular allure. It might be they are chasing food, a small bird, a small mammal. While in some buildings and for some birds this is no problem. Think of barn owls nesting and roosting in farm outbuildings; swallows nesting in stables; robins nesting in sheds. But sometimes it is not in the grand plan. A chase into a building or a warm place to sleep results in a bird becoming trapped amongst human activity. These are no outbuildings, stables or sheds with permanent open access, these are warehouses, factories, offices that are locked each night and a hive of activity during the day. Once in, there is often no obvious escape, either because the doors are shut or the activity puts birds off. In many cases they simply cannot find the way out. 

So what to do? It can be distressing not only for the bird, but for the people too. Many spend hours trying to shoo a bird out, only to get stressed as it swoops high up in a warehouse, perching on rafters and lights. The bird seems to just continually avoid the wide open door where the wind whistles through. Then they try ringing for help. But who you gonna call? Well not ghost busters that’s for sure. 

The beauty that is a female sparrowhawk

As licenced bird ringers we are in a unique position, in that we are legally able to use mist nets and other methods to capture wild birds. More than that we have the experience of how to go about it.

So when Lee received a call mid-week to say there was a sparrowhawk trapped in a workshop in Thetford it was time for us to step into action. Amongst cars in various stages of repair, perched high up amongst the dust, the rafters and the strip lighting a female sparrowhawk sat gazing down. She kicked up dust every time she flew, changing perch as she watched the activity below with a bright yellow eye.

With a strategically placed net, utilising an elevated section of the workshop above the offices, it was not long before we had the bird safely in a bird bag and ready for releasing. We took the opportunity to ring the bird, it is not that often that we catch female sparrowhawks as they tend to be bigger than males and do not readily stick in our small mesh nets. With some biometrics taken and a brand new shiny ring, the last thing we did was show the bird to the workers, who for the morning had simply seen the tail end of a brown streaky bird sprinkling dust on them. Many had never have seen such a beautiful bird so close…

Here you get a real sense of the size of the bird

And so to the great relief of bird and workers alike this trapped sparrowhawk spread her wings and took off into the bright Thetford sunshine, no worse for wear from the experience of the last few hours. 

WhaleFest's Incredible Oceans at the Outdoor Show

The London ExCel centre was brimming, bustling with people, packed with stands covering everything one would need for triathlons, climbing, diving and the great outdoors. It was the Telegraph Outdoor Show. There amongst the stands offering all kinds of kit or exotic locations, amongst the charities clamouring for attention and donations, sat atop of a black out structure was a life sized sperm whale and blue whale. It could mean only one thing. WhaleFest had once again brought it’s passion for the ocean, and army of volunteers, to the Show.  Entering the darkened space it took only a moment for the eyes to adjust and to then widen in awe as from all around life sized whales and dolphins abound. Hanging from the ceiling baby sperm whales, Risso’s dolphin, harbour porpoise, common, striped and white-beaked dolphin to name a few. Along one side a minke whale sits up with a calf beneath, in front sits a beluga. On the opposite side are a narwhal and two bottlenose dolphins. At one end a baby blue whale, and the other a mother and calf orca. The blue and patterned lighting gives the effect of being under the waves, the sounds of whales and dolphins from orca calls to humpback’s singing, gives the feeling of truly being immersed in the underwater world. 

On a table in the middle strange and wonderous artefacts light up the imagination, some of which seem stranger than fiction. A sperm whale tooth, the inner ear bone of a whale, the tusk of a walrus, the skull of a dolphin and of a sea lion are just some of them that awe kids and adults alike. 

Amongst the hustle and bustle of the Show, WhaleFest’s Incredible Ocean stand brings a corner of peace and inspiration. Inside our volunteers show all the amazing artefacts, challenging them to identify them, wowing them with the answers. Others meander looking around at the inflatables that seem as real as us, the light catching them in ways that mean out of the corner of the eye they might appear to move and be alive. All cannot resist taking pictures. All cannot resist regaling tails of incredible encounters they have had in the wild. There is no selling, advertising, endorsing. Just simple inspiration of our incredible oceans and the animals within. 

Photo Gallery by QuickGallery.com

Blinking and returning to the bustle outside of the cocoon that has become the Incredible Ocean stand, but our presence does not stop there. As if in a dream passers-by encounter mermaids, with fabulous tails and wondrous hair. The message about our ocean continues, but with a bit more of a fact finding mission. Would people like to see the teaching about ocean become part of our national curriculum for our children…. There seems to be a resounding yes in response. 

At one end of the stand we now encounter section of green netting lying seemingly innocent on the floor. Willing passers-by are dressed either as turtle, or a dolphin, or simply in diving flippers and then attempt to climb through the netting in the fastest time. It quickly becomes apparent how easy it is to become entangled and how hard it is to escape…. Now imagine being under water and being unable to reach the surface to breathe…. 

The volunteers end up inside an almost dome of netting within which sit the amazing pieces of artwork artists have created using ghost gear – discarded fishing gear- for the World Cetacean Alliance’s Untangled project. The pieces show how ghost gear can be recycled or recreated into something of value and are being auctioned off to help raise funds for the Net Effect campaign. So from the sadness and reality of entanglement, we see the positives of what the WCA and all its passionate partners and volunteers are doing to tackle the issue of ghost gear and entanglement. A light at the end of the green netting tunnel…..

WCAs Untangled display

As the end of the day draws near, I find myself retreating for one last time into the blueish darkness of the Incredible Ocean display and its inflatable whales and dolphins. Soaking up the calm, and the passion, fuelling me for the train journey home and recharging me until I can once again see, hear, and breathe in these incredible animals in the wild…. Roll on May.

To find out more about the WCAs Untangled Project please click here. And to see all the pieces up for auction go to our ebay site!

Also find out more about the Incredible Oceans outreach programme at the WhaleFest website!

The Colours of the Rainbow

‘Red, and yellow, and pink and green, purple and orange and blue. I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too’.

Well following this weekend I can sing a ringing rainbow, sing a ringing rainbow too!

Red

First we returned to the farmland where last week it was white, crisp and cold. Today it was milder, a little soggy underfoot but a keen breeze meant I was glad for the four jumpers, leggings and bobble hat that had created a personal sauna in the car! Although there were not as many birds around as the previous week, there were still large flocks of finches and various buntings humming in the hedgerow and thorny bushes. 

And so the first birds of this weekend’s ringing rainbow were lesser redpolls. With that red splodge on the head, and with the males sporting bright red across the chest, cheek and rump. 

Stunning male lesser redpoll

Yellow

The yellowhammer, one of the quintessential farmland birds in my mind. Their distinctive song, calling out for bread but no cheese, rings out from hedgerows and trees across farms during the summer. But here in Thetford Forest they also make the most of the various aged stands of pine trees, nesting in the stump rows and in the grass at the bottom of small trees. In winter they are concentrated together on the surrounding farmland, searching out seed from all important stubble fields, and at this site making the most of the millet scattered along the base of the hedgerow and in the feeders that hang from it. 

And what a bird. Yellow, yellow, yellow! Brilliant and bright. 

Equally stunning yellowhammer

Pink

OK, so over this weekend pink birds were few and far between :) but fear not as we return to those lovely redpolls! While the head most of the time is bright even in young birds red (but not always as we’ll find out later!), the colour on the breast in males takes its time to come through, to the extent that young birds that hatched last year and have no red on the body should not be sexed, as they could be females. Some young males do however start to show some red on the cheek, chest or rump. This red though is often faint, just one or two feathers and in some cases looks almost pink……

Green

Here I could go down the greenfinch route, and yes we did catch a couple at the farmland site. But it was the visit to a friend’s garden near Diss on the Sunday that produced the real green star of this weekend. Their garden lies surrounded by horse paddocks, with some tall trees creating dark woodlands patched amongst the rolling pasture. Setting up and it was the call of this bird immediately in the tall trees behind the house that caught our attention. A harsh, loud, laughing and distinctive ‘yabba yabba yabba’. So many times through the year do I hear this call, see a bird flying away in an undulating motion, or hopping amongst the grass searching for ants. The bird is the green woodpecker. Only once have I seen one in the hand and only once has Lee caught one before. A large, stocky bird, more accustomed to wider open spaces where nets are so visible, they are not the easiest of our native woodpeckers to catch. This grey, dreary morning however was brightened by a beautiful, adult female caught in one of our nets.

Soft green feathers cover the back and wings. The belly, chest and neck are paler green, while the rump is almost luminescent greeny yellow, beyond which the short tail becomes dark at the end. A brilliant red cap sits over a black mask and moustache, a brilliant white eye and a long sturdy bill. The lack of red in the moustache tells us this bird is a female, the quality of the feathers and their patterning tells us she is an adult. 

What a beaut! Female green woodpecker

Purple

So I have to admit we did not catch a purple bird this weekend… there are not too many purple herons, or sandpipers, or glossy starlings at these sites….

Orange

Once again we return to our redpolls. While most show the characteristic red, and in many it’s really red, there is, like with anything in life, so much variation! And this Saturday morning we caught a variety, from yellow-polls to one whose head looked, yup you guessed it orange!

An orange-poll!

Blue

If there is one bird we catch a lot of at all of our ringing sites, not so many at this farmland site but certainly at the house, it is the blue tit. A common bird in our gardens and often much maligned by ringers simply because we catch so many and due to the fact that they bite and are pretty aggressive! But look closely at a blue tit for a moment and they are a pretty cool bird, what with the stunning combination of blue, yellow and white but also with the black streak through the eyes that looks like a superheroes mask! They don’t tend to move too far, but have proved very useful over the years in training new ringers and understanding moult. Here, on this ringing rainbow weekend there is only one bird to stand for blue. But amongst the fifty or so we caught at the house on Sunday there was one that caught the eye. Already ringed with a sequence we did not recognise, it turns out this little blue tit had been ringed at High Lodge the other side of Thetford from the house near Diss! OK so it is only a distance of 9 miles, but for blue tits that ain’t half bad! 

The blue tit

And what do you find at the end of a ringing rainbow?

A pot of goldfinch!

Goldfinch

Winters Arrival

Finally after months of soggy and windy weather, winter it seems had finally made an appearance. The remains of the snow fall from the two evenings ago was still frozen solid, leaving patches of white that almost glowed blue in the predawn light. Our breath steamed in front of us and the grasses and soil crunched beneath our feet. Dawn breaks with a splash of pink and yellow tinging the streaks of whispy clouds that crossed the ever lighter blue sky. It reveals the farmland we have traversed. Stubble fields adjacent to ploughed fields with tall trees, deep brown bark topped with dark green heads, standing in a row between. At this far end of the stubble field, more traditional hedgerows and tall thorny bushes are absolutely brimming with birds. Flocks of lesser redpolls pile in and out of the cover as we approach and set nets traversing through the spikey trees. Reed buntings and yellowhammers sit atop of the hedgerow.

A cold sunrise

Nets set up and with the bright sun breaking over the trees and spilling across the stubble we retreat a distance to let the birds settle and return to the seed we have provided. 

As the morning progresses wave after wave of lesser redpolls come into the cover, and into the nets. The team works well, taking birds from the net and processing them quickly. It is a good feeling to be ringing large numbers of redpolls rather than the hundreds of blue and great tits that have dominated recent sessions. They are tricky, often only very subtle differences give clues to their age. The variation in colour is wide, some are dark, soft brown, while others are much paler with more white amongst the streaky brown. All have a splodge of red of the head, but it ranges from deep red to almost orange. Flecks of red on the breast alludes to a young bird being male. The adult males have extensive red on the breast and rump. All except the oldest of females have no red on the breast, and even then it is only a few small red feathers. 

Beautiful adult male lesser redpoll

Mixed in are good numbers of reed bunting, always providing a challenge when it comes to ageing, a handful of yellowhammers – stunningly yellow – and best of all some tree sparrows. What a delightful bird, with its chocolatey brown cap which looks like a delicious chocolate truffle! And the little black beauty spot in its white cheek. 

The fabulous tree sparrow

Out over the stubble other birds are busy feeding, such as skylarks who soar vertically upwards with rapidly fluttering wings, into the bright blue, before dropping back to the ground. Their distinctive call catches the ear throughout the morning. Then halfway through one call takes on a completely different tone. An alarm. Heads turn, and just a short distance away a skylark skips up and over the tall trees nearby. It twists one way and then another, sharp turn’s mid-air, and it is being followed just as acrobatically. By a merlin! For what seems like an age, but in reality was a few seconds, the tiny bird dashes one way and then another, desperately trying to shake the merlin off. Finally it dives for cover in the bushes. The merlin flicks up and over the trees one last time before heading high and away. This time the skylarks luck is in… it is not just seed on which birds feed in this landscape and it is all part of the heartbeat of the wild. 

Lunchtime and a cold breeze picks up, billowing the nets and along with the bright sunlight making them more obvious. It is time to pack up and go home to warm up.

We are going on an adventure....

'We are going on an adventure' 

'the clothes over pajamas type of adventure'

In the dark we climb into the car and start up the mountain. The narrow road winds along the ridge and then up through the valleys. Tall, solid, black mountains rear up on either side of us, pitch black and not a feature to be seen they are a solid mass. Above the sky is starting to turn blue rather than black. Dawn will soon be breaking, but for now the sky slowly changes through shades of deepest blue. 

Finally we stop and, bundled in warm clothes and hats, pajamas still buried beneath the layers, we continue on foot up onto the mountainside. The sky continues to lighten, the features of the valley and mountainside begin to appear. Trees, winding river and road below; bracken, heather and gorse covering the mountain. We climb up the muddy path. 

Ahead the sun finally breaks over the ridge, bright and blinding, spilling light over the deep russet reddish browns of the bracken and deep greens of the gorse. The mountainside becomes bathed in glorious morning light. The wind is keen, tearing at leaves and the bobble on hats. A curtain of rain sweeps down the valley below, slate grey in stark contrast to the bright blue above our heads. In this early light birds begin to call, the sound carrying on the wind. 

In search of Grouse

From the low bracken a bird suddenly erupts, wings whirring rapidly attached to a plump body and a short rounded tail, it is accompanied by a call that sounds like rapid 'go back go back go back'. If skims the tops of the heather before crash landing a short distance away. It is close to what we have specifically ventured out this early to see. Red Grouse.  

We are also hoping to find Black Grouse and so we continue on, splodging through muddy puddles and slipping along the winding path. The harsh call of a Raven catches our attention, lifting our gaze skywards. Over the ridge another bird appears, long winged and gracefully skimming through the morning air. A female Hen Harrier. 

The wind picks up, watering the eyes, and the rain that had skirted through the valley below now looks to be heading our way. It is time to turn back and return along the muddy paths to the warmth and shelter of the car. The adventure is over for today, time for a cup of team and a mince pie. 

Spectacle on the Estuary

The sun was descending through a crisp blue sky, heading for the horizon along which a few remaining clouds drifted with curtains of rain. The sky above was still clear and blue, fading to pale blue and gold at the horizon. From behind the dark greyish blue clouds come streaks of sunlight. A blustery wind rips across the land, tugging at scraggly bushes and tall grass and creating ripples in the incoming tide of water. Silvery channels of water meander across the mud flats, occasionally blazing gold as it catches the rays of the setting sun. Across this darkening mudscape is a living carpet of birds. Ripples of movement spread through the throng, even in the fading light you can see the golden tinge to the birds feathers. They are Golden Plover. Further along and there is a black and white mass of Oystercatchers. Suddenly the birds lift in waves into the blustery air creating a whirling mass of tiny dark specks against the pale blue and gold of the sky. Pale flashes catch the light as the birds twist and turn as one. They swirl restlessly until resettling on the mud flats - the spectacle of thousands of waders being pushed up the estuary and beach by the incoming tide. 

A whirling flock of waders

Away from the estuary and the waders, two birds suddenly appear from behind a bank. Long winged, graceful and elegant, they swoop along the bank, wing tips barely touching the tops of the grass before looping up and away. One perches on a fence post. It is a Pallid Harrier. A young bird which looks remarkably like the young and female of our own breeders, although becoming increasing rare themselves especially in England, the Hen Harrier. But a pale collar and pale feathers on the wing tells us it is a juvenile Pallid Harrier. The bird takes off again and almost from nowhere a different bird takes chase. Rounded wing and golden brown, a Short-eared Owl chases the harrier, swerving to and fro, sometimes dipping low and then diverting up and over the top of the bank the pair disappear from sight. The Pallid Harrier is not a usual bird for the UK, breeding on the steppes of Russia and central Asia before migrating south to winter in India and south-east Asia. Occasionally a wandering bird turns up in the UK causing some level of excitement amongst birders. 

Birders gather to get a glimpse of the Pallid Harrier

By now the sun has disappeared leaving a final trail of golden light and tinging the very tips of the clouds with pink. Above the sky is darkening. The water and mud of the estuary darkens to an almost purplely blue colour, and the waders are getting harder to see. In the sky above, against the deep dark blue, long ribbons of birds appear trailing across the sky, honking. Pink-footed Geese, hundreds and hundreds of them returning to the estuary to roost. On and on the skeins keep appearing, silhouetted against the final golden rays of sunlight on the horizon. 

Pink-footed Geese coming into roost

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.