A bit of ringing

Well, the bloody weather forecasters got it wrong again.

With thoughts of ringing this weekend, I've been checking out the forecast for this weekend since Thursday and it was constantly changing. By Friday night it looked like Saturday would be the better morning for ringing, dull with light westerlies, so I left home at 5am to set some nets up. When I pulled out of our street the wind turbines on the horizon were moving too quickly for my liking and it was glorious sunshine.

And so it was... bright and breezy with the wind out of the west. The worst conditions to ring at Druridge. I persevered, but gave up by 9am having only caught 6 birds.

Today was supposed to be bright and breezy again, but the wind was to be stronger and move more southerly. I didn't wake up until 7.30am (it had been a late night) and looked out of the window - still calm and overcast... I was at Druridge and nets up by 8am.

Despite the late start, I caught 20+ birds, mostly juvenile warblers.

There were two highlights. The first was catching a whitethroat that we first caught in July 2014 as an adult female - so the bird was at least five years old. Not a record by any means - the BTO record longevity record is seven years and nine months, but it does man that this little bird, weighing only 13 grams had crossed the Sarah desert at least eight times.

Five year-old whitethroat

The second highlight was controlling ( this means catching a bird that has been ringed elsewhere) a reed warbler. We will have to wait to hear from BTO exactly where it was ringed. Reed warblers are a bit of a success story at Druridge. They started breeding in the little Phragmites reedbed in the south-east corner of the big pool about six years ago with one pair, before that they were a passage migrant.This year we have already ringed six breeding males and three females and today, our first juvenile of the year.

Controlled reed warbler

On Friday I popped down to the patch after work. Terns were feeding close into the shore including a handful of roseate terns, I even managed a photo of one of them.

Sandwich tern

Sandwich tern

Roseate tern

Offshore, a good flock of common scoter has built up in the bay, numbering up to a thousand. They were dispersed into several smaller groups on Friday, here are some of them...

Some of the 1000 common scoter in the bay at the moment

On the Budge fields there were two wood sandpipers, a little ringed plover and 15 black-tailed godwits. These waders were joined by a whooper swan on Saturday that has been knocking about on the bay. A water rail was calling from the corner of the big pool this morning and a few whimbrels were in the silage fields with the curlews

Ian Fisher and I have been checking the egrets and herons in the shelterbelt this year, we did our final check tonight but I'll write about the outcomes next time.

Patch Tick - White-winged Black Tern

A belated post about a patch tick.

A dead computer means I haven't been able to post about the latest addition to my patch list - white-winged black tern.

Saturday gone was a long day...

We were down at Druridge shortly after 5am for a ringing session - our first of the year. We had a good morning catching over 30 birds, mainly resident warblers and remarkably five reed warblers, all by the little the reedbed in the SE corner of the big pool. Reed warbler is recent colonist to Druridge Pools and seem to be doing very well, as they are at other wetland habitats in the county. A green sandpiper flew over the site first thing with swifts !

After packing up the ringing site and checking the heronry with Ian Fisher, I thought a quick check of the sea might be in order as others had reported skua activity. The light was awful and just as I was about to leave, a message about a white-winged black tern at Chevington came through.... Interesting.

I hung around, scanning inland when Twitter said it was at Druridge Pools. But where? Big pool or Budge fields?

I sprinted to the top of the big dune, my heart was pounding when I got there, figuring I could see the while patch from there. I was right and picked up the bird feeding over the Budge fields. And what a stunner it was - an adult white-winger in breeding plumage.

It flitted back and forth between the Budge fields and the big pool for an hour or more. Sadly no photos for me as my camera was in the car but others did well.

A bonus came on Sunday when I was scanning the sea and a message came through from Martin Kerby who was watching a pectoral sandpiper from the Budge screen. I was soon in the hide and watching the bird, albeit occasionally, as it moved through the emergent vegetation and stands of rush.

White-winged black tern takes my Druridge Pools list to 243, creeping ever-so-slowly towards that big 250!