Thursday, 2 August 2012

Ringing Totals to the End of July

As is usual at this time of the month as group secretary for Fylde Ringing Group I update the totals for the year and you can see the totals up until the end of July over on the right. Despite the awful summer weather and corresponding poor, bordering on failure, of a breeding season I'm amazed that we have been able to ring 1,995 birds so far. At this time last year we had ringed 2,332 birds.

I like to think that we all work hard at our ringing in the group, but the reason that the totals are looking reasonable at all is because Ian has been managing to ring a few birds around Fleetwood BO virtually every day. This means he has been able to keep up with what little turnover of birds there has been. Imagine what the totals would have been like if we had just an average breeding season this year. It will make for interesting, if somewhat depressing, reading when all the totals and results are in from the various BTO lead surveys this year e.g. CES, RAS, BBS etc.

So, as normal I have detailed below the top ten 'movers and shakers' with their position in the table last month in brackets:

1. Tree Sparrow - 253 (1st)
2.Blue Tit - 202 (2nd)
3. Goldfinch - 171 (3rd)
4. Swallow - 123 (straight in)
5. Great Tit - 120 (6th)
6. Chaffinch - 114 (4th)
7. Lesser Redpoll - 111 (5th)
8. Meadow Pipit - 68 (7th)
9. Blackbird - 58 (8th)
10. Greenfinch - 52 (straight in)

As you will see we have two species that have come straight into the top ten in the form of Swallow and Greenfinch. The Swallows are the result of a roost forming at the obs and the Greenfinch a result of some post-juvenile dispersal.

Dunnock and Turnstone have slipped out of the top ten, but may make a come-back later in teh year as they are just 'bubbling under'. Other species looking to break in to the top ten (totals in brackets) include Wren (42), Robin (45), Sedge Warbler (41), Reed Warbler (49) and Willow Warbler (42).

As most of my ringing is about Swallows at the moment I have included a cracking picture below taken by Bob Bushell (birdsfod.blogspot.co.uk).

 

2 comments:

Bob Bushell said...

Thanks for putting Swallow up, it is kind.

The Hairy Birder said...

No problem at all Bob and thank you for allowing me to use your picture. Cheers, Seumus