Last weekend Gail and I completed two BTO projects over two days. We had a ringing session at the Nature Park on Saturday, under the project title of Bird Ringing Scheme, then on Sunday we completed a Gull roost survey on the Wyre Estuary, under the Winter Gull Survey (WinGS).
When we arrived at the Nature Park before first light on Saturday morning, we had 3 oktas cloud cover, with a light north-westerly breeze, and by about 0945 the wind had swung round to the southeast, the cloud cover increased to 7 oktas, and we had the occasional shower. This change in the weather would make a difference to the numbers of birds that we ringed.
As we put the nets up, a few Starlings exited their roost, but numbers have dropped right off now to only a couple of hundred birds. Cetti's Warblers serenaded us with their explosive song, and we could hear Pink-footed Geese all morning, but we did not see a single one! The willow scrub and reedbed at the Nature Park is very low lying, and the ground between our ringing area and the estuary rises, so we can't see the estuary even though it is only 350 metres to the east. Where our net rides are located, is 4 m above sea level, and the grassland between here and the estuary rises to 8 m, before dropping down again to 4 m on the saltmarsh.
The 'vis' was slow with only a handful of Chaffinches, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, and Woodpigeons heading more or less south.
As mentioned above, the cloud cover increased during the morning, the wind swung round to the south-east, and by about 0945 we started to have a few light rain showers. The next net round we had after this, produced a Chiffchaff, and ten Linnets.
We ringed 35 bird as follows:
Wren - 3
Long-tailed Tit - 3
Chiffchaff - 1
Robin - 2
Blackcap - 1
Blue Tit - 2
Cetti's Warbler - 4
Linnet - 12
Greenfinch - 7
The only other interesting record that we had was that of a Jay, and I'm not sure if we have ever recorded Jay at this site before. It might just be shaping up to be a bit of a Jay autumn.
On Sunday afternoon/evening we completed a Gull roost survey on the Wyre Estuary as an autumn supplementary visit as part of the WinGS project. The aim of the autumn survey is to monitor Gulls at post breeding aggregations, and capture seasonal peaks of species on passage from breeding to wintering grounds.
We had an enjoyable couple of hours counting Gulls, and just immersing ourselves in an estuary as it moves into dusk. The sights and sounds as it slowly got dark, calling Curlews, Redshanks and Oystercatchers, and the backdrop of the Lakeland Fells turning an inky black as the sun set, punctuated by the strobe effect of Walney Island lighthouse.
We didn't count anywhere near as many roosting Gulls as we did during our count back in January, which was to be expected, just 42 Black-headed Gulls, 3 Common Gulls, 5 Great Black-backed Gulls, 186 Herring Gulls, 2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, and a stonking adult Med. Gull.
Stood in the garden this afternoon giving Jake and Woody (our house cats) an outing, another male Sparrowhawk just missed my head as it came over our neighbour's garage, shot between me and our shed, and through our scrubby hedge and into our neighbour's garden. Lots of alarm calling House Sparrows could then be heard, the Sparrowhawk came back through the hedge, and was off. All of this in the fraction of a second!
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