Wonderful Welsh Waxwing

Got a response from both Raymond Duncan and Tony Cross today about the colour-ringed Waxwing I found yesterday. Turns out it wasn't a Scottish-ringed bird as I'd expected, but a Welsh-ringed bird! Thank you both for your swift responses.

The bird was initially trapped and ringed on 25th November 2012 in Newtown, Powys in mid-Wales before being re-trapped and fitted with colour-rings on 9th December 2012 at the same location. The sighting that Ollie and I made of the bird yesterday in Strensall, York was the first re-sighting of this bird.

Tony and his team have colour-ringed exactly 100 Waxwing this winter so it will be interesting seeing more results as the birds start moving about more (as they seem to be doing currently!). See Tony's (and teams) excellent Ruffled Feathers ringing blog here - with some specifics on Waxwing here.

I've put a rough map together (below) - it makes the movement approximately 142 miles in approximately 55 days on a bearing pretty much Northeast - heading home already?


View Waxwing Movement in a larger map

As I've said before this information really shows how important/useful colour-ringing birds is. How many of us would have just assumed that these birds arriving in York would be heading southwest after the recent poor weather further north/on the continent...

Local birding today was restricted to the LDV though I did get a nice year-tick in the form of a 1st winter Mediterranean Gull, found by Jono. Excellent photo and some details on Jono's blog. Thanks for the call!

Other bits and pieces included two Egyptian Geese and 148 Greylags at North Duffield Ings (lots of wildfowl here). 225 Pochard on Bubwith Ings (great count!). Also had 2 Barn Owl and a Peregrine. Unfortunately the red-head Smew that flew over Bank Island with two Goosander and probably dropped onto Wheldrake Ings couldn't be re-located - mainly probably because it is currently impossible to get onto the Ings!

Two Med Gulls on My Patch

Had a quick look down at North Duffield Carrs this morning for an hour or so before heading down to Lincolnshire for a days surveying.

There was no sign of the Sanderling that was present yesterday morning with a small Dunlin flock (another one I missed!) however there was lots of Gulls present. I started scanning through them all and fairly quickly I found a first-summer Mediterranean Gull sat on a partially submerged fencepost. I was fairly happy with finding this bird. I had an adult Med Gull fly through last week which was great but a bit frustrating as it didn't hang around, so it was nice to get good views of this bird.

After a while it flew over to Bubwith to feed on the flood there and a short while later a Heron flew through and all the gulls got up and moved about. Landing on a fencepost I got onto the Mediterranean Gull again, only on closer inspection it was apparent that this was a different first-summer bird. This was confirmed by Russ who was still watching the Bubwith bird at the same time as I was watching this second bird!

The two birds were subtly different, with the first one seeming to have more black on the head. My Blackberry doesn't like photographing white birds and the heat haze was making focussing difficult, but you can just about make out that the birds are different!

Mediterranean Gull: Bird 1 (phone-scoped) 

Mediterranean Gull: Bird 1 wing flap (phone-scoped) 

Mediterranean Gull: Bird 2 (phone-scoped)

My survey was fairly non-eventful save a cream-crowned Marsh Harrier that showed well for a bit. Also got a really nice view of a Hare that walked right up to me! Have a picture on my phone but having difficulty getting it off! Will put it on later when I can!

Water water everywhere (and some good birds)

Stayed local over the weekend as my parents were visiting. Was hoping to explore several quieter areas within the valley but due to the poor weather this wasn't able to happen so we made several trips to North Duffield to sit in the hide and also visited Castle Howard.

Saturday morning I was in the hide at North Duffield at 5am hoping for something interesting. I wasn't disappointed, it was amazing! In the space of 2 hours I'd had 60 species all from my seat in the hide! There was many highlights including 2 (possibly 4) Avocet that flew north through the valley (a site/area tick for me), drake Garganey, 13 Whimbrel, 20 Black-tailed Godwit, 3 Greenshank and 6 Dunlin flew through, plus my first singing Cuckoo of the year and a pair of Grey Partridge. Pretty impressive dawn chorus activity too.

The calm before the storm 

The calm before the storm

The local dog walked was interesting as I had a new site tick in the form of a single Whimbrel in a sheep field and then 2 singing male Lesser Whitethroats (along with male Blackcap, Common Whitethroat and Willow Warbler) that showed really well.

Castle Howard was freezing cold, blowing a gale with heavy showers, therefore many of the birds were keeping sheltered and hidden.  A couple of Blackcap showed well, as did a number of House Martin, Sand Martin and a couple of Swift.

This morning it was fairly difficult as it was raining with the wind blowing it straight into the hide.  The water was pouring off the river and it's surely only a matter of time before the river bursts its bank properly. Highlights this morning were fewer, however a Mediterranean Gull (site tick for me) made it worth dragging myself out of bed! There was fewer Whimbrel, about 6 or so with 4 Greenshank now present, up from 2 on Friday night, and 3 on Saturday.

3 Greenshank (phone-scoped)

This evening I popped down briefly and had approximately 20 Whimbrel, 1 Black-tailed Godwit, 1 Short-eared Owl, 2 Greenshank, 5 Redshank, 3 Oystercatcher and all the usual suspects. A brief flight of a potential Little Gull was a little frustrating as it dropped down below the river bank and wasn't seen again!