The arrival of this recent cold weather would usually be enough to deter anyone from venturing outside, but I am not one for being put off by the weather.. Throughout most of last week, I was up in Manchester, helping Kane with some ringing at his feeding stations as I had a few days off from university. From Wednesday onwards, along with Ciaran, we netted two of his feeding stations which resulted in quite a few birds being caught..Blue, Great and Coal tits were the most abundant species during both sessions, with Bullfinch, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Goldcrest and singles of Redwing and Willow tit making it all worth while. More so was a Goldcrest which was already wearing a ring. A control and the first for Atherton woods feeding station! This bird was later found to have been ringed by the Merseyside Ringing Group, an interesting movement.
Netting the other feeding station proved rather successfull as waiting for us in the net was a Redwing and a Willow tit. The latter, a new handling species for myself. So it was good to get to grips with the ageing criteria for this bird.
During last week, both myself and Ciaran gave Kane a help in hand with his coot project at Pennington Flash, where we met up with Pete Alker resulting in another 5 Coot colour-ringed. The weekend saw us catching Coot, Canada goose, Black-Headed gull and Mute swan up at Westport Lake in Stoke-On-Trent, including several other sites in the surrounding area. A total of 16 new Coot were colour-ringed bringing Kane's 2010 total to a staggering 300 birds.
Congratulations Kane and thankyou for letting me help out throughout the project. Check out:- http://birdringing.blogspot.com/ for more info.
Pictured below: Kane fitting bright pink colour-rings to a Coot - lets hope we have a recovery from somewere far a field!
Pictured below: Kane fitting bright pink colour-rings to a Coot - lets hope we have a recovery from somewere far a field!
During Saturday afternoon at the Birdfair, myself and Ciaran headed off back to Preston in search of the Juvenile Iceland Gull that had been at Preston Docks for the past few days.. Kane very kindly dropped us off at Rufford Station and with an hour's wait there, we were soon on our way.... On arrival in Preston we stopped off to have another look at the 100+ strong flock of Waxwings on Euston Street.. Both the Waxwing pictures were digiscoped on Saturday 13th, when I visited the flock with Mr M Bridge..
Moving off, I met up with good friend John Tubb again and the 3 of us headed off towards the docks.. Ciaran soon spotted the Iceland Gull sat amongst some Juvenile Herring gulls on one of the rafts whilst I was chatting to John. Nice one Ciaran! The bird showed really well throughout our time there, flying around taking bread from the nearby car-park.
The bird sat down for most of the time, but soon stood up and we could admire it's true beauty!
We also managed to see the flock of 20 Waxwings at Preston dock, making our Waxwing total in the region of 120 individual birds! Mega! Iceland Gull was my 269th species for 2010 so thanks Ciaran.. A quick snack in Macdonald's and we headed back into Preston Town Centre.. A short train journey back to Ormskirk and a nice long evening relaxing on the couch watching TV! Nicely done!
Managing to squeeze a space in Swanlink for the swan feed, was good fun as always and a bit more ring-reading was done but still no sign of the Icelandic Cygnet! Here is a video of the swan feed taking place.. If you have never been to Martin Mere, please do take time for a visit as it is a wonderful place for birds and especially at this time of year when the Whooper Swans and Pink-Footed Geese put are present in large numbers.. 
Catching that Adult Male Sparrowhawk last Sunday, really did make me think about a few things and one particular matter that sprung to mind was that of twitching! I was curious as to what was going to be my next twitch. All too soon, it happened...
I have to refer back to the title now and ask who the hell did invent twitching?! Why the hell do I travel all those miles to find out the bird has died?! God knows??? I mean my bins or scope didn't even see daylight that day - just stuck in the rucksack!
The picture of myself and the picture of Zac, show just how thrilled we were to recieve those 2 messages... Anyone who walked in our way or annoyed us that day got what was coming to them..
Managed to get out with Steve on Sunday morning to our new ringing site near Caernarfon. A mixed farm with a variety of habitats and species, with a hell of a lot potential!
{Euring Age code 6}
A line of 5 60ft nets was sufficient enough for the catch of about 40 birds during the morning. The original plan was to try and catch a feeding flock of around 150 Chaffinch, but we only managed to catch 10 birds which was pretty good, considering the flock wasn't playing ball.. Trying to twinkle a Chaffinch flock is bluddy hard work!
Despite university and many a lecture, I still find time to do some ringing here and there.. I don't half get about I can tell you that much! Having given the Waxwings a rest now and a chance to feed, Tuesday was full of lectures and rather windy field trip to South Stack in those strong gales, 80mph on the stacks, proved rather funny! I've certainly had my fair share of strong winds lately.. 
Took another train to Newt0n-Le-Willows on the Tuesday night to do a bit of ringing with Kane Brides the following morning.. Kane hadn't netted his feeding station for about 2 weeks so we were up at dawn and with the net set, waited for the birds to arrive.. The morning started quite slow, but later on in the morning, things went rather quiet! We did however manage to catch about 60 birds throughout the morning which was pretty damn good!! I decided to leave Kane and headed off to Hollingworth Lake near Rochdale in search of the Pied-Billed Grebe. The bird had been present on the lake for at least 6 days and identified as a Little grebe throughout this period, but once a local birder found it on the lake and asked how long it had been there, the news was put out and the twitch was on!
The best bird caught at Kane's feeding station during the morning included this lovely Male Lesser Redpoll!
There is just no rest for us young'uns!! More or less half an hour after finishing the weekend's cannon-netting with Scan. Mr Hinchcliffe rang me up to say that he had just had 40 Waxwings past his window on Ffriddoed site!! ??? This guy has some serious luck on his side I can tell you that!
Throughout the week, the flock varied in numbers, ranging from 20 birds to a rather impressive flock of 83 birds! 
I am really hoping that these birds stick around for a little longer so we can have another opportunity to catch some more!! I will keep you posted! 
I have just had a quick read through these last posts and it has dawned on me that I literally haven't stopped in general for at least the last month. Bring on the Chistmas break when I can a have a rest, although, I will be working the week running upto Christmas, so that's that out the bag...
Other birding highlights include: 
We made a few seriously crazy decisions during the trip, including a dawn walk upto the Cairngorm Summit at 8am in 70-90mph winds!! This is no joke either, eyes dripping with liquid, coats rattling in the wind and at times it was a struggle just to walk the wind was that strong! The view down towards the car-park after seeing 2 Ptarmigan..
The large Scottish breakfasts were more than enough to fill me up for a full days birding, as well as the biggest bowl of porridge imaginable! 
Myself and Zac in Abernethy Forest at Forest Lodge at 5am, in search of the elusive Capercaillie. Spending the whole day searching for this elusive creature, our efforts were not rewarded. I had in 2009, spent 2 weeks Residential volunteering here during the summer and was involved in Capercaillie surveying throughout the 2 weeks. Luckily, I managed to see a grand total of 68 Capercaillies, which includes, Females, Males and Fledged chicks. The purpose of this fieldwork was brood counting to see how much of a successfull year they had in raising and fledging chicks. I am proud to say that Capercaillie in 2009 had a pretty damn good year..
Reports of Waxwings from all over the UK were reaching me all day on Thursday 28th October.. So when I recieved a text off Zac saying he had just had a flock of around 20 Waxwings from his window...and as he lives literally a minute walk from my flat at university.. I was off!! Having the day off anyway, I finished a section of my leaflet and headed out into Bangor in search of these scandinavian beatuies!!
A superb end to the week and as always, a sheer pleasure to see Waxwings!
This particluar Glossy Ibis that myself and Zac finally managed to connect with, must have caused the most grief for us both, this year! After 2 failed attempts, the first we managed to walk further than we needed to, the 2nd attempt we walked in the right direction this time.. More importantly, the night of our 2nd failed attempt, Zac totted up the miles we had walked and it came to a ridiculous 26.2 miles!!! What were we thinking, it was only a yeartick??
The Glossy Ibis featured wears a colour-ring and was originally ringed in Spain, first turning up on the Otter Estuary in Devon and later on Anglesey - great movement!
The beach at Llanfairfechan where we managed a catch of 100+ Oystercatcher.