End of Year Round Up

Well as another year draws to a close its only fitting that we say thank you and Happy New Year to those who have been helping with catching and re-sighting birds, publicising the project, or just reading the blog!

Our highlight of 2013 was reaching the 50 bird milestone! For a while it didn't seem like we'd make it! Although the birds haven't exactly been rolling in since then and we finish 2013 on a project total  of 56 birds; 29 of these being caught in 2013.

We had 99 re-captures/re-sightings of 22 individual birds in 2013 compared to a mere nine in 2012! A big thank you to Hattie Fuller, Ellie Brown and everyone who has contributed to these. We'll be looking to beat this number in 2014 so keep your eyes peeled and don't forget to tell us!

 

As you can see from the graph below there is a lot of variation in the number of times different individuals have been re-sighted. This will be in part down to the individual behaviour - its no surprise that A4 tops the chart as he is the most approachable bird we've ringed. Other highly visible birds were often on the avenue (e.g BX and BK) or easily recognised such as B6.

 

During 2014 we'll keep you up to date with the project's progress and news. 2014 will be on us in a matter of hours and the start of the breeding season hot on its heals. What will 2014 hold? Hopefully lots of blackbirds!

Happy New Year from the Cardiff Blackbird Project team!



We couldn't have a post without a picture of a blackbird could we?! Here is one

from the archives - our most approachable blackbird, A4

Ringing in the changes

The number of blackbirds is building up nicely in the study site, particularly around the paddocks. So this is where we headed on Friday for the third catch of the winter. We were hoping for at least one new blackbird as the last two outings have drawn blanks.

 

We caught three males in quick succession while putting up the nets and while these were being processed we caught a further two birds! Our project total now stands at 55 and we'll hopefully increase this total over the coming weeks. The session's "by catch" was a surprise too, containing as it did two young magpies. Despite being a common bird, only 30 magpies were ring in Wales in 2012 and only 6 of these were caught in Glamorgan.

Three in a row! These males were the first of five new birds added to the

project. These three were in at least their second calendar year while the fourth

was one of this year's young. Our fifth bird was a female.

 

Friday's session was also the start of a new colour ringing scheme. We have been having some trouble with obtaining field sightings of the coded rings and so have begun using a conventional plain colour rings. Over the coming months we will be comparing which of the two techniques is most effective. Should you see blackbirds with either ring type then please let us know!

One of Friday's blackbirds ringed with conventional plain colour rings.

Hopefully these rings will increase the ease with which birds are resighted in

the field. We will keep you posted on the comparison.

A big thank you to Hattie, Ellie, Laura and Chrissie for helping with the session.

The Tales of Four Travelling Blackbirds

During the winter, the UK's resident birds are joined by migrant birds arriving from the continent. You might notice the influx in your garden or where there are berry laden bushes. In fact the blackbird visiting your garden could well be a bird from the continent.

This is well illustrated by four birds from Pentrych, a small village on the outskirts of Cardiff. All four birds were ringed and later found dead by members of the public - usually having hit a window. All four show how well connected Europe's blackbirds are and it is interesting to see that they moved from urban area to urban area.

Our first bird is K994348, a first year female ringed in Zandvoort, The

Netherlands on 15th November 1998. 17 days late she was found dead in

Pentyrch on 2nd December.

RP48651 was ringed in March 1999 as a first year male. He didn't live long,

being found dead having hit a window in May of the same year. He had however

made all the way to the Swedish town of  Borlange.

CW34666 was ringed as first year male in February 2006. Just over eight months later

in November of the same year he was found dead in the Norwegian town of Egersund.  

LB34416 was an adult female ringed in Pentyrch just before Christmas in 2010.

She was found dead two years later having hit a window in the Dutch town

of Naaldwijk in November 2012


Robinson, R.A. & Clark, J.A.(2013) The Online Ringing Report: Bird ringing in Britain & Ireland in 2012 BTO, Thetford (http://www.bto.org/ringing-report, created on 15-August-2013)

Winter Walk

This morning saw us out on one of our regular walks of the study site which are being done in line with the BTO's Winter Thrushes Survey to further increase the value of these sessions. We were joined by Hattie, a second year zoology student at Cardiff University, who will be volunteering on the project over the next few months to help with surveys and resightings.

Today's walked picked up several blackbirds but we were only able to read the ring code on one bird, BX (see map below). He was ringed on 5th December 2012 as an adult making him at least three years old. Where BX was seen today is his usual spot and its likely it is close to where he bred this year. The vast majority of the other blackbirds seen were unringed - we need to get out more!

The results of our mornings survey. B = blackbird (the yellow B is BX),

R = redwing (we saw 8), and MT = mistle thrush

BK - the first retrap for the Autumn!

We headed out this week with the intention of adding some more birds to the project total. It was rather a dank morning and although there were plenty of "chooks" and "chucks" from our resident birds as the sun rose, sightings and movement were virtually non-existent. In two hours we managed to catch two birds; a robin and a blackbird. Both retraps!

Our retrap blackbird was BK - a female originally caught in mid October 2012. She was at in at least her second calendar year of life when caught, making her a minimum of three years old when caught this week.

 The green triangles (you might have to enlarge the image!) so the locations of where BK has been sighted since her original capture. She was caught within this area this week. Earlier in the year she was seen feeding a fledgling so it is like she nested somewhere close to the boundary between the allotments and the riding school

Autumn restart

With summer well and truly over, blackbirds have finished their post breeding moult and are becoming more obvious in the study site. This time of year is a good for spotting first year males - they will have brown outer wings, unlike adults which are a uniform black. 

http://blx1.bto.org/birdtrack

At this time of the year our resident blackbirds are also joined by birds from mainland Europe. These visitors are the same race (T. m. merula) as our resident birds. There is often great debate over whether male blackbirds with dark bills and eye rings are migrants from the continent or not. All first year male blackbirds will have these characteristics so they can not be relied on to determine the origins of these birds. However, at this time of year we do catch bird that differ in general size and feel different in the hand than "normal" and these could be migrant birds.

A winter visitor form the continent or a bird born locally late in the season? This

particular individual was noticeably smaller than would be expected compared to
birds we usually catch.

An easy to spot winter arrival whose numbers will be on the up in the next few weeks is the redwing. The BTO is looking for volunteers for its Winter Thrushes Survey which aims to map the distribution and work out the habitat needs of visiting fieldfares, redwings, mistle and song thrush and blackbirds. Were conducting the survey during our regular walks of the study site, although at the last visit we only recorded one redwing! We will keep you posted on our results but why not take part the survey yourself?

 

 



Blackbirds Thin on the Ground

Despite AB and A4 putting in regular appearances recently, its becoming more difficult to re-sight our blackbirds simply because there are fewer blackbirds about! Only two blackbirds (including A4!) were seen during a walk around most of the study area yesterday.

 

The detectability of blackbirds (as can be seen from the BirdTrack graph below) declines as the summer progresses. At this time of year the birds begin to go through their annual moult; a time when they renew their plumage an the birds tend to skulk in the undergrowth, keeping themselves to themselves. Although this behaviour reduces their vulnerability to predation it of course makes them harder to see! 

Reporting rates of blackbirds reported to BirdTrack show the seasonal change in the 'detectability' of the species. 

The blue line shows the reporting rate for 2013 and the red line shows the average reporting rate for all previous years.