The pick of a mainly dull day with a brisk, cool north-westerly was another Marsh Harrier north-west over East Lea / North Cliff late morning, the same route taken by three more Common Buzzards (all of which were ‘non-local’ birds on photos). A pair of Little Ringed Plovers were at East Lea, as were single
Cool northerlies hardly inspired much enthusiasm today but a few new migrants arrived, notably a Marsh Harrier high and west over North Cliff, a Reed Warbler and a Lesser Whitethroat at the Dams (both firsts for the year), three Bramblings in the Rocket Pole Field and male Redstarts at the Dams and at the Tip.
Today is, remarkably, the four-month anniversary of the arrival of the immature male Surf Scoter in the bay, which is still showing no inclination to return to the homeland (much to the dismay of the local razorfish population). Other highlights consisted of an adult Yellow-legged Gull on this morning’s sea-watch (JS) and a Ring Ouzel in
On the Trail of Filey Rails Currently almost all ringing effort in Filey has been centred on passerines or near-passerines, with occasional wader and storm petrel ringing. To try and gain a more holistic view and gather important data on other species particularly wildfowl and rails (both of which receive relatively limited ringing data in Britain)
Recoveries January 2016 January 2016 has two recoveries of note (returned to us by the BTO (British Trust of Ornithology) in January rather than recovered in January). Recoveries will become a common theme on this blog and basically concern the recovery of a ring on a bird which has already been rung. So this could
Return of the Greenfinch In recent years you may have noticed that there are far fewer Greenfinch Chloris chloris around, or in fact a distinct lack of them. The population has seen something of a crash both within the Bird Observatory and nationally. Greenfinch numbers ringed at Filey have always been relatively chaotic showing rapid
Nocturnal Wader Ringing With the onset of the dark nights of winter part of the ringing team have started experimenting with the feasibility of ringing Woodcock Scolopax rusticola and Common Snipe Gallinago gallinago on the Rocket Pole Field and the Old Tip sites. Woodcock in particular are susceptible to the “Dazzle and Net” technique, with
A Polish Mediterranean Gull in Filey As we’ll be looking at in more detail in the near future, colour-rings provide a fantastic way of learning about an individual bird’s life history. Gulls can be a particularly rich source of information, and checking the flocks on the beach, in fields or at local wetlands is always
Record Breaking Long-tailed Tits As we touched upon in our last post, one of 2015’s most notable species has been Long-tailed Tits Aegithalos caudatus, with this being a record ringing year for them in Filey. One of the many advantages of bird ringing is that it allows us to census population levels on a local