Saturday 17 November 2007

More Bird Ringing

Today was another interesting day at Cullaloe, with Mark coming back on site to do some ringing. Yet again, i had my camera with me and this time i decided to see what it was like in video mode!
For some reason, though Blogger really isn't liking my videos, so i don't seem to be able to upload it.


In total he ringed three Great Spotted Woodpeckers (Making a total of 4 woodpeckers ringed in two trips - three males and one female, all juveniles) more Robins, Blue Tits, Great Tits and Coal Tits.
Annoyingly, we had several groups of Long-Tailed Tit, Siskin and Goldcrest come nearby, but none of them managed to get caught in the net. I would have love to have gotten some photos of a Goldcrest or two!
I was also there to do some work on tree felling at the area which was originally known as the Snipe Bog. This area, we were led to believe originally had Snipe breeding in it. Since discussing this with Mark today, it may be that it is purely wintering birds that have been seen there. He certainly has no recollection of them breeding on the reserve. When going through the area to start work on the coppicing of the trees, i managed to flush two Snipe from the undergrowth, so they are definitely still about!
I didn't manage to get quite as much coppicing done on site as i would have liked, but i still managed to clear a fair amount of the scrub. I plan on returning to the reserve tomorrow to do some more then.
On Monday I'll be giving a talk to the local Air Cadet Squadron and hopefully i will be enlisting their aid with the clearing of the scrub. There is several little projects I would like to get them involved in, if they are willing, but we'll have to see how it goes. We may be hindered a bit by Health and Safety legislation on this one.
The loch has been relatively quiet recently, though we've still got Teal,Wigeon, Mallard, Mute Swan, Moorhen and Coots on it, and normally a Grey Heron or two. Today we did have a Sparrowhawk flying round the edges of the loch, too. (another bird which I would have loved to have seen in the net!)

No comments: