An ecological disaster?

Well, apparently not. Though this weather is really getting on my tits now! The scenes around Weymouth have been quite extraordinary during the last 24 hours. The biggest disaster of course is the flooding of the Olympic park and ride drop off point. Well it is if you read the local and national papers and have seen the news coverage. How the hell can a bloody car park flooding be bigger news than a whole ecosystem being wiped out? Marsh Harriers chicks... gone. Countless Reed and Sedge Warbler nests... gone. Bearded Tit nests... gone. Thousands of inverts... gone. Reptiles and tons of small mammals... you’ve guessed it, gone.

This shot is of the concrete bridge at Radipole!

OK, this type of thing does happen from time to time and we just have ride it through and obviously the wildlife will recover eventually but it really does annoy how oblivious most of Weymouth was to the devastation unfold before their eyes.

Whilst at Lodmoor yesterday and this morning I was amazed that even birders were oblivious to the carnage right in front of them. Whilst there yesterday assessing the tern island situation (which was very bad) a birder wanders in and asked where the White-winged Black Tern was. I said that I had been counting tern chicks that were having to swim around desperately trying to find somewhere to pitch up rather than looking for the other tern. Instead of him saying something like ‘Oh God, that a disaster’ he said something along the lines of, ‘Oh, I’ll got further down the path to look for the Black Tern’. Admittedly, most birder I’m sure noticed what was going on but that just got to me!

In protest I’m not going to post a picture of the White-winged Black Tern but instead here’s a shot of some of the surviving Common Tern chicks at Lodmoor which managed to make to a bit of dry land.

When all's quiet

Turn to moths. I’ve not run a trap much this year (or last for that matter) but it’s now back to being a permanent feature in the garden. Last night was a half decent night with a few nice species. Only migrants were a single Dark Sword Grass and a Silver Y but the moth of the night award went to a Dingy Shears which is a localised species in Dorset.

This time of year is normally very quiet for birds so I maybe resorting to moths to keep this blog alive and kicking over the next few weeks until the onslaught of migrant birds flood to Dorset on their return journey. Well… I hope, but considering the bad weather I doubt there’ll be that many fledglings making their first migration this year. Fingers crossed I’m proved wrong!

A wanderer from Wales?

Just back from Lodmoor having seen my second Dorset Gull-billed Tern.  This bird is presumably the one which has been present in South Wales the last few days so nice of it to wander down here. Forgot the camera but thankfully I’ve still got  a picture of one from 2010 which was present on the fleet at Abbotsbury and nearby Abbotsbury beach.

Back to the Breakwater

A year ago we had our first voyage to Portland harbour breakwater to ring gull pulli. This year’s visit was somewhat unsure earlier in the year, largely due to that sailing competition that’s happening in a few weeks’ time. Despite all that we were allowed back over this ‘summer’ which was sure to be an interesting visit due to the recent awful weather. There were plenty of nests about but chicks were few and far between. Herring Gulls seemed to have suffered quite badly with several cold eggs in nests but Great black backed Gulls seemed to fair better. However, last years visit was something of a learning curve in finding gull pulli. So the fact that more pulli were found this year compared to last could just a case of the team being better at finding them! They get into some rediculous cracks and caves in the rock armour.

This was one of the Great black backed Gull pulli.

And they bite!

Over 70 Great black backs were ringed in total with a lot fewer Herring Gull. In fact, I believe it could be less than 20 but I haven’t got all the data. A good number of both species were colour ringed but I rather stupidly didn’t take a photo of the rings we were using. The GBBG’s were white rings with Red codes. They start with the letter P followed by one of these, :, then two numbers and a letter.  The Herring Gulls are black rings with a three digit numerical white code which we also use on hand caught fully grown Herring Gulls in Weymouth.

Huge thanks for the Harbour Authority and Terry Coombs for arranging the visit. Finally here’s a shot of the team before we got covered in gull poo!

Ain't it sweet!

Just when you thought this blog had completely gone off the rails I go post a gem of a picture like this!

It’s a House Martin pullus (baby chick to most) which was one of seven ringed from artificial nest boxes on a house in Dorchester. If you don’t believe me (absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t though…) here’s a picture of me up a ladder!

Also I’ve recently been gauping at a few nice Orchids. I managed to locate an ‘atrofuscus’ Bee Orchid on Radipole which has been known at the site for the last four years but the one I found was at a completely new location to where they’ve occurred before. Two more have since popped up at two other locations on the reserve. I also found another variety on a roadside verge very close to Radipole. Its apparently called ‘belgarum’ which is basically more yellow than a normal Bee Orchid. Nice to see but give me birds any day!

Here’s the atrofuscus

And here’s the belgarum.

Off ringing some Gull pulli tomorrow so look forward to photos of me covered in gull crap!

Its too hard to think of a title

This isn’t going to be a particularly long blog given that I could fall asleep at any second following a weekend at my first music festival of the summer. T’was a rather quiet festival compared to some I’ve been to but still very enjoyable none the less.  A conversation with the current lead singer of Hawkwind was a memorable moment as was discovering the Irish legends that are the Saw Doctors. How the hell have I managed to miss these. Damn my age!

Anyway, just before I set off last week I met up with fellow ringer Andy Daw up at Kingston Maurward to follow up a visit we made a few weeks previous to check some Barn Owl boxes. A few boxes had eggs last time so we were hopeful of a few chicks. As you can see there were some!

Six were ringed in total from two nests plus we ringed a couple of Stock Dove which had moved into some of the boxes.

One box contained Kestrel eggs last time and this time it contained 5 rather small Kestrel chicks. They weren’t big enough to ring so we’ll have to pop back in a couple of weeks.

That’s I’m afraid.  I’m off for a nap!

Where do I start!

Well, there’s been long distance twitching,

There’s been doorstep twitching,

There’s been pulli ringing,

Though some a bit big to ring!

I’d better back track. The first shot is of ’the’ Cream coloured Courser which of course isn’t a type of car (that jokes been done to death). I say ‘the’ as by now any respectable birder and many readers of this blog would have heard about this bird which was present in Herefordshire for a few days a week or so ago. The twitch was a rather epic one and thanks to Brett for putting his ace driving skills to good use. We got there with just a glimmer of sun left but the long journey was worth it! My photo’s don’t do it justice so you’ll just have to trust me when I say it was a real stunner! This shot shows how close the bird was to Wales.

A rather atmospheric shot of Brett taking in the stunning Herefordshire countryside which was all around us.

The ‘doorstep’ twitch concerned a Great Reed Warbler which sang at Radipole for a few days and the rather loud croaky song was audible from my bedroom window! Not bad eh?

Recent ringing has been largely restricted to pulli (chicks). Plenty of tit pulli plus a few Pied Wagtail and Blackbirds which is the rather ugly looking chick in the above photo. The other is a Great Tit which has almost certainly fledged by now.

I promise not neglect my blog for so long ever again!