Southport Stunners

I've just returned from spending the week down in Manchester with the gang and had a fab time. One of the main highlights of the week was getting to join in on my first Southport ringing session with Ciaran & Kane. I have heard many stories about the infamous Southport and so was quite eager to experience ringing at the site first hand. We started off our visit with a spot of Coot catching (what else!) and caught a good number of Coots to add to the ongoing colour marking project. We then moved onto Black-headed Gulls.

Ciaran and Kane started a new project in The North West of England back in March this year. The project aims to find out more information about Black-headed Gulls by using uniquely coded blue darvic rings. More information about the project can be found Here. If you see any Black-headed Gulls with a blue darvics on, starting with the number 2 then please email - bhgulls'@'gmail.com.

And finally Ciaran makes his debut on my blog with his favourite  BHG -  2A00

After visiting a few more local catching sites we decided to stop off for lunch in good old McDonalds (a very handy place for mucky ringers!). Whilst sitting in the car eating our (very healthy!) lunch we decided to do a bit of multi-tasking by setting up some potter traps for Starlings. To our surprise not only were the Starlings extremely keen on the potters but so too were the local Black-headed Gulls. Unfortunately the gulls could not quite work out how to access the delicious Mcfrench fries but the Starlings did and so I got to ring my first Starling. I had been warned by many a ringer that Starlings are very messy birds and should be handled with care so whilst sat in my dear little Chillibug (yes I named my car) I took extra care not to get any 'mess' inside. To my surprise the little fella was very clean and well behaved - is this a unique bird or have people been pulling my leg?!

Great wee birds and check out the plumage...oooft!

After lunch we started the old 'lets cover Gillian's car in gull bait and poo' game (not my favourite game!). We had great success, catching many Black-headed Gulls and my first Common Gull!

Common Gull

After we left the now very much loved Southport we travelled over to Preston docks for some more gulls. On the way we couldn't resist a quick stop off for some light Coot catching and the guys caught these beauties whilst there!

Three wet, scruffy, happy ringers!

This was my first time at Preston docks and what a catching site! It's almost as good as my wee Linlithgow ; ) Whilst at Preston I decided to give gull grabbing 'a la car' a try and to my surprise I was rather good at it and ended up catching quite a few. Unfortunately though my arms can't quite reach the gulls on the sunroof so I had to go for the windscreen option. I really enjoyed catching them from the car and will definitely be doing it again soon.

A new edition to the North West project (photo Ciaran Hatsell)

A great time was had by all and I must say I can definitely see the charm of Souhport and look forward to my next visit there. Thanks goes to Kane & the gang and to McDonalds who I personally think should start sponsoring us, purely for the amount of mentions they get on our blogs - free gull fries perhaps?!

English Gold

I write this having just returned back to Scotland from a nice wee weekend down in Manchester with Chris & Kane. It was a varied weekend which included a couple of new ringing experiences for me.

On Saturday morning we got up early and set up the mist net in Kane's garden with the aim of catching the visiting Goldies. We caught 8 new Goldfinches that morning along with a Long-tailed tit and a couple of obligatory Blue Tits. Goldfinches are by far my favourite garden bird to both observe and to ring, so bright and cheery and always puts a smile on my face!

One of the stunning male Goldfinches of the morning

After the morning's mist session we headed over to Dunham Massey to help Steve Christmas ring a brood of 3 Mute swan cygnets, each recieving a dark blue Darvic along with a standard BTO metal ring. This was my first time doing a swan brood. When ringing a swan brood you have to tie their wings and feet to prevent them from escaping before the ringing process is complete. Previously I have only ever used jackets at Abbotsbury to restrain the swans and it was nice to use a different technique. The Abbotsbury swan catch 2011 will be on BBC1 tonight at 7pm and there's a good chance that I might appear!.

DN6 - all ringed and ready to go.

Whilst at Dunham Massey the guys managed to catch a few Canada geese which were great to ring (bringing back fond memories of The Llangorse Catch ). It was great being taught how to age the Cangos, something of which I missed out on at Llangorse.

Kane ringing one of the Cangos

We then headed off to some Coots sites to add some more willing Coots to the project. By the end of Saturday I was covered in cuts and scratches - I had forgotten how feisty the English Coots can be, especially compared to the relatively placid Scottish ones. Weirdly I always thought it would be the Scottish ones that would be the real fighters!

After getting back to Kane's and cleaning all of the Coot 'you know what' off we decided to go out dazzling. This was the first time I had been dazzling and Chris lead the way. Unfortunately after roaming around the dark Lancashire countryside for several hours we can up blank and so headed back.

Ever the optimists! 

On Sunday we again mist netted in the garden, catching more of the English golden beauties. We then went off in search of some more Coots. In total we Darviced 4 new Coots and  7 recaps.

Whilst out searching for Coots Kane ran into an old friend in the form of L06072 - a Canada goose which he ringed back in 2006! On Sunday night we had one last try with dazzling and discouragingly we came up blank again. I'm sure with a little bit of tweaking and technique perfecting we will one day mange to successfully dazzle - never say never! Once again a really great weekend was had and thanks goes to the guys and Steve Christmas, roll on next weekend!

...and don't forget if you see any colour marked Coots you can email Kane at kanebrides'@'gmail.com and if you see any other colour marked wildfowl then you can email your sightenings to colourmarkedwildfowl'@'wwt.org.uk. 

Introducing The New Scottish Team Coot

This weekend saw the formation of Scottish Team Coot. After all of the planning and hard work it was finally time to colour mark some Scottish Coots.

On Friday I picked up Chris & Kane from the train station in Linlithgow and took them down to the my favourite Coot site: Linlithgow Loch. I have been counting the Coots at Linlithgow Loch over the past few months, watching the numbers gradually grow up to 350+ last week and it was great to finally be able to mark a sample of the population.

Scottish Darvics - coming to a Coot near you.

It wasn't long before I grabbed the team's first Bonnie Coot which received a lovely new Darvic along with the standard BTO metal ring. The day's total came to 20 new and 1 recap, not a bad start to the project.

CAA - the very first Scottish marked Coot

We noted a few metal ringed Black-Headed Gulls whilst there and so attempted to catch a few. We managed to catch this Swedish control.

Swedish control - photo stolen from Kane Brides

After Linlithgow and introducing the guys to some traditional Scottish cuisine (deep fried pizza) we ventured over to my 'local patch' of Stirling University and Airthrey Loch. The Coots on the loch decided that they didn't want any new Darvics so we decided to catch this beautiful male Goosander instead - my first Goosander!

What a stunner!

This stunning beauty has now overtaken my previous favourite (Water Rail) and has become my new favourite bird to have ringed, what a beauty and so lovely to hold. Massive gratitude goes to Kane for catching him and by hand no less!

My new favourite bird!

After meeting up with some more Dinsmores for a cuppa we were off the The Scottish Ringer's Conference up in Aviemore (one of my favourite places in Scotland). We had a superb couple of days at the conference and enjoyed many talks, personal favourites were talks by Ewan Weston, Raymond Duncan, Tony Fox  and Euan Ferguson.

During an afternoon break the three of us took a trip to Loch Garten to try and see some Crested Tits (of which myself and Kane have never seen before). We took a short walk to some woodland bird feeders and were lucky enough to observe many Crested Tits close up but as we arrived at the bird feeders someone else stole the show - the resident Coal Tits. The Coal Tits were incredibly tame and would land on our hands, heads and even phones - what an experience, sorry Cresties!

There's a Coal Tit on my head!

I really enjoyed myself at the conference, getting to swap stories, talk to many of the people I have been pestering with ringing emails recently and meeting lots of new people and networking. I especially enjoyed hearing about the gull grabbing antics in Aberdeen and getting an offer to ring at Bobby Smith's famous Sand Martin wall next season, can't wait! Well done to the Grampian Ringers for hosting the conference and entertaining us for the weekend., I especially loved the videos and would love to help out on some of the groups projects if they'll have me!

We had to leave the conference early on the Sunday as Kane was giving a talk at my uni. I really enjoyed the talk and Kane did a fantastic job of inspiring the students to get out and start looking for colour marks.

Fly By Night

On Monday we visited my other Coot sites and ringed 13 new Black-Headed Gulls including my very first hand caught one, which was shortly followed by a couple more. I really love catching and ringing Black-Headed Gulls, I don't know why there is just something special about them.

My first hand caught Black-Headed Gull

In Edinburgh Kane, once again, showed off his amazing hand catching skills by catching me this beautiful Tufted duck, another new species for me and such a bonnie wee duck to hold and admire at close quarters.

A Bonnie Tuftie - mega thanks to the hand catching master Mr Birdes for this one!

Throughout our catching trips Kane was teaching me how to take biometrics so that one day (hopefully soon) when I have my C permit I will be able to go out and add some Coot data to the project on my own. It was interesting to note that the Scottish Coots seem to be a bit heavier than the English ones, although as only 20 were caught it is too early to confirm. I'm also learning from the master about improving my hand catching techniques and manged to catch quite a lot Coots over the weekend. I think I'm starting to learn the art of Coot mind reading!

Reading this Coot's mind I could tell he was about to poo on me!

I had such an amazing weekend and cannot wait until the next time Scottish Team Coot comes together - hopefully with some more members on the next trip. I want to thank you all of the ringers and land owners who have given us their permissions to ring at their sites, to my sister Elaine for letting us invade her flat for the night and of course I want to say a huge thanks to the new Scottish Team Coot for a class weekend and some top banter as usual - you guys made my weekend : )

Scottish Team Coot

If you see any colour marked Coots in the UK then please email your sightings to kanebrides'@'gmail.com