On Saturday 8 Feb a short ringing session at Heysham Nature Reserve saw 19 birds of 9 species caught:
5 Blue Tits
4 Goldfinch
2 Chaffinch, 2 Greenfinch, 2 Robins
1 each of Blackbird, Long-tailed Tit, Dunnock and Great Tit
All typical birds using the feeders.
Most (66%) were adults and most (63%) were retraps. as is usual at this time of year.
The oldest bird was a Blue Tit which was first ringed as a juv in 2018 at Middleton Nature Reserve, so almost 7 years old. Pretty ancient for Blue Tits as most only live for 2-3 years.
The oldest Blue Tit so far in the UK was 12 years old according to the latest information on the BTO website. An AI generated report on Google said there was a Blue Tit aged 21 years and this was repeated on some websites but the original source of this data couldn't be found so I wonder if the 12 years was mistyped at some point? It shows you have to check your sources if numbers are involved.
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Saturday's aged Blue Tit looking nice and healthy! |
Janet took some shots on the reserve today.
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Is this the 7 year old? No way of knowing. Only mist netting and checking any previously ringed birds can hope to keep track of the resident birds. |
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Robin |
Red Nab was almost covered but the ducks and geese were feeding close to the sea wall, when no one was passing. This is the first time for over a week that the tide has reached this far, perhaps the closer in gutweed has had a chance to grow slightly.
Pale-bellied Brent geese 25
Shelduck 42
Wigeon 150
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The ducks and geese moving away from the sea wall as someone walked along it |
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But they quickly returned. The Brent geese normally fly south much earlier in the tide than this. Perhaps their next feeding area is also getting low on suitable food. |
Janet checked later, the tide had gone, and so had the birds!
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The last two Shelduck waddling off |
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This was on the saltmarsh. A Sea Potato (Common Heart Urchin) Not rare, as its name suggests, but quite rarely seen here. |
Heysham skear (Malcolm)
I went down as the tide was exposing the skear
Pale-bellied Brent goose 20+
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Some of the Brent geese arriving |
Eider 117 including a high proportion of 2nd calendar year males.
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Mature male Eider trying to attract a couple of females |
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Immature male Eider with a female |
Red-breasted Merganser 4. Seems it was a day for courtship.
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42 Curlew just north of Sunnyslopes groyne |
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One of the Peregrines is the one with a dislocated talon. |
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