Hello
A thoroughly miserable, wet and cold day but our wildlife still has to cope out there!
This month sees the start of a colour-ringing programme of Water Rails in the Nene Valley with the first four birds now having colour rings on their legs. Although not a bird regularly seen out in the open for long, there are places in the Nene Valley where it is possible to obtain reasonable views of these secretive birds.
The key purpose of this project is to enable recognition of individual birds using cameras or observer sightings with a view to determining movements around sites, monitor nesting behaviour and to perhaps discover post-breeding dispersal, without the need to trap them again. Being so secretive, very little is known about Water Rails during the breeding season, and hopefully this project will shed some light on their behaviour and requirements.
The birds are initially trapped, aged where possible and their gender established with the measurement of tarsus, bill and wing. Each bird is affixed with a metal ring and a colour ring with a number, a white coloured ring denotes a male and yellow a female.
This project will initially run for three years with birds being trapped and marked during this time and is managed by members of the Northants Ringing Group. Anyone seeing a Water Rail so marked is asked to photograph and report it.
A few stoic observers out there today reported the two Glossy Ibis still at Stanwick Pits and a Bewick's Swan was photographed at Summer Leys LNR this morning. Birds in the Brampton Valley below Hanging Houghton today included hundreds of Fieldfares, a Great White Egret standing in a field and just two Common Snipe at nearby Blueberry Farm. A quick visit to Fineshade Top Lodge in the rain this afternoon to check on the whitebeam and rowan trees failed to locate any Waxwings (a flock of 47 reported yesterday there).
Regards
Neil M
 |
| Water Rails courtesy of Chris Payne. |
No comments:
Post a Comment