Welcome to the LDV NNR ringing blog, this blog is designed to share the experiences, findings and tales from a group of dedicated ringers. We specialise in conservation orientated research projects, largely focusing on wildfowl, waders, owls and birds of conservation concern, in and around the Vale of York NNR's.

NB - Whilst the purpose of this blog was initially designed to cover our nationally important wildfowl ringing activities, it now also features wildlife and work posts, explaining how we manage the NNR for both wildlife and people.

For daily sightings please visit our Twitter account: https://twitter.com/ldv_nnr (@LDV_NNR)

For details of events, volunteer tasks and wildlife images please visit our Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/Lower-Derwent-Valley-Skipwith-Common-NNR

Thursday 3 May 2012

29/04/12 - The valley goes under....

Over the weekend the rain continued to fall, with Sunday being particularly heavy, resulting in the river finally going over the floodbanks at North Duffield...... 


North Duffield Carrs goes under...




Despite the weather Craig spent the weekend scoping Whimbrel and tracking the radio-tagged bird from Friday night. Spells of light rain on Saturday allowed reasonable scoping views and resulted in 6 ‘new’ sightings of Whimbrel, plus 2 already seen this year (L/L-Y, L/R-P). Sunday’s poor conditions made viewing the birds difficult but Craig did manage to read off another new combination for this year. Details of the new birds for 2012 are listed below, we’re now upto 17 colour-ringed Whimbrel sightings since their arrival two weeks ago – this is the most returning birds we’ve recorded in one year since the project began back in 2004! 

Craig managed to track the radio tagged Whimbrel pretty much none stop over the weekend bar losing it for a few hours on Sunday. It took him to a new roost site, presumably chosen due to the fact that the birds had been flooded off their original roost site (Wheldrake) followed shortly after by the second site they had moved to (Thorganby) which went under on Friday night. It has also led us to two new fields that we haven’t seen used in the past (but they may have been, we just haven’t known about it!) as well as several other fields used over the years.


New colour-ringed Whimbrel sightings for 2012:


Whimbrel: White/Yellow-Pink

2010 - Ringed on 26th April.
2012 - Re-sighted by CR on 27th April.


Whimbrel: White/Yellow-Red

2008 - Ringed on 25th April.
2009 - Re-sighted by DT & PR on 20th & 25th April.
2011 - Re-sighted by PR on 20th & 25th April.
2012 - Re-sighted by CR on 28th April.


Whimbrel: Orange/Orange-Red

2008 - Ringed on 25th April.
2009 - Re-sighted by PR on 24th April.
2011 - Re-sighted by PR on 25th April.
2012 - Re-sighted on 28th April.


Whimbrel: Yellow/Orange-Lime

2005 - Ringed on 2nd May, re-sighted on the 10th.
2006 - Re-sighted by CR & DT on 2nd May.
2007 - Re-sighted by CR & DT on 30th April & 5th May.
2012 - Re-sighted by CR on 28th April.


Whimbrel: Red/Yellow-Yellow

2008 - Ringed on 25th April.
2012 - Re-sighted by CR on 28th April.


Whimbrel: Yellow/Red-Red

2008 - Ringed on 25th April.
2009 - Re-sighted by PR on 29th April.
2011 - Re-sighted by PR on 21st April.
2012 - Re-sighted by CR on 28th April.


Whimbrel: Yellow/Red-Pink

2010 - Ringed on 26th April.
2012 - Re-sighted by CR on 29th April.


From the 100 birds colour-ringed since 2004, we have now had a re-sighting rate back at the roost in a subsequent year of over 50% - a fantastic result with probably in the order of 200 individual re-sightings.  Interestingly, we’ve just had the one re-sighting away from the valley - a bird seen on the Ythan Estuary two autumn’s running.

No comments:

Post a Comment