Nesseby Ringmerken

Following on from Nigel and Sissel's excellent success this week they did have one stand out bird which we felt deserved a post all to itself. Nigel tells us the story. I was playing sound for Olive-backed Pipit down in Dingley Dell (a particular net ride that was christened "Dingley Dell" by the Belvide Ringers team during their stay) and did my usual check and could see this pipit on the bottom shelf which had white wing bars.  Feeling a little excited and making sure it did not escape and put it in a bird bag as quick as I could. On getting back to the ringing table, I knew I had a good bird but there are a couple of birds that fit this type of species the most common being  Red-throated Pipit which is a local breeding species.  I took a few biometrics and photos.  I had an idea the bird in question was a Pechora Pipit, but to double check I put the photos on the national bird recording system with a query. This allows others to verify and contribute to ident...

Our wonderful Hosts, Nigel and Sissel are keen for you to keep up to date with all the Ringing News from Nesseby. They have kindly agreed to send us regular updates for the blog New species at the Ringing Station This first week, after our good fellow ringers left Nesseby, we have tried to cope as best as we can to keep up the outstanding results while you were here. It is not possible to get the same numbers of birds, but we have managed to widen the species list with 3 new species ringed; Hobby, Tree pipit and Marsh warbler, which we are very proud of. Marsh warbler is a very rare bird in Finnmark with, in fact, the only two recorded in the counties Troms and Finnmark so far this year are the two we have ringed. Hobby Marsh Warbler Tree Pipit The total number of birds we have ringed last week was 1032. We would like to point out the increasing number of Reed bunting, which reached 268 birds last week. We are also getting a small number of retraps of Reed bunting from last September, ...

Here we are at Kirkenes airport reflecting on a superb 10 day ring trip hosted by Nigel and Sissel at Nesseby on the Varanger peninsula. The weather was kind and we only missed a couple of afternoons due to strong winds. We ended up with a super total of 3902 birds ringed, 2500 of which were Redpoll. We have posted some images already looking at the plumage variation in this species and readers how check out our previous trips ( http://varangerringing.blogspot.com/ ) will see our continuing debate about this topic. Most guides recognise 3 distinct species in Europe… the nominate species is usually referred to as either Common/ Mealy Redpoll; the Lesser Redpoll breeds in the UK and most books recognise the Arctic Redpoll as a separate species.  The birds we have been catching are mainly Common/ Mealy Redpoll with 3 key features; a relatively large bill, streaked rump and streaked undertail coverts as shown below: However, many of the birds show variations on this theme- here is a ty...

 A brief review of the day to start with. Quite a good start but the wind increased and had to furl the nets about 10am. So we decided to visit a known site for Common Crane, which was successful and then a drove slowly looking for Great Grey Shrike and Northern Hawk Owl. No shrikes but we did see a Hawk Owl which gave brief but conclusive binocular views but unfortunately it flew off before we could get the telescopes on it. We went back for lunch and at 2pm we reopened the nets after which we again had lots of birds, especially Redpoll (again), but also a super little phyllosc (leaf warbler) see later. For now we would try to give you some idea of the variation in Redpoll that we have been banging on about, so here is a bit of a gallery of plumage types. This is perhaps the least attractive stage, which is a juvenile bird recently having left the nest as shown by the speckled breast and head with no red showing yet. This is a slightly older juvenile which has moulted out some of ...

Apologies for no blog yesterday, but things got fairly busy in the evening period. Yesterday was a pretty good day with 314 new birds of 11 species. Redpoll dominated with 278 but there were signs of more movement in Reed Buntings, Brambling and Meadow Pipit although so far there is little evidence of the mass movements of Meadow Pipits that we have experienced in previous years. Today dawned still and reasonably bright but with a potential forecast of intermittent rain (which fortunately didn’t materialise). It became obvious at first light that it was a major day for Redpoll migration and as it turned out, it was a record breaking day for the site with a staggering 525 Redpoll out of a total of 641 new birds. Yesterdays suggestion of increased movement in other species was also born out with 44 Reed Buntings, 30 Brambling and 17 Meadow Pipits. To give you an idea of the scale of Redpoll migration, here is a picture of just 2 of the nets at 5pm, showing around 30 Redpoll.  Fortuna...

  Today dawned reasonably bright with much less wind than yesterday. It was a probably the slowest start we have had but eventually the numbers of birds built up, and we ended with 211 of new birds ringed, of 16 species. The biggest difference was the number of redpoll. In any normal situation 110 redpoll in a day would be an excellent result but because it was only a third of the number we had yesterday things felt very different. However, the variety and numbers of other species built up encouragingly throughout the morning. One species in particular provided us with a fascinating ageing conundrum. From the picture you can see, the right wing is adult, whereas the left wing is still in juvenile plumage…. answers on a postcard. 14 Siberian Tits in a day was a local record and 7 Lapland Buntings was an indication of them being on passage.  Since we have been here the number of waders has been disappointing but today it was clear that there had been an influx. We devised a plan...