Water Rail session.

On Wednesday evening, we have done a short capture session within the context of Water Rail protocol (nets in a squarre shape with a diagonal in the middel)
Between 8pm and 12pm, we have captured 11 Water Rails: not that bad for the first session of this year...!

Water Rail (Rallus aquaticus).

A crazy week!

This week, the counter went wild at the ringing station! The influx of Tits confirmed and increased with massive catchings in our nets, generally in the early afternoon. Moreover, a lot of turdidae arrived as well these last days. These were all the ingredients for amazing sessions!
It all started last wednesday with 176 captures, 116 of them being Tits. The next day, we surpassed our record of this year with 341 birds caught, among these 257 Tits. Then, on Saturday, we surpassed this record again with 370 captures, among these 149 Tits and the same amount of turdidae. However, Monday's session was the best session ever made at the station: we reached almost 600 captures (more precisely 599), including 328 Tits and 175 turdidae. And, what's more, is that these little Tits are coming for far away since we can add that among all these captures, quite a few were birds ringed in other countries: 2 Blue Tits ringed in Belgium, 8 Great Tits ringed in Belgium, 3 in Holland, 4 in Littuany and 1 in Russia!!!
 Furthermore, we have had a nice diversity of capture this week: 2 Common Redstars,
1 European Crested Tit, our first 2 Eurasian Woodcocks, 3 Green Woodpeckers, 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker, our first adult male Eurasian Sparrowhawk of 2012, 2 Eurasian Jay, 1 Willow Warbler and 1 garden warbler (these last two are a bit late...).

Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius).

European Crested Tit (Lophophanes cristatus).

Eurasian Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola).

Common Redstar, young male (Phoenicurus phoenicus).

Green Woodpecker, female (Picus viridis).

Eurasian Sparrowhawk, beautiful adult male (Accipiter nisus).

Bullfinch,female (Pyrrhula pyrrhula).

A great session!

This Sunday, the morning was weard, because we haven't seen any birds migrating during the day (like tits and turdidae) but the birds are well and truly presents. All in all, this has been our best session of the year (up to now!) with 240 birds trapped. The influx continues and we capture mainly tits (mostly great tits, blue tits and almost no coal tits compared to other ringing's sites). We could also mention the capture of quite a few firecrests and goldcrests.
Since yesterday, the bad weather is returning but our number of captures are still honorable with about 80 birds by session. 
The tits are still presents and we even recaptured one Great Tit and one Blue Tit that have been ringed in Belgium! We also captured our tenth Sparrowhawk in the helgoland trap yesterday and one chaffinch this morning. 

Eurasian Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus).

Blue Tit Cyanistes caeruleus).

Goldcrest and Common Firecrest (Regulus regulus et Regulus ignicapillus).

Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs).

Coal Tit (Periparus ater).

Thanks a lot to Fabien for his help!

Tit's are invading!

Great ringing week at Fort Vert station! The North East wind fulfilled all its promises with the massive arrival of tits in the end of this wednesday and thursday mornings. Altogether, 282 birds have been captured in two days; among these 74 great tits and 40 blue tits. We also captured a Yellow-browed warbler once again, as our first Wood Pigeon, a Green Woodpecker, a common Redstar and a Common Starling thanks to the helgoland trap.  
This morning, the weather deteriorated and we only did a small session with 46 captures including some few more tits.

Long tail tit (Aegithalos caudatus).

Yellow browed warbler, one more! (Phylloscopus inornatus).

This week's duet!

Great tit and Blue Tit (Parus major et Cyanistes caeruleus).

A chubby Wood Pigeon! (Columba palumbus).

Short-toed Treecreeper (Certhya brachydactyla).

Common Redstar, male  (Phoenicurus phoenicurus).

Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis).

Here come the trushes!

We were starting to desesperate when we have finally had a correct weather with a wind coming from North East. For us, this means more birds coming from North and searching for a better climate to spend the winter. We have seen the first significant influx of trushes and blackbirds and we even celebrated, last sunday morning, our first redwing's captures of the year.
As a consequence, our catchings are increasing and we've passed a hundred captures these last two days and we've reached 81 captures this morning. 
Among these, we captured a second Yellow-browed warbler only a few meters aways from where we caught the first one! We can also enhanced the captures of about ten coal tits, another common redstar, 1 stonechat and 1 common starling thanks to the helgoland trap and also a female Sparrowhawk in the canopy net this morning. 

Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris).

Yellow-browed warbler, the second one! (Phylloscopus inornatus).

Blackbird, adult male (Turdus merula).

Eurasian Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus).

Redwing (Turdus iliacus).

Article of October 2, 2012 : Raining days...!

The bad weather doesn’t really want to release us. These are rainstorm which fell at home last week. Thus, we couldn’t ring during two consecutive days and the other days were not very famous either. Last Thursday, we just had time to visit once our nets before having to enclose hastily the session in the rain …
Results are still rather weak. However, it can be noted the passage of some Redstarts (6 catches these last days including 3 in one time in the trap) and we continue to capture Coal Tits but always one by session! Sunday’s session was the best with 88 catches 11 of whom were Dunnocks and 1 Chaffinch.
As usual, to finish small pictures:

Redstart, young male (Phoenicurus phoenicurus).

Redstart, adult male (Phoenicurus phoenicurus).

Redstart, female and male (Phoenicurus phoenicurus).

Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs).

Firecrest (Regulus ignicapillus).

Article of October 4, 2012: A short lull period and a good surprise

Yesterday, the weather was so disastrous that we couldn't ring. Fortunately, this morning the weather was much better and we could open the nets. It was really worth it! Indeed, even though we didn't capture a lot of birds (around 30 birds), a (very) small surprise has been caught in the nets: 1 Yellow-browed Warbler!

And now, we're just wating for the dusky warblers, greenish warblers, palla's warbler , etc ( Yes, I know, we're dreaming...)

Yellow-browed Warbler (Phyllocopus inornatus).

Article of September 24, 2012 : Our first Jays!

Yesterday the weather forecast predicted us to stay very quietly at home with fairly strong winds and besides the rain that must arrive around 11 am. As we always prefer to take our chances, arriving at the station there was only a slight east wind, on the other hand the rain came earlier than expected around 9 am... It's a pity, because the morning started pretty well with 71 captures, 2 Tree Pipits and our first Jays of the season (three at once!).

Otherwise thrushes arrive and this week we begin to capture Song Thrushes! Yesterday, we also heard our first Redwing, also our first Brambling and some Crossbills.

Since Thursday we had good diversified with again the capture of one Coal tit, 1 Green Woodpecker, 1 Spotted Flycatcher. Friday was the best morning with 134 birds caught including 1 Green Woodpecker (again…), 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker, another Wryneck in the Trap and our first Dutch control: a Blackcap!

Jay (Garrulus glandarius).

Tree Pipit (Anthus trivialis).

Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis).

Goldcrest (Regulus regulus).

Coal Tit (Periparus ater).

The ringing table.

Article of September 19, 2012 : Where are the migratory birds...!!??

Definitely this year, birds sulk the north coast!! While the nearby regions sees movements of tits, nuthatches, jays, us we don’t see the slightest feathers in our nets...  Even Backcaps is captured in low size!

To console, we made some good catches with: our third Hobby! 3 Sparrowhawks in 4 days, 1 control of Wryneck (he takse 4 grams in 4 days!), two Great Spotted Woodpeckers, again two Blackcaps ringed in Belgium, our two first Firecrest and a Nuthatch this morning.

Hobby (Falco subbuteo).

Sparrowhawk, female (Accipiter nisus).

Firecrest (Regulus ignicapillus).

Nuthatch (Sitta europaea).

The "master of time" alias mister Eric.

Article of September 15, 2012 : Invaders arrive..?!

Invasion or not? Every year we ask the same question, Coal tits will be there?

Difficult to answer but all the “lights are green”: since July first movements are reported in north and eastern Europe, in August more and more observations are noted on the migration monitoring sites near to us (Netherlands, Belgium, England), and in early September the first ones arrived in France in the eastern part (Ardennes, Lorraine). So we were really happy to capture “ours " on Wednesday in the trap (and it’s another new species for the station!).

Otherwise the weather didn’t make us gifts this week, preventing us even from ringing these last two days! In particular, we can note the capture of our fifth Wryneck and the control of one Sparrowhawk in the canopy net that we caught few days ago in the trap.

Coal Tit (Periparus ater).

Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos).

Wryneck (Jynx torquilla).

Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler, I'll let you guess which one it is...?

(Phylloscopus trochilus - Phylloscopus collybita).