Meisen Wood: My, what large eyes you have!

Date: 28-4-2018

Nets: 105m – new summer configuration

Music: none

Weather: slight breeze, 14°C rising to 19°C

Ringers: CS and EB

Species	Ringed	Re-trapped	Total
Blackbird	1	2	3
Blackcap	1	1	2
Blue Tit		1	1
Bullfinch	1		1
Crested Tit		1	1
Firecrest		1	1
Goldcrest		1	1
Great Tit		2	2
Marsh Tit		2	2
Pied Flycatcher	1	4	5
Short-toed Treecreeper	1		1
Song Thrush	1		1
Wren		2	2
Total	6	17	23

A fine morning’s bird ringing in near perfect conditions: warm, slightly overcast and an occasional light breeze.  The number of captured birds was within expectations and several of them illustrated points of seasonal interest.

All week it had been evident the number of Pied Flycatcher in the wood have been increasing with more singing males.  The newly ringed Pied Flycatcher was a male, aged 6.  One of the re-traps was a male originally ringed in May 2016 and has been caught several times each spring; this demonstrates typical site fidelity that is associated with male Pied Flycatcher.

Catching low numbers of birds allows time to carefully examine the in-hand specimens.  This is particularly useful with Pied Flycatchers because their moult strategy can present challenges in aging some individuals.  Also it allows time to appreciate other components of a bird’s anatomy and beauty.  Until today we had not really appreciated the size of Pied Flycatcher eyes.  For some species e.g., Robin it has been postulated that their large eyes are an adaptation to life on the forest floor amongst the undergrowth.  Such a hypothesis does not seem to hold for Pied Flycatcher who inhabit the well light forest canopy or open scrubland; though their large eyes will be an adaptation to some aspect to the niche they occupy.

During the week several male Pied Flycatcher had been observed singing in close proximity to nest boxes including one male next to a box fitted with a TV camera.  Thus we were delighted this morning to watch a male escort a female, who was carrying nesting material, to this nest box.  Now the suspicion is that we are about to become TV addicts.

All the females captured today, except one, had brood patches. The exception was a new captured Blackcap which had a fat score of 5 and weighed 21.2g; clearly this individual is still on migration.  This is a delightful seasonal juxtaposition of breeding birds mixing with migrating birds.

Sadly, sometimes, due to the close encounters bird ringing allows, we do catch sick birds.  Infrequently, fortunately, we catch Chaffinch with papillomatosis - a foot infection; people sometimes see this “warty” like growth on Chaffinch visiting their bird feeders.  When we catch such individuals we release them immediately and clean our hands with an anti-sceptic gel.  Today we caught a Blue Tit with swollen, bulging, watery eyes.  On close inspection we counted 19 small ticks on his eyelids; these were too small to safely remove.  We do wonder how his vision maybe impaired and thus his survival chances too.

This slow session was enhanced by other events in the natural world.  All morning the slight breeze carried a green confetti of beech leaf bud scales; fortunately they just fell through the mist nets.  Numerous butterflies graced the meadow and woodland edge spiralling nuptial dance flights were a delight to watch; species included: Brimstone Yellow, several White types, Peacocks and a large number of Orange Tips visiting wild garlic flowers. 

While we watched the wildlife some wildlife watched us.  A Tawny Owl sat in a larch tree, as it has been for several days now, looking in our direction all morning.  This Tawny Owl nonchalantly ignored the mobbing from almost hysterical vocal blackbirds.  Periodically it was joined by another Tawny Owl.  There had been a breeding pair, in an old hollow beech tree, that seem to have been evicted by the incessant harassment of Jackdaws; were these that pair?

Chris