Meisen Wood: The Great Oktoberfest

Temperature: 28C to 4C

Precipitation: much!

Ringers:  CS and EB

Sound: Great Tit, Redwing & Goldcrest

Species	Ringed	Re-trapped	Total
Blackbird	2		2
Blackcap	1		1
Blue Tit	35	12	47
Chaffinch	3		3
Chiffchaff	2		2
Coal Tit	11	3	14
Dunnock	1		1
Firecrest	8		8
G S Woodpecker		1	1
Goldcrest	256	3	259
Great Tit	342	56	398
Greenfinch	3		3
Jay	1		1
Marsh Tit	2	6	8
Nuthatch	4	5	9
Redwing	62		62
Robin	6	2	8
Short T Treecreeper	2	1	3
Song Thrush	1		1
Treecreeper	1	1	2
Wren	3		3
Total	746	90	836

Oktoberfest: an icon of German culture enjoyed by thousands each autumn.  At these mega – beer festivals copious quantities of golden - amber beer with frothy white heads is served, in large steins or tankards, to joyous crowds delighting in other German traditions and good banter.  The original Oktoberfest, in Munich in 1810, was part of the marriage celebrations of Bavaria’s Crown Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen.  This evolved into an annual event which in its early years had the atmosphere of a fairground coupled with horse racing; later it included an agricultural show too.  In those years beer was served at small stands.  From the 1860s onwards the beer stands were replaced by beer tents and the emphasis was switched to a celebration of beer.  Today the Munich Oktoberfest (others are available) is usually sixteen days of homage to the marriage of the grain and the hop, and beer tents have seating capacities for several thousand quaffers.

In Meisen Wood we have no such revelries, though in this season ringing sessions often end with a mug of hot chocolate liberally laced with rum; or a glass, or two, of glühwein.  Though we do have our own Oktoberfest – a festival of colour! 

October in our wood, like many woods, is a colourful delight.  The trees are dressed in multiple tones of greens, reds, yellows, oranges; and yes, attractive browns while the larches are an incandescent gold.  Throughout the month, and on into November, these tints and tones provide a living tapestry of ever changing hues: a rich statement of spectral boldness to the season’s passage.  And when the wind blows the falling, twirling, spinning, twisting leaves are a spectacular kaleidoscope.  We do not perceive this colourful event as the season’s protracted death throes but as the essential transfer of matter and energy from one trophic level to another; an integral component of the recycling of elements that sustain life.  This arboreal display is augmented by fungi and birds.  The reds and browns of agarics and boleti, the bright whites of inkcaps and mushrooms, the yellows and oranges of coral fungi add colour to the woodland floor.  And birds flitting through the trees provide fine flecks of colour.

Typically October’s totals are the year’s highest, though September’s and March’s figures are not much less.  This October was no different but attaining the totals, shown in the table, was challenging because of persistently wet weather.  Indeed, we only completed one full session though it yielded 167 new birds including a 133 new Great Tits.  Fortunately CS, courtesy of retirement’s liberation, was able to open some nets on numerous occasions while playing dodgems with the downpours.

A confession: we are rather fond of Great Tits.  We admire their riotous yellows, greens, blues, and contrasting tones of black and white.  With a Great Tit in hand one can appreciate the tonal shifts in yellows on their breasts and abdomens, and how these colours transcend and fuse into the greens of the bird’s body; an exotically coloured bird, which is probably a real challenge to the artist’s palette.  Rather fond implies reservations these do exist with this small but often aggressive bird.  Its antagonistic behaviour, particularly at feeders, is not always endearing as, presumably dominant males, viciously attack sub-ordinates; on two occasions we have witnessed the killing of conspecifics.  But then such behaviour is a component of the bird’s biology which allows it to successfully fill its niche, and, as unpalatable as it may seem, Nature is red in claw and bill. 

Through October Great Tits were targeted.  September’s and October’s combined total is a very pleasing 583 new Great Tits ringed.  So why target Great Tits?

In 2018 it became apparent that there was a movement of Great Tits, for about six or seven weeks, along the Teutonburger Hills.  We are curious to know if this is an annual migration or periodic dispersion; is it equal in intensity each year; and where are the birds coming from and wither do they wonder?  Hopefully this year’s data combined with last year’s data and future data will provide some interesting answers. 

Continental Great Tit populations are described as being: sedentary, partial migrants, migrants, are occasionally irruptive, and display extensive juvenile dispersal.  Well, that covers all the possibilities of avian migratory movements.  In all probability Great Tits are a mix of those possibilities.  Research indicates that Great Tit movement, including migration, is an integrated response to population density; and food and nest cavity availability.  Also, Great Tit’s show a hierarchy in their movements: dominant males, adult females, then juvenile males, and juvenile females.  The dominant males stay on territory, or nearby in an endeavour to secure prime territory and thus breed successfully the following year; while juvenile females are the most likely to be forced into dispersal and migratory movements.

The German Migration Atlas indicates that most summer captured adult Great Tits are sedentary; and there is substantial juvenile dispersal which can be over large distances.  Further, there is an autumnal influx of Great Tits from the Baltic States with many of those individuals moving on to the Netherlands, Belgium and northern France. Similar studies in the Baltic States demonstrate a regular autumn passage, particularly of juvenile females, away from the region.  These later studies indicate a strong correlation between population density and food availability and that Great Tit movements show a degree of periodicity i.e. have a cyclic pattern which is not necessarily annual.

So, what does our data indicate?  Adults comprised 4.7% of the whole catch and this was split equally between males and females.  The remaining captures, all juveniles were: 40% males and 60% females.  This is similar to last year’s results where the juvenile cohort was 37% and 63% males to females. This difference is probably statistically significant and conforms to the findings in the Baltic States.

Last autumn’s Great Tit cohort has provided five controls from four birds in the Netherlands.  One Great Tit was controlled, two days after be ringed by us, at a nearby Dutch ringing station, 43km from here.  The others were controlled in an area between Arnhem and Maastricht averaging 130km from here.  One of the controls is particularly interesting as it was initially controlled in December, then again at the same site in early March.  Therefore was it in its wintering area or was it passing through on both occasions?

Hopefully this year’s cohort will provide a similar number of controls.  And already we are looking forward to another Great Tit Oktoberfest in efforts to establish if this exotically coloured bird is a regular migrant along the Teutonburger Hills and whether this movement show periodicity?  Bring on next year’s Oktoberfest; um, maybe its time to go to Munich for a few days too, to try the real thing! 

Meisen Wood: The Young Ones

Nets: 124m

Sound: None

Weather: 9C to 23C some cloud with light wind

Ringers:  CS and EB

Spring, a most anticipated season, has raced by and is essentially over.  Evidence for this was apparent when we opened the nets to a much diminished dawn chorus; volume down, duration shortened and reduced participants in the choral ensemble.  The day’s excellent, well above average, catch presented the explanation: seventy-two of the birds caught were juveniles.  Many choristers of previous dawns have nearly completed their breeding efforts so have no need to advertise themselves and proclaim their territories. 

Species	Ringed	Re-trapped	Total
Blackbird	1	1	2
Blackcap	2		2
Blue Tit	12	3	15
Chiffchaff	1		1
Crested Tit	6	2	8
Dunnock	1		1
G S Woodpecker	7	7	14
Great Tit	6	20	26
Greenfinch	2		2
Hawfinch	2		2
Marsh Tit	5	1	6
Nuthatch	2		2
Pied Flycatcher	1	5	6
Robin		2	2
Song Thrush	1		1
Total	49	41	90

The numbers are above average for several reasons.  Most of the captures came from the nets close to a derelict fountain whose shallow basin we keep topped up with water, a definite attraction in dry woodland; currently the wood is scented by that delightful fragrance particular to pine in prolonged dry periods.  Also we have kept two small feeders going.  This is a partial response to a documentary featuring a well known German naturalist who suggested year round bird feeding as a means, in a minor way, to compensate for the lack of food in the wider environment, a negative consequence of Germany’s intense agro-forestry industries. This is a point that almost certainly applies to many other nations too.

Of particular note is the number of Great Spotted Woodpeckers: the day’s figures included six new juveniles sporting bright red crown feathers.  So far this month we have ringed eleven juvenile Great Spots; and two new adults.  The day’s re-traps included three of those new juveniles one of which had started post-juv moult; moult in these birds is something we are looking forward to monitoring and given the woodpeckers’ tendency for regular re-trapping will hopefully bring some clarity (for us) to moult, and subsequent aging, in this species.

It has certainly been a good year, locally at least, for breeding tits.  All the newly ringed Blue Tits were juveniles – with a wonderful yellow flush through their faces.  And the three re-trapped Blue Tit were birds we had ringed in boxes in the middle of May.  Similarly the new Great Tits were all juveniles and all but two of the re-traps were birds we’d ringed in the last month at various nest boxes.  One of the re-trapped adult Great Tits had been ringed as a nestling in 2016.  This was not quite the oldest bird of the day, that sobriquet went to a Robin originally ringed earlier in 2016. 

Frequently tits are caught as part of a Tit flock and we were delighted to find in the day’s fourth net round a mixed flock of tits that included six Crested Tit and five Marsh Tits.  All the Marsh Tit were juveniles and included one that had been ringed a few weeks back.  Five of the Crested Tits were new juveniles with an adult male which had been ringed in early 2017.  Catching this chirpy crew of Crested Tits was special as our efforts in providing nest boxes for this species have totally failed (so far), but it is pleasing to know they are succeeding somewhere out there in the woods.

Contrary to the morning’s pattern, the two Hawfinches were adults: a male and a female.  The male Hawfinch’s chin feathers were distinctly marked, like a Spanish marquis’ beard.  He had a cloacal protuberance, just; and she a poorly demarcated brood patch: breeding or not breeding that is the question?

Not shown in the table are six more nestling Pied Flycatchers, bringing this year’s total for nestling to forty-two.  With three more boxes with nestlings to ring later in the week this year’s total will be the largest number of Pied Flycatcher nestlings we have ringed in Meisen Wood – so far.  Surprisingly we have never caught a recently fledged nestling and in this respect we differ from much of the published literature.  Numerous Pied Flycatcher studies indicate that fledglings remain in their natal area for up to forty-five days.  The ones we ring seem to fledge and depart.  Though some of those studies reported catching fledglings at distances between 2 and 10km form the natal site; um, 10km to us would be a control.  And the Pied Flys do seem to be departing: when opening the nets we are often accompanied by the warning chip-chip call of adult Pied Flycatchers as we walk through the wood, there were fewer today.

Mist netting is a sampling technique and an inherent variable in any such scientific technique is that some species’ numbers will be skewed, or absent.  Today there were three absentees.  Firecrests were excitedly twittering for most of the morning in the boughs above our ringing table, a ringed male with his fluorescent orange crest most evident, feeding some youngsters (no crests yet). They numbered ten or eleven birds though these miniscule birds are difficult to count in the canopy’s thick foliage.  During the extraction of the aforementioned tit flock a group of Long-tailed Tits deftly avoided the net; this group of some ten individuals included some juveniles too.  Also a small flock of seven crossbills flew over.  These are sporadic visitors to the wood and occasionally come down to net level to drink at the fountain on hot days – to dream the dream; and even better would there be some re-traps from previous visits? 

Meisen Wood: Mid – May

Nets: 130m

Sound: None

Weather: cool to warm (persistent cold E wind)

Ringers:  CS and EB

May is a busy time ringing and we thoroughly enjoy the mix of normal mist netting sessions combining with Tawny Owl box visits, our passerine nest boxes to check and Kestrel boxes as well. This May has been particularly busy: the Tawny Owls have had an excellent breeding season, the best we have recorded; and our passerine boxes seem to have a good occupancy rate too.

The captures table below is from two ringing sessions – the totals in both sessions were slightly above average.

Species	Ringed	Re-trapped	Total
Blackcap	4	1	5
Blue Tit	1	5	6
Bullfinch	2		2
Chaffinch	4		4
Chiffchaff	1	1	2
Crested Tit	1		1
Dunnock		6	6
Firecrest		1	1
G S Woodpecker	1	7	8
Great Tit		11	11
Greenfinch	14		14
Marsh Tit	1	3	4
Mistle Thrush	2		2
Nuthatch		6	6
Pied Flycatcher	5	15	20
Robin	3	2	5
Song Thrush	2		2
Willow Warbler	1		1
Wren	1	2	3
Total	43	60	103

The Mistle Thrush is special bird for us because they are the first of the summer’s returning passerine migrants.  Their arrival at the end of February is our indicator that the seemingly interminable cold winter is really going to end!  When a Mistle Thrush sits at the top of a pine in the first few days of March and sings it’s fluting song with much gusto – noticeably thrush like, with long cadences in its chords - it cheers us up no end while doing garden chores.  Their habit of perching at the top of trees and singing, often in stormy weather, has earned them the colloquial name: stormcock, which according to folklore was supposed to forewarn of coming bad weather.  CS’s father used to consider that poppycock and thought the bird just had a personal sense of joie de vivre – a pleasant thought.  

Each spring we enjoy the Mistle Thrushes’ joie de vivre expression from high in the canopy and have considered it improbable that we would ever catch one of these heralds of spring; as they seem reluctant to descend from on high.  So having two Mistle Thrush simultaneously in a net was totally surprising.  Both were males, with substantial cloacal protuberances, and may have been disputing breeding territory boundaries when they blundered into the net.  Each year several do breed on-site and nearby, and earlier in the month we had observed a Mistle Thrush collecting moss and flying off in the direction where they were caught.

Pied Flycatchers continue to arrive.  The re-capture figures are mostly for first re-captures and include two birds that were ringed as nestlings in 2016 and 2018.  The re-capture from 2016 was particularly pleasing as it is the first re-capture this year of a bird that was not ringed in 2018; we are finding that statistic a tad disturbing. Though these are not phenomenal numbers they give some vindication to our efforts at encouraging their breeding by providing nest boxes – currently nine boxes are with birds on eggs; and several others have males singing in proximity to unoccupied boxes. 

Fourteen new Greenfinch is a surprisingly high number for May and we speculate that these are some of the many Greenfinch that were locally abundant during the winter and have remained to breed; certainly the females had the start of brood patches and several males are pronouncing their presence with their nasal song. 

As the Greenfinch are about to initiate their breeding efforts some birds have completed their first broods as evidenced with the year’s first fledglings being caught. The first fledgling captured was a Marsh Tit.  Simultaneously the three re-trap Marsh Tits had nearly completed their primary moult with moult scores of 42, and two of 46; ah, the seasons roll ever onwards.

Pleasingly this year the nest boxes in Meisen Wood have produced good number of tits; currently we have ringed 150 Great and Blue Tit nestlings with more to come as many are currently too small to ring.  And there are still the Kestrel boxes to visit and Swallows - though initial observations indicate their numbers are down – indeed hirundines in general were late arriving and in low numbers.  We look forward to collecting this valuable data through the rest of May and into early June particularly as some of the time will be spent with visiting ringers.