Bird Ringing at Umzumbe Floodplain 11.03.2012

What a great few hours of ringing before the wind got too strong and almost blew over a net, a good job we packed up then as just after we left it started to rain and 127mm of rain came down in the next 10 hours.
Anyway the ringing was good with 43 birds being ringed and 4 recaptures, 2 of which were Great Reed Warblers that I ringed in January 2012 and the other 2 were Yellow Weavers of which one was ringed as an adult female on 11th October 2003, this is now the longevity record for this species, just shows the importance of a constant ringing site.

Birds ringed included 7 juvenile African (Bluebilled) Firefinch's you can clearly see the nodules instead of the gape.

juvenile African Firefinch

A few Warblers were ringed including Great Reed and African Reed as well as 2 Dark-capped Yellow Warblers

young Dark-capped Yellow Warbler

Another special bird was a Redfaced Cisticola, only the second one that I have ringed so this was a very special bird indeed.

Redfaced Cisticola

Numerous other birds were caught and ringed but they are all very common at this spot and have been discussed in other posts

Orangebreasted Waxbill

While catching Barn Swallows at the Umzumbe Swallow Roost I was lucky to get this little stunner in the net. This male Orangebreasted Waxbill is such a stunner and he seems to know it. Looking at it you can understand why it is such a sought after aviary bird, but it is still better to see them in the wild where they belong.

Ringing Report

What a terrible day with the weather for ringing, although rain was forecast it only started once the nets were erected, gave me a short amount of time to catch a few birds then started to rain. The nets came down and the rain stopped, Never mind it was well worth the effort to catch 4 birds previously ringed at the same spot, these included a Yellowrumped Tinkerbird from just over 3 years ago.

Yellowrumped Tinkerbird

Greenbacked Camaroptera

Amongst the newly ringed birds were an adult and immature Redcapped Robin-chat

 

immature Redcapped Robin-chat

I also caught 4 young Olive Thrush, this is the maximum number of eggs recorded in one clutch, so the adults did well to raise all 4 of them.

immature Olive Thrush

Rare Birds caught at Umzumbe Barn Swallow Roost

This week has already given 1 major surprise at the Umzumbe Barn Swallow Roost, yesterday evening the first bird caught was not a swallow but a Quail, and Harlequin Quail at that. This is a KZN rarity so of course now the extra work of filling in all the forms required begins, luckily I have a few photo's as proof like the following two pictures.

male Harlequin Quail

Then the previous evening I caught a young Redheaded Quelea, although not a rarity it is regarded in most circles as a nonbreeding winter visitor to our coast, despite the fact that I often catch adults in full breeding plumage as well as immature and juvenile birds like this.

juvenile Redheaded Quelea

Last weeks best

Last week was very quiet except for the Barn Swallow ronging, over the last weekend I ringed 99 Barn Swallows making the seasons total so far 595 birds.

While I was catching swallows on Thursday evening the nets were being packed away and 2 stragler birds flew into the already closed nets, they were no Swallows but Little Bee-eaters, one of the most attractive birds on the Umzumbe Floodplain.

Little Bee-eater

A close up of the Little Bee-eater

I also went to investigate a Crowned Eagle nest in Hibberdene where I found the chick to be excercising his wings in anticipation of flying for the first time.

young African Crowned Eagle - I hate the tree though

Ringing on Umzumbe Floodplain 15.01.2012

What a great day for ringing, cloud cover and no wind giving a great oportunity to catch some more Warblers and hopefully give some of the new visitors to the ringing sessions a chance to learn more about them. While we were erecting the nets the Eurasian Hobby was busy trying to catch the Swallows and Swifts that were already feeding just after 4.30am.

One of the first birds was the Great Reed Warbler, in fact 4 of them were caught throughout the morning. These Warblers are easy to identify on their size alone, although one person was totally confused as he thought it was a Terrestrial Brownbul, (he knew we had removed one from the net). Some of the other early birds were Yellow Weavers, African Reed Warblers, Redshouldered Widows etc.

male Yellow Weaver

Along with the birds that we would expect to catch in this area there was a male Red Bishop, a bird that has only arrived in this spot in the last few years.

male Red Bishop

Some of the other warblers included African Reed Warbler formerly known as African Marsh Warbler, also Lesser Swamp Warbler (Cape Reed Warbler) these are both common species in this habitat and totally expected.

Lesser Swamp Warbler

The best Warblers caught were 2 European Marsh Warblers, a lifer for the visitors as these birds connot be identified through binocs in Southern Africa as they are so similar to the european Reed Warbler which is uncommon and the African Reed Warbler which is very common. In the hand they are quite easy to sort out, the wing length on the African Reed Warbler is less thatn 60mm while they European Reed and Marsh are greater than 60mm. When it comes to the two European Warblers the Walinder Score comes into effect and the calculators come out to do the calculation.

european Marsh Warbler

One of the common birds that we catch here is the Rufouswinged Cisticola, and today we caught an immature which for some reason we don't get too many of, the lemon yellow belly and the yellow gape are easily seen, especially the gape contrasting with the black inside the mouth.

immature Rufouswinged Cisticola

To me one of the best birds was the final bird caught, although common in summer we don't catch many in this area unlike the ringers in Gauteng. The Diederik Cuckoo flew into the nets just as I thought it was time to take down the nets.

male Diederik Cuckoo

I want to go and terrorize the Weavers

First Foreign Recapture of a Barn Swallow at Umzumbe

Updated



30.11.2011 will go down as the day the first foreign recapture of a Barn Swallow occured at the Umzumbe Barn Swallow Roost. We have previously had one recapture which was a bird that I had ringed there 2 years previously.

Adult Barn Swallow

During one of the many ringing sessions that will be held at the roost that hosts approximately 1.5 million birds, a total of 57 birds were caught of which one bird already had a ring on its right Tarsus. The ring had the inscription "BRITISH MUSEUM LONDON SW7" with the ring number X111901.

Barn Swallows flying around the nets

The information has been sent to England and we are waiting for the information as to who, where and when the bird was ringed, when this information comes through we will get to know the distance that the bird has travelled. Information returned by the BTO is that the bird was ringed in Retford, Nottinghamshire by the North Notts ringing group on 16th September 2011 as a first year bird. The straightline distance from Retford to the Umzumbe roost is 11 167km. The bird obviously has travelled further than this due to migration routes.

The British ringed Swallow

The Ring

The Ring

For more information please visit my website listed under the links "Barn Swallow Research"