September - CR House Sparrows!

September 27th

Sean Walsh Park in Tallaght is my lunchtime patch.  It has been 50 trips since 27H0 returned and until today apart from 1 metal ring there have been no other rings sighted.  However perseverance is the name of the game so yet again at lunch time I went. 

The numbers of Black Headed Gulls has continued to grow and there was a new darvic!  It is also from a project I am not familiar with.  Metal EZ64044 I think.  Didn't try very hard to read the metal as it had a coloured ring! I emailed the project coordinator and waited the reply 2 hours later I received an enthusiastic reply from the Brewood Ringing Group with a "Wow what a sighting for our first year of this project." it was ringed in England at the Marsh Lane Nature Reserve between Birmingham and Coventry.  A distance of 330km.

September 17th

While doing my I-Webs count on the Grand Canal I am always on the look out for my Coloured Ringed Swans as well as any other Colour Ringed birds.  Today on the Davitt Road I spotted a Green Ring on  Black Headed Gull.  It took me some time to photograph it as its ring was partially hidden by a gutter.  Eventually I got the full code.  J134.  Not only is it one I have not seen before, but it is a first sighting of the bird in Ireland!  As these birds are habitual and neither myself or Sean has seen it before, it is probably just passing through. I t will be interesting if Sean or I record it in Dublin again.

September 11th

I was out again in the morning trying to close more locations in the Swan nesting Census.  This year there was a large spread in hatching dates so many locations are not yet at 12 weeks!  At other locations I am having difficulty locating where they have moved to!
However in the afternoon I went to Sandycove to see what Mediterranean Gull were around.



PRN6 is a Polish Med Gull adult but only ringed last year.

 2X2A is a 2nd Calender year.

 RS96 is a 3rd Calender year.

September 10th

The deficit of Coloured Ringed Black Headed Gulls this month is not unusual.  I know they have arrived as some of them have been sighted roosting on Sandymount Starnd, but they haven't ventured inland yet.  Today while checking Swan families I saw 1000's of Black Headed Gulls mainly at coastal Estuaries, but only spotted 1 metal ring in the parks.  Poppintree Park is in Ballymun and the Gull was 3675.873. It is from Arnhem, Holland. Once again I had recorded it before on August 1st 2015!    August 2015 .
It was ringed in 2009 by Eelke Haagsma at Friesland in The Neatherlands.

I did stop at Broadmeadows, Swords and of the 83 adults present I recorded 31 coloured rings.  They were not all ringed there and they were ringed on the canals, Bray Harbour and in the Parks of Dublin and  Kildare.

September 5th

In Sean Walsh Park, still only the one Black Headed Gull with coloured ring, the ever present 27H0. The Juvenile EL65898 was there again today.  It is so distinctive that I spotted it on the lake and got it out on to land to verify the code!

September 4th

I went down to Tipperary to photograph CR House Sparrows. Sean Kingston has been conducting a RAS for some time and asked if I could photograph a few.  I was taken to different locations, rural and urban and saw plenty of Yellow rings, in fact there were plenty of House Sparrows with flocks of 100+.  Photographing them wasn't easy, I don't usually take photos of birds on feeders, but I certainly did today and I got enough photographs to keep him going. A small selection of photographs I took today are below.

House Sparrow + Yellow Ring.

House Sparrow with Yellow darvic ring. Templemore

Pest Control - House Sparrow BHK - eating Horse Flies

September 3rd

All the advanced planning of ringing activity always ends up at the mercy of the weather and today we met at 7:45 in torrential rain.  We decided to ring what Swans we could regardless of the rain.  At Sean Walsh Park the cygnets couldn't be tempted out but we did ring the remaining adult.  We carried on and ringed another adult in Tymon Park and 2 cygnets at the Spa Well lakes and 5 Cygnets in Tymon North.  2 Adult Mute Swans and 7 Cygnets coloured ringed was the total for the morning.  For a morning that was a wash out - very successful.  Many thanks to Alan, Sean, Nicola and Sandra.  Catching and ringing Swans really is a team effort.  

CATI and 4 un-ringed Cygnets in Sean Walsh Park

September 1st

There has been a complete lack of Coloured Ringed Gulls in the Parks of Tallaght.  Hopefully this has been caused by the fine weather and the gulls being over fed by children.  Today I spotted two  Metal rings on Black Headed Gulls.  I concentrated on the Juvenile as it was so distinctive.  It is about 5 weeks behind the other Juveniles in moult and looks like it fledged very late.

A lot of photos of the ring and the full code obtained.  Now the waiting game to find out there it was ringed.  It is a BTO ring so if it's your ring - let me know.