Kvismare Totals

It's been a good while since I last blogged, so I'll bring you up to date with totals from the ringing season so far. Ending July we're in about the same place numbers wise as last year but there're some interesting differences. Robins and most warblers are slightly down on last year but Tits, Finches and Buntings have fared well.

Greylag Goose - 1
Sparrowhawk - 1
Kestrel - 8
Ringed Plover - 4
Lapwing - 8
Knot - 1
Curlew Sandpiper - 1
Dunlin - 3
Ruff - 1
Snipe - 5
Wood Sandpiper - 11
Common Sandpiper - 5
Black-headed Gull - 34
Herring Gull - 1
Common Tern - 13
Black Tern - 10
Wood Pigeon - 1
Long-eared Owl - 3
Swift - 1
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker - 1
Sand Martin - 55
Swallow - 27
House Martin - 1
Tree Pipit - 4
Yellow Wagtail - 4
White Wagtail - 23
Wren - 1
Robin - 23
Thrush Nightingale - 48
Redstart - 1
Whinchat -7
Wheatear - 4
Blackbird - 17
Fieldfare - 21
Song Thrush - 5
Redwing - 1
Grasshopper Warbler - 3
River Warbler - 2
Savi's Warbler - 1
Sedge Warbler - 99
Marsh Warbler - 3
Reed Warbler - 257
Great Reed Warbler - 134
Icterine Warbler - 6
Lesser Whitethroat - 2
Whitethroat - 16
Garden Warbler - 51
Blackcap - 50
Chiffchaff - 1
Willow Warbler - 199
Spotted Flycatcher - 12
Pied Flycatcher - 112
Bearded Tit - 37
Marsh Tit - 25
Blue Tit - 265
Great Tit - 224
Nuthatch - 20
Penduline Tit - 17
Red-backed Shrike - 1
Magpie - 4
Jackdaw - 1
Starling - 269
Tree Sparrow - 58
Chaffinch - 43
Greenfinch - 30
Goldfinch - 4
Linnet - 1
Rosefinch - 1
Yellowhammer - 16
Ortolan Bunting - 10
Reed Bunting - 158

Total - 2487

71 Species


Three recent highlights...

Curlew Sandpiper (Calidris ferruginea) 2cy+

"Red" Knot (Calidris canutus) 2cy

Ruff (Philomachus pugnax) 1cy female

Controls come in the form of a French Penduline Tit, a Swedish Penduline Tit, a Croatian Sedge Warbler, a Belgium Reed Warbler and a Slovenian Great Reed Warbler.

The ringing season part 1

The ringing season in Kvismare has been standardised since the early 1990's with 2 sites and 20 and 24 nets in each. The largest site (Vallen) has 24 * 9metre nets in a mixture of small scrub land and wet reed bed. The other site (Banvallen) is a line of bushes bordering an old railway line and now running alongside a wet reed area.

The ringing season starts on, or around the Midsummer area in Sweden; this year we began on 24th June. The season runs until the end of September. Nets are to be up by dawn and down 6 hours after unless the catching is good in which case the ringers' can stay on, ringing until the catching slows.

Between 24th June and 8th July we have ringed on all but 2 mornings and this was due to heavy rain/wind. We have caught around 900 birds of many species. Ad-hoc ringing has also taken place and this added a few more nice species to our lists.

The Highlights so far are shown below. 

Red-backed Shrike - Lanius collurio (male)

Bearded Tit - Panurus biarmicus 1cy male (left) and 1cy female (right)

Penduline tit - Remiz pendulinus. Female (2nd from right) and young.

Snipe - Gallinago gallinago 2cy+

Penduline Tit - Remiz pendulinus. Adult male, originally ringed in France.

Black tern - Chlidonias niger. 1st Calendar year

Great Reed warbler - Acrocephalus arundinaceus. 2cy with data logger

Black tern - Chlidonias niger. 7 of 10 1cy birds caught

Wheatear - Oenanthe oenanthe. 1st Calendar year

Kestrel - Falco tinnunculus. 1 of 7 chicks ringed.