From Russia with love!

18/09/16

We were back on the ringing site by 6:30am this morning following another night of cold conditions and a hard frost on the ground. The temperature gauge read -2.5 as we drove to the ringing site. As the sun broke the horizon though, the temperature quickly rose and the nets were open.

A Black Woodpecker had been heard calling next to one of our net rides just after opening the nets, and to everybodys immense excitement, on the next net round, a huge bird was brought back to the ringing table. The Black Woodpecker!

It was a new bird species for the head ringer, so for his first Black Woodpecker to be in the hand was pretty special! It isn’t very often these birds are caught, and even then usually by random chance, so being able to admire its huge size and spectacular crown colour and iris up close certainly made most peoples day!

What a bird! Huge!

Almost as exciting as a male Black Woodpecker however were 2 Great Tits….  Not because of their scarcity, but because 2 of the 8 we caught today were bearing Russian rings! Needless to say, we were doubly excited to get 2 control birds, both adult males, and both from the same ring sequence!

Although we can see Russia from our ringing base, these are the first Russian controls for the project. Hopefully some of the Great Tits we have ringed will make the return journey!

After having been our most numerous species a week ago, the numbers of Reed Buntings here have dropped dramatically, and only 2 were caught today. With these stragglers now starting to filter south, there is a real feel that passerine migration is drawing to a close before the winter up here in the Arctic.

Totals are below:

Nyrud

*Black Woodpecker	1
Great Tit	4 (+2)
Greenfinch	4
Bullfinch	2
Willow Tit	2 (+2)
Reed Bunting	2
Totals	15 (+4)

Vaggetem

Great Tit	4
Greenfinch	3
Willow Tit	1
Totals	8

It was a good morning for Grouse on our drive over to Nyrud this morning, with a party of 2 young Capercailie and 6 lekking Black Grouse, not bad considering the hunting season has commenced. An exploratory journey into a new area of the Pasvik National park revealed some superb habitat, however we could only find 7+ Siberian Jays and a few Crossbill Sp. The family of Cranes are still present just down the road from the campsite, with 6 present this evening!