Last minute Little Egret ringing session!
Thanks to some very unsavory charachters who spent a night out on Heron Island at Glen Faba we wanted to go out and check to see if any wildlife crime had been committed so myself and one ranger from the Park took the large boat (enabling us to stay 2m apart!) out to the island to see if there was any damage. Fortunately there was no damage and most of the Herons had fledged. The other really good news is that there were at least 10 pairs of Little Egret at varying stages and I was able in the permitted time to ring three broods. Unfortunately 4 out of the 11 birds were too small to take colour rings and were ringed abouve the tarsus with a metal ring only.
It is unlikely that we will be able to make a visit to the colony at Walthamstow this year so this may be the only birds we ring this year.
Jackdaw APB caught on trail cam.
Jackdaw APB was caught on a trail cam in the village a year to the day after ringing on 13th May 2020.
You can view the trail cam footage on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/VKb8tabplH8
2B00 at Fishers Green
2B00 at Fishers Green on 13th May 2020 - ringed in 2018 as a pullus now a returning adult.
Aims
The aim of the Southern Colour Marking Group is to study various species of bird using colour marking in London, Essex and Hertfordshire. We do this by catching the birds using a cannon net, a technique requiring a special licence, or finding nests of breeding birds and marking the young in the nest.
Birds captured using cannon nets are extracted from the net before being marked with individually numbered metal leg rings. Whilst ringing the birds, we take measurements and study plumage characteristics. As many birds as possible are marked with a colour mark (either leg ring or wing tag) which can be read with a telescope without the bird being recaptured.
Links
Here are links to other related websites:
Lee Valley Regional Park Authority
If you know of a website that we have missed, please contact us.
Bird ringing in Britain is licensed and coordinated by The British Trust for Ornithology. Bird ringing in Europe is coordinated by EURING.
A catalogue of colour ringing projects throughout Europe is voluntarily maintained by Dirk Raes at European colour-ring Birding.
Acknowledgements
The group operates with the excellent support and cooperation of The Essex Wildlife Trust at Blue House Farm which operates the nature reserve and allows access for Brent Goose catching. The Lee Valley Regional Park Authority and the London Wildlife Trust allow us to access sites in the Lee Valley Park for Heron and Egret work. Richard Bott kindly allows access to woodland on the Bott Estate for Red Kite monitoring.
We are grateful to the Essex Birdwatching Society and Essex Field Club for providing funding for the colour ringing programme for Brent Geese, London Wildlife Trust for Herons and Jenny Weston at the RSPB for support with Red Kite wing tagging.
The development of the dynamic mapping was supported by a grant from the British Birds Charitable Trust.
We also acknowledge financial support from Merlin Ringing Supplies.
Header images on this website are licensed under the Creative Commons license by the photographers.