Nightjar ringing

I was out last night ringing Nightjars. Having annually made the trip to see them in the right habitat for many years this was the first time seeing them so close and in the hand. They are crepuscular aerial insectivores so most active at dusk and dawn and it’s usually been a dusk trip for me to see them hawking over forest mixed with heather after moths and other flying insects often just a silhouette against a midsummer night sky. Their gu-wip call and wing-clapping are bizarre sounds which would be unnerving if you didn’t know what it was but their other enigmatic “churring” call resonates for considerable distance and seems somewhat mechanical. Their Latin name Caprimulgus means Goatsucker and originates from folklore that the birds suckled milk from goats which we now know is wrong, but the name sticks. However, I still find them and their habitat to ooze with mystery and this was reinforced yesterday by looking at their morphology. They are extremely wide-mouthed designed to catch insects in flight. Added to that they have whisker-like rictal bristles to extend that catching area whilst in flight. All that collision with insects means a messy face but their central front claw (on the inside) is serrated acting like a comb to clean their bristles. Those that have fed well have a solid lump in their lower stomach which is a compact “mothball”. These can be regurgitated for the young whilst in the nest. In the hand they also do a weird defense reflex of hissing and gawping and flaring their tail. Once ringed the birds were placed back on a log so that they could acclimatise to the night and carry on as usual, with the addition of a BTO ring, and in some cases a transmitter device which is designed only to stay on their central tail feather for a couple of weeks. What an amazing species.

Iceland Feb 2014: WP lister for a day

Iceland Feb 19-24

We’d planned a city-trip to Reykjavik for a couple of years and finally got round to it this month.  It just so happened that a Lincoln Sparrow had been nearby since early December 2013 so I’d been pensively watching news as the days counted down.  We flew from Manchester to Keflavik then got a coach into Reykjavik in the late afternoon.  It was bitterly cold; a low system that brought disruption to most of the UK had swung round and headed NW hitting the SW of Iceland for our arrival.  Luckily it blew through and the next day (which we/I had free to go twitching!) was fine.  We got two local buses to Harfnarfordur and walked the remaining out to Þöll on a frozen road but only for a couple of kilometres.  We arrived at the nursery which was four inches thick with ice but I recognized the bird table from images I’d seen on the internet.  We huddled in next to the timber chalet and waited.   After a couple of minutes a 4x4 truck pulled up and an old guy stepped out gingerly onto the ice and shuffled over to the chalet.  The door swung open and the chap from the nursery threw some bird-food out onto the ice and noticed us looking on; “Hi, you here for the sparrow? Come in”. What a welcome!   We went in to the nice warm chalet and were offered tea but politely declined.  We were offered a seat in the window looking out over the seeded area so I watched and waited.  “Yeah, it hasn’t been seen for two days you know, some Swedish birders missed it yesterday”.  “Agghh ok”, that’s not what you want to hear so I carried on looking watching the Redpoll complex get more complex and Snow Buntings flying around.  Something Dunnock-like scurried low down through the twiggy birch cover and out emerged the LINCOLN’S SPARROW Melospiza lincolnii. “It’s here” I was relieved to announce and the two guys kept sipping their tea and working their way through a tin of biscuits before we talked about more regular species and their ranges and recent changes in Iceland.  The older guy offered us a lift back into town (Harfnarfordur) so we gratefully accepted.  I’m not sure why we politely declined the tea but accepted a lift back to town but we were quite grateful for it.  On the drive in I noticed some Whooper Swans on Hamarkotslaekur Lake along Lækjargata so after we got dropped off I walked back to check them for rings, whilst Mrs S did her usual recce for the best place for lunch.  I spotted a UK ringed Whooper W01957 which later turned out to be its first sighting in Iceland. I’m not sure how but people mustn’t look that hard.  I clinched some photographs which did the trick and walked back to town to meet E for lunch at Glo Café, a great intro to some scandi healthy eating….followed by some cake!  We got the bus back into the city but got dropped off along Norðurströnd walking the remaining stretch to the docks where the AMERICAN WHITE WINGED SCOTER Melanitta deglandi deglandi had been reported.  It wasn’t that scenic but we saw the bird looking out to sea from behind some oil tanks and security walls covered in graffiti.  A nice flock of Snow Buntings roamed along the sea-defence boulders and onto the waste ground around the industrial units and Ravens patrolled overhead.  Walking through the harbour Northern Eider were showing very close and again at the back of the concert hall.  The rest of our stay was more a social affair, meeting up with friends in the city, doing the Golden Circle, swimming with the locals at …… etc.. Other birds around the city included more ducks and Whooper’s at the ice-free section of Tjörnin Lake.  with 3 consecutive nights chasing the Aurora borealis which gave best views on the final night. Truly magical. 

 Road to Þöll

 Lincoln's

 Snow bunts at Þöll

Clyde-ringed Whooper staying in Iceland for the winter

 Downtown Reykjavik

 Common Gull

 Northerns

 Redwing staying in town for the winter

 Magic