An Hour on the Beach

Last weekend we spent an hour or so on the beach at Landguard, in the lee of the port of Felixstowe. There were one of two gulls on the shoreline and cormorants and geese overhead.

Port to the left, bird observatory to right, and protected nature zone (where we see butterflies) in the foreground

 

I was interested to see the red ring on this gull, and it was a shame I failed to photograph the rest of the label. A lot of bird ringing is done at the bird observatory. There is a blackboard on the fence listing recent sightings, which is always good to see.

 

Sunset on the boardwalk, looking towards Harwich

 

Canada Goose with Orange Band, Pakenham Mill

We visited Pakenham Watermill for the first time on Saturday. It lies just across the road from Mickle Mere, a reserve in the care of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. We headed off to the hide, and enjoyed watching the nesting gulls and the young Moorhens and Coots. There were a few geese about - Egyptian, Greylag and Canada. The Canada Geese were a fair distance from the hide, so the photo above was taken on my zoom and has been enlarged. I apologise for the poor quality, particularly since it would have been interesting and helpful to have been able to have read the ringing ID on the orange collar.    

My understanding is that the significant details to record if you spot a neck band on a goose are ...

• the species, in this case Canada Goose
• the colour of the neck band
• the numbers or letters on it
• the colour of the numbers

Sightings of banded birds can be sent to www.ring.ac (here) which is a website run by BTO on behalf of the European Ringing Schemes.

You can read about the Cotswold Water Park banding research project here.

There were some strange leafy 'creatures' lurking in the meadow near the mill stream! 

Home Patch ~ A Thrush (with a ring)

We have had a visiting Thrush for some time now. I think it is a Song Thrush, but am not entirely sure. Mistle Thrushes are paler in colour and their speckles are almost black.

Song Thrushes are classed as Red in terms of their conservation status. 

As you can see, this this Thrush is sporting a ring. I had not spotted the ring until I saw these photos, which once again proves to me (whether the picture quality is good or not - and these photos were taken through double glazing) that my camera is a useful tool in my wildlife watching adventures.

It would be interesting to know where the bird was ringed and where it was last recorded. I was astonished to read on the British Trust for ornithology (BTO) site that 'over 900,000 birds are ringed in Britain and Ireland each year by over 2,600 trained ringers'. 

As you can see below, there was also a Blue tit in our silver birch. In fact, there was a small flock in the garden.

• 2010 Ringing of a Mistle Thrush in a Suffolk orchard.
• Suffolk Wildlife Trust on ringing Tree Sparrows
• BTO Bird Ringing blog