Frozen Frogspawn

With night temperatures dipping below freezing, our wildlife has to brace that extra bit harder. It's times like this that the feeding station becomes vital for a birds night survival, but what happens to the Frogs that have already began laying eggs? Well, as you can see, they do freeze if caught up in the top surface of the water. It's likely that the lower portion will still survive but this top layer, despite thawing later on that day, looks like it has been predated on too. 

Not sure what insect this is but it was walking on the ice with no care in the world.

Feeding station today had lots of activity, including a large female Sparrowhawk that for a minute looked like it was going to go for the male Pheasant but opted to carry on fly through. Even my heart was beating fast at that point! Can't image what the Blue Tits were feeling!. 

In other news, a record number of Water Rail at Green Pool today with 5 running around and 'sharming' like crazy. I wished I had my recording gear at hand at that point but perhaps I'll try that tomorrow evening in the hope they give off another good performance. Unfortunately, these Water Rail are pretty shy and were only visible when running between reed beds.  

Fringilla Papillomavirus

In previous posts I've spoken about a Bird Disease called Trichomonosis. I thought that the disease found in most Chaffinches was called Trichomonosis but I was wrong. The disease that most people spot in Chaffinches (trunking to the birds feet) is caused by a mite and is called Fringilla Papillomavirus. The mite is within the genus of knemisocoptes and is the main cause of the 'scaly' looking legs that you see. It can also be contracted around the base of the beak which can develop to be even more problematic for the bird by restricting breathing. It's not a nice looking disease and it's a horrible way to go as it eventually results in the bird loosing toes, feet and even whole legs which will eventually result in the bird dying from whatever gets there first, starvation or predation. I'm talking with the BTO at the moment to see if there are any measures in which we can take to overcome this problem as the thought of it getting into other species is quite worrying.   

Image taken by Cliff Woodhead showing Fringilla Papillomavirus in Bullfinch 

The image above shows that this disease is not just contracted by Chaffinches but is starting to spread into other species too. It is a big worry if this does spread into species like Yellowhammer or our Buntings because they aren't doing well as it is. 

A few other diseases to look out for can also be found in Dunnocks, Great Tits and Wood Pigeons and that's typically known as Avian Pox. 

If you think you have birds coming to your feeders that might have any of the diseases mentioned above, please clean your feeders regularly to help reduce the risk of spreading. 
This is about all we can do to prevent spreading but you can also contribute by logging your disease sightings to 'Wild Garden Health'. You can even log any sightings of dead birds so don't hesitate to log stuff like this, it is all vital to the bigger picture and may contribute to an answer in curing this problem. 

Please share to anyone who may feed birds in their Garden.

Field Recording Workshops 2016

This year I've going to be holding a few Sound Recording workshops throughout Spring / Summer. If you have sound recording gear and would like to know how best to use it or if you are just curious and would like to know where to start, this workshop is for you. With a focus on handling techniques, how to tackle bad weather conditions and most importantly, how to setup your recording devices to capture the sound as best as you can. Throughout spring I'll be touching on Bird Recording but during the summer I'll also hold classes on how to record insects. There are several types of microphones and I'll also help explain the differences between them and show you audibly why certain microphones work best for field recording. 

If this is something you'd be interested in, please get in touch and I'll get you on the list. If I feel like I have enough people interested, I'll make sure we set a date soon as Spring is fast approaching and we already have plenty of Birds to record. 

Gavin Vella Sound Recording

Please share if you know anyone who may be interested 

Mysterious Bed

Mysterious Bed

If you don't know the answer to this already, this video may be entertaining for you. You may find it funny either way.. I certainly laugh every time I see it lol. I'll comment on it in my next blog post so for now, enjoy the video. 

Marsh Tit Theory

Llandegfedd's Winter Feeding Station project is coming close to the end and as a result, I've got a nice collection of Data coming on. As you'll know already at this point, it was started in the hope to aid our Marsh Tit population. With only 1 MT visiting the feeders since the start of the project, nobody has really had great views of the bird since the first 2 weeks of the project. That doesn't however mean it isn't attending the station and I've got a theory as to why this is the case. 
Below you'll see a chart that I've put together using the data from my sightings sheet. You'll notice down the left hand side the time of day and left to right is start to finish of the project. 
Note that the Marsh Tit (in blue) started visiting early but was becoming a regular right up until 1pm until the Sparrowhawk started to visit more often. The Sparrowhawk is literally the polar opposite and started visiting later in the evening but starting coming in earlier in the day. This has forced the very intelligent Marsh Tit to only come in very early in the morning and the last two sightings were all before 7am when it's still dark! Very clever Birds Marsh Tits and this clearly shows just how intelligent they really are. 

This chart goes to show how important a simple sightings page can be which is why I try to encourage everyone visiting to contribute. It takes a couple minutes and could unravel hidden secrets and potentially new science... who knows?

Mystery Bed?

I've been keeping an eye on a mystery 'bed' that I've found on my outings. This bed looks much like a bird nest, only it's 10 times the size of most bird nests and is made entirely of ferns. Every visit, the bed was getting larger and larger and it started to look more like a nest shape with a clear dimple in the middle. The odd thing about this is, it was inside a water tube which is 1 and a half metres in diameter and around 11 ft long.. It doesn't look like the ideal place for any species to nest in as it's completely exposed either end. I had to find out what on earth it was and I had suspicion of a Fox or Badger. I even considered Rabbits and even Pheasants but the only way to find out was to put a camera out.. 

As you can see, the bed was certainly getting larger and the amount of ferns being used was pretty impression. I couldn't see any hair inside so really wasn't sure at this point. Anyways, I won't keep you waiting any longer!

It was in fact, a Badger! 

I haven't uploaded the video footage yet but big thanks to Ian Howells who has lent me a trail camera to get this footage. Ian has been a really big help and contributor to the Winter Feeding Project too and I really appreciate all he has done. I'll post up the video footage once I've gathered enough evidence but so far it's looking pretty clear that this Badger, for whatever reason has decided to build this nest. It may be a young badger that hasn't matured yet and is practising for the real thing. It could be that it has been kicked out of the set and is looking for a new home. If could even be with all the rain we've been having that the set is flooded and they've been forced to look for alternatives. Either way, it doesn't look like a safe place to give birth so the future of this individual doesn't look good. Safe to say I'll be keeping an eye on him/her for a while.  

Pairing Up

It's coming to that time of year where a lot of birds are already starting to pair up. These two Great Spotted Woodpeckers look like they've already done so, or at-least he is trying to impress her. This is the same Male that has been performing for me so well and by the looks his hard work is paying off. If you haven't seen the video yet of him performing, here it is once again. 

Llandegfedd Magic / Woodpeckers, Ravens and Long-tailed Tits

Bit of a feature in the last couple days with the Great Spotted Woodpeckers but today I took things to another level and not only brought you pictures and sound recordings but I actually managed to get a short video of a male GSW finding the sweet spot on the wood like I mentioned yesterday. I hope you enjoy the video! 

Here is another recording from the morning session which shows much more enthusiasm from the Male than my last recording. 
 

Something I didn't expect to get today was some decent recordings of a pair of Ravens. They were taking interest in something that I couldn't quite see (which could of been a Goshawk). During this time they were making all kinds of creative noises. At the very start of the recording you'll hear a quiet 'droplet' like sound: that is actually the Raven making that sound. 

The Feeding station was alive again today with a couple of new visitors in the form of 2 Redpoll and numbers of all species are increasing. The Long-tailed Tits are still my favourites though!

Great Spotted Woodpecker Extended

For those who may be interested, Great Spotted Woodpeckers have the ability to hit at the rate between 10-40 SPS (Strikes Per Second) it's this fact that made me curious as to how many strikes our GSW actually manged during one single session, so I studied the recording in a sonograph to find out. Here are the results below: 

Turns out that the most this particular guy hit was around 16 SPS but this was during the middle of the day when they aren't as persistent. It will be interesting to catch them out their best, just to see how many hits they can really manage in 1 second. I think this guy/girl may have been holding back a bit. 13 hits was the average number. It's said that a single male can hit atleast 600 times a day if they haven't found a female yet and only 200 hits if they have found a female. Either way, there will be lots of noise out in the woods leading up to spring so get out there and listen to it for yourself! It's incredible. 

Sound Recording Feature

Sound Recording Feature

While I missed the most of todays Sunny dry weather fixing my shed, I did manage to get out in the evening just before it hammered down with rain yet again. During this time, many birds were singing so I left the Camera at home and spent some time listening to the landscape through a parabolic dish. If you've never had the chance to use a parabola before, you're more than happy to try mine. It's an amazing experience to have 'super ears' that amplifies sounds you never new were even there. It extends your reach meaning you can find individual species much quicker when they are audible. If you remember in my previous blogs I mentioned trying to get a recording of the Great Spotted Woodpeckers drumming and i'm happy to say that I succeeded in getting some recordings of that today. Took a while to find out what branches they were preferring to drum on and took even longer for them to drum with me standing under the tree. Eventually however, they did come around to me and I got this: 

 

After spending time with the Woodpeckers, night was drawing in and with it the evening Chorus began which was surprisingly full for this time of year! I heard Goldcrest, Treecreeper, Nuthatch, Bluetit, Coal Tit, Chaffinch, Blackbird, Dunnock, Robin, Marsh Tit, and finally Song Thrush! one of my all time personal favourites. Below isn't the best recording for their classic mimicry but it was the most clear recording I could get as most of my other recordings had planes flying overhead.. I don't think people realise just how much sound pollution there is.. Put my headphones on with my Telinga Microphone and you'll realise just how noisy we really are on this planet.