Ringing at Paarl BS

It's been impossible to go ringing this year.  Work schedule has been unbelievable and when I was eventually at home and ready to go ringing, the summer wind was howling which put paid to that!  However, yesterday, eventually, I got to go to our Constant Effort Site in the Paarl Bird Sanctuary to ring with Felicity.  

This particular site has been going for I think about 20 years or so.  It was started by a man named Gordon, who has since passed away, who was very dedicated to the task and the rest of us struggle to continue to keep the site going.  We go there because it has a very special little visitor, the African Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus baeticatus) which migrates to central Africa for our winter and comes back to this very same site every year in August.  It wasn't there yesterday, of course, but we still netted the usuals that are very common in the area and I had so much fun  I have missed this very much.

First bird in the net is a Levaillant's Cisticola (Cisticola tinniens).  Very common in the area.  I have ringed quite a few here before.   

Next up is the Lesser Swamp Warbler (Acrocephalus gracilirostris) which is by far the most common warbler that we ring.  It is a fairly large bird, larger than the African Reed and Little Rush that we also get. Strangely enough, we didn't get any retraps yesterday and it's the first time this has happened.  As the site is so old, there are many birds that have been ringed and get recaught.  We have a hypothesis about this of which there is more further down this blog.

Then we have my favourite bird to ring, by far.  The little Malachite Kingfisher (Alcedo cristata).  It is an absolute jewel with the most amazing colours.  Look at how delicate his wing feathers are.  Spectacular. And of course, I love his crazy punk hair-do.  Even though this is only because he is slightly stressed by me holding him.  Their head feathers do not usually stand up like that but it gives him such a crazy look.  Don't worry, I let him go very quickly, hardly holding him for five minutes.

This is a Common Waxbill (Estrilda astrild) and it is a male because it has this really black vent under his tail. The females are much lighter in this area.  Tiny little bird taking the smallest ring.

Felicity, my ringing partner at this site, took a House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) out the net.  Oddly enough, I have never ringed a House Sparrow, as common as they are in our country.  For some reason, they seldom ever get caught.

Can you see something odd about this bird's eyes?  It is a male Southern Masked-weaver (Ploceus velatus) and it is just starting to think about changing into breeding plumage which will make him look completely different.  When out of breeding, he has red-brown eyes but once breeding, they change to very red.  This one's left eye was already red but his right eye was still brown.  Looked very strange indeed.  It seems to be a sub-adult as it still has a soft gape.

The last bird caught was the Southern Red Bishop (Euplectes orix), also a male and also almost ready to go into breeding plumage which will make his look spectacular in his black and red velvet jacket.  We can see the black feathers coming through on his belly.  It is not easy to distinguish the Southern Red Bishop from the Yellow Bishop (Euplectes capensis) when they are out of breeding plumage.  Seeing them in the field, it is impossible.  However, when we have them in the hand, we can measure their tails and if the tails is less than 50mm long, it is a Red.  Longer than 50mm makes it a Yellow.

This is one of the nets up at the site.  We also have nets on the other side of the reed bed on the right.  In January this year, someone took it upon themselves to burn down the bird hide about 500 m from this spot, who on earth would ever know why.  The ensuing fire proceeded to burn down all the reeds in the area, including these reeds at our ringing site.  That was five months ago and the reeds have thankfully grown back but we think this is why we are not getting any retraps.  The birds that used to live in these reeds may well have moved to another place once the reeds were gone and have not come back.  Other birds have moved into the area and so we are starting a whole new generation of ringed birds.  It is a huge pity, as one of the purposed of ringing birds is to retrap them in years to come to determine longevity.  Hopefully, the migrating birds will still come back as the reeds are big and thick here once again.

The usual ducks were around i.e. Yellow-billed Duck, Cape Teal, Red-billed Teal, Cape Shoveler etc and there were also a huge number of Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus).  We do often get Flamingo here but there seemed to be more than the usual number.

Our Flamingo's are not very pink because the pink colour comes from what they are eating and apparently, what they eat here does not have that pink colour in it.  Still beautiful birds though, so regal looking, love them.