Year End

Well another year ends and i think that will be it for 2013 the wind gets up again tomorrow. 

2013 was again another good year for Manx ringing group

 4034 birds were caught with a total of 75 Species
3545 new birds were ringed,
487 of these were Pulli {chicks}
489 were recaptures

 Not as many as 2012 but i think that was down to trying some new stuff and concentrating on some target species where more time was put in for less numbers.

One of the highlights of the year was the success of our Tern Colonies, in the last 3 year since i have been living here the Terns both Little and Arctic have suffered from bad weather, disturbance and predation. This year the weather was great there was plenty of sand eels and the Warden spent loads of her own time to control dog walkers and tourists from to much disturbance. The result a record year with 44 breeding pairs of Little Tern.

Little Tern

12 New adults were ringed and 16 chicks, there were 4 controls

1 was born in Foulney Island, Burrow-in-Furness and is 3 years old and was caught breeding at our colony last year as well.

2 were from the colony at kilcoole, Wicklow, Ireland. and again are 3 years old.

The last control was from Brora in the Highlands of Scotland, and was ringed as a chick there 13 years ago.

16 new adult Arctic Terns and 18 chicks were ringed with 2 controls these were both ringed by Aron Sapsford as chicks at the Point of Ayre one in 1999 making it 14 years old and one in 2001 making it 12 years old.

Arctic Tern

A new site at Regaby was found to be holding a small Tree Sparrow Population and so far 27 birds have been ringed and boxes put up. The land owners have done a great job in feeding and managing the land for these great little birds

Tree Sparrow

The Whoosh site at the Point of Ayre has proved it worth again with over 700 Linnets ringed

169 Meadow pipits and 27 Twite

Linnet

A concerted effort was put in to catching Wheatear on their spring migration this year all birds bar one were caught in spring traps with 118 being ringed.

Wheatears

The colour ringing project on large Gulls goes on but chick numbers were down on last year due to what we think was predation by Polecats and Long Tails {Manx for Rat}  out of 28 Lbb Gull nest only 3 chicks were seen and ringed and only 17 Herring Gull chicks ringed. 11 GBB Gull chicks were ringed as well.

Herring Gull chicks

Kane and Gillian helping out in my Garden

The new Common Gull colour ring project got underway and we ringed

1 Adult Common Gull with 5 chicks.

The timing of the ringing was a tad late as most of the chicks had fledged, must try harder in 2014.

Common Gull colour ringed

The Cormorant Colour ringed project was a challenge this year the site at Maughold had changed and most of the nests were deemed inaccessible, the new site at the Point of Ayre is getting bigger with 24 nests this year 28 chicks were colour ringed here and 9 at Maughold.

Kev, Kane and Gillian

Nyger feeders were placed at 3 sites around the island to try and improve our Siskin numbers. And they worked with 290 New Siskins being ringed.

Siskin

The Rock Pipit colour ringing project carries on and some good data is being collected about site fidelity and longevity of these hardy little Pipits.
60 new birds colour ringed in 2013

Rock Pipit

Manx Buzzards
This year saw Buzzard added to the Manx ringing group list with 3 Chicks ringed.

Kay, Gary and Chris getting to grips with some Buzzard chicks

The Chough colour ring project saw another 30 Pulli colour ringed and quite a few re sightings from previous years

adult Chough ringed on Calf of Man

Loads of great Memories from 2013, some of the best would be ringing Tern chicks and Black Guillemots with my old mate Andy who came to stay again. Kane and Gillian spent a weekend ringing Terns, Cormorants, Gulls, Kestrels, Hen Harrier and Spotted Flycatcher. And 5 days i spent on the Calf of Man bird Obs with my mate Kev ringing Storm Petrel, Manx Shearwater and numerous Pipits and Willow Warbler.

Kev with Fulmar

A big thank you to everyone who gave us permission to ring on their land and helped us in anyway,

here's to a great 2014.