Summary of the ringing activity this month

Summary of the ringing activity this month

Summary of the ringing activity this month

Summary of the ringing activity this month

Summary of the ringing activity this month

We have created a new Newsletter to share all the new information of the birdringing station Schlammwiss with you!

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The nature reserve 'Schlammwiss', a vast wetland in Eastern Luxembourg, represents an important breeding, migratory and overwintering area for many bird species in midst of the densely populated country. It is part of the natura 2000 and nationally classified as nature reserve.

Music (royalty free): Johannes Bornlöf - Dream of us 3

Credits:

Max Steinmetz - director

Dave Lutgen - executive camera man

Erik Kraus - rowing boat asisstant

Claude Kraus - helicopter pilot

Hey dear Birders and Ringers,

Since I have now been here at the bird observatory in Ottenby, Sweden for nearly one month and had an interesting and funny time, I wanted to share a bit of my experience with you.

The observatory itself is situated on the most southern tip of the island Öland on the eastern coast of Sweden. The island is shaped by extensive cultural landscape and plays an important role as breeding location for many agricultural bird species such as Montagu’s Harriers or Barred Warblers. Following the Swedish eastern coastline southwards, migrating birds from northern and central Scandinavia are gathering every year on this cape to stop and forage to do the big step over the east Sea. That is what makes it a excellent place to study bird migration, from goldcrests to sparrow hawks …

Regarding the actual bird catching, the observatory has been running a standardized program running with usual mist nets and Helgoland traps since 1946. The results of this long study are very interesting and meaningful especially concerning population fluctuations of diverse bird species. Apart from the standardised program during the mornings, waders are caught in traps along the shoreline (dunlins, knots, ringed plovers, curlew sandpipers, little stints etc.) until the end of August, raptors such as rough-legged and common buzzards in traps and Tengmalm’s and long-eared owls, different duck and gull species during the night.

Over the last weeks, migration has been constantly increasing, we had until now one day with over 600 catches per day. The catching rate is however strongly depending on the actual weather situation on the cape or in the region. Common species caught are among others robins, goldcrests, willow warblers, chiffchaffs, blue and great tits, pied and spotted flycatchers, sedge warblers, lesser and common whitethroats, blackcaps, white and yellow wagtails, song thrushes and sparrow hawks. However the composition was of course constantly changing over the last weeks. Quite rare catches were so far a merlin, a grey partridge, red-breasted flycatchers, yellow-browed warblers, one dusky warbler and a little bunting.

Time here is passing quite fast since there is a regular daily routine. Nonetheless the good atmosphere within the ringing team, the awesome Swedish food (coffee and cake seriously every day), the variation of bird species and last but not least the special landscape around the cape makes every moment special.

I am really looking forward to the next 3 weeks when migration is increasing, to see some more new species especially northern birds like common redpolls or lapland buntings and maybe one or the other surprise. I am grateful for the experience so far and the knowledge which is generously and professionally passed on. Ett stort tack till Ottenby fågelstation! A lot of knowledge and information regarding bird sex/age identification, scientifical work or just about the daily ringing is also shared on the bird observatory’s homepage http://birdlife.se/ottenbyfagelstation/start/ !

Pictures may tell more than words … (wow that sounded cheesy) Of course I would really recommend visiting the place to anyone who can distinguish between a robin and a red breasted flycatcher !

Greetings from Ottenby!

Max

The new report about birdringing in Luxembourg (in german) from COL is online!

Interesting general information, recaptures from other countries and a total list of all the birds ringed.

The birdringingstation 'Schlammwiss' will organize a guided tour on Saturday the 11.6.2016.

The focus will lay on breeding birds in the nature reserve, nest boxes and everything you need to know about breeding birds. Sign in if you are interested to join the guided tour.

More information about this an other activities.

On the 10 April 2016, one of our ringers was in the reserve when he made a very interesting observation of a putative Crag Martin (Ptyonoprogne rupestris).

The bird was seen flying from SW to NE over the reserve. The identification was based on several criteria and past experiences of the ringer observing the bird. The criteria were flying jizz of the bird, squarish tail, white spots on tail, dark under wing coverts, dark undertail coverts amongst others.

If accepted by the rarities committee of luxembourg this would be the first ever sighting of this species in the country. Well done to our team for the sharp eyes!

We'll start with a new project in March to collect data about bird migration in March, migration peaks of different species, different migration patterns depending on sex, age and if repeated yearly – about population size or fluctuations.

by Max S.

On Saturday we had the first 'fit by nature' activity for this year! 14 motivated volunteers helped out to clean our orchard and to start a fire. Furthermore we installed boxes for the little owl (Athene noctua). For lunch we profit from the fireplace and started a delicious barbecue.

Thanks for your help!

Like every year we were organizing a new year meeting and invited all members to join us! We had a look about the year 2015, presented the plans for 2016, our new page and watched the photos of 2015. After the presentation we enjoyed our dinner.

Thanks to everyone for coming! 

This report will focus on three month (May; June; July). As we had technical problems with our computer program, we did not manage to continue the monthly reports. The main issue of this report will be the monitoring of the local breeding birds and the first migrant species.

Over the three month period, we ringed 5.329 birds. Within these birds we had 4.349 first captures, 781 recaptures (birds ringed this year) and 199 control captures (birds ringed another year or at a foreign bird ringing station).

The main species during the monitoring were, the Reed (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) and Marsh Warbler (Acrocephalus palustris) and the Grasshopper Warbler (Locustella naevia).

The uncommon species during the breeding bird monitoring were three Melodious Warbler (Hippolais polyglotta), one ad. female and one juv. European pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), an ad. female Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) and one juv. Long-eared owl (Asio otus).

Usually the first migrants arrive around the 15th of July.  The first migrants to arrive are either species taking the eastern migratory way, Marsh Warbler (Acrocephalus palustris), Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio) or lesser withethroat (Sylvia curruca), or species which start their migration quite early as the Sedge Warbler (Acrocephalus schoenabaenus) or the Great Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus arundinaceus).

Another interesting species was an immature Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus).

The most interesting species for this three month period was an adult Blyth’s Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus dumetorum), which stayed singing from the 27th of June until the 9th of July. It was the second time for this species to be recorded in Luxemburg. The bird was captured twice, once on the 28th of June and a second time on the 6th of July.

During the three month period we had two people working daily on the ringing station, furthermore we had several school classes coming to visit the ringing station.

Thanks as usual to the team for the effort they make in our station .

Autor: Dave Lutgen

Other activitys:

• Start with a new long term monitoring of waterrail -- Dave --> read more
• Hoopoe project at Kaiserstuhl -- Charel --> read more
• Uploading the report of the year 2014 --> read more

Visit of our members from the Schlammwissteam:

• Trip to 'Federsee' -- Charel, Dave, Max --> read more
• Birdringing at Kaiserstuhl -- Charel --> read more
• Birdingtrip Turkey -- Charel, Joseph, Raoul --> read more

More photos & information about the Karupelv Valley Project in the arctic

Three members of our Schlammwiss Team (Dave, Charel and Max) visited the Federsee lake in southwestern Germany the 26th and 27th of May. The lake itself is surrounded by a spectacular reed belt and vast moorland, the water surface itself, which is only about 2 meters deep, is only accessible by a 1,5 km long wooden boardwalk. Since the area is an important hibernating, resting and breeding site for many bird species among others 200 breeding pairs of Whinchats and 18 breeding pairs of Marsh harriers (according Nabu 2014), it has been declared a Special Protection Area.

We’ve seen lots of interesting species, some well known as Reed Warblers, Savi’s Warblers, Great Reed Warblers and Reed Buntings, rather uncommon species such as Whinchats, Common Terns, Ruffs and marsh harriers. Furthermore we were quite lucky to observe rare migrants such as six female red-footed falcons and one Arctic Tern!

All in all it was a perfect Weekend despite of rain and I strongly recommend visiting the spot!

Autor: Max Steimetz

With upcoming conflicts of wild boars around protected areas such as the core zones of the biosphere reserve ‘Schwäbische Alb’, the research centre for wildlife at Aulendorf has launched a project to study its ecology and behaviour more closely.  One part of the research project is to determine the influence of its activity on important bird species such as woodlarks and its habitat preference. The main observations are taking place at the former military training field at Münsingen, which is part of the biosphere reserve.

Populations of woodlark across Europe have been in decline, with habitat loss in favour to agricultural land as major cause. However, agricultural development and intensification has not been affecting landscape and wildlife at the former training field here in Münsingen and periodic training manoeuvres didn’t seem to have bothered the local woodlark population during the last century. The right mix of habitat structures such as sparse vegetation with areas of bare or disturbed ground for foraging, patches of longer grass which provides cover and the vicinity of woodland for song perches or security is commonly found here. Nowadays the maintenance of an open landscape here  is largely due to sheep grazing, but also wildlife such as roe deers, wild boars and hares do their share.  

Apart from woodlarks, one can see a vast abundance of common bird species like red kites Milvus milvus, European pied flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca and European stonechats Saxicola rubicola and furthermore rarities such as whinchats Saxicola rubetra and northern wheatears Oenanthe oenanthe.  

My objective for the next two months will be to determine whether rooted patches created by wild boar are frequently used by woodlarks and form important feeding grounds, especially during the breeding season. And as a secondary goal, I will be detecting habitat preferences and collecting information about the breeding territories.

Since the beginning of April, I started observing woodlarks and am really looking forward to gain first results.

I strongly recommend visiting the biosphere reserve and especially the former training fields here at Münsingen to all nature and biodiversity lovers!

Yours sincerely,

Max Steinmetz

We got a Common Greenshank (Tringa nebularia) this morning, this species is a first for the Birdringingstation 'Schlammwiss'

Ringing in April is comparable to the weather situation in April, this means that there is a mixture of sunny, foggy and very rainy days. Usually migration is very similar, a great diversity of species can be detected.

click to read more

Ringing in April is comparable to the weather situation in April, this means that there is a mixture of sunny, foggy and very rainy days. Usually migration is very similar, a great diversity of species can be detected.

All in all in the Month of April we caught 647 birds, from which 435 were first captures, 133 recaptures from 2015 and 79 control captures birds not ringed in 2015. The diversity with 51 different species is very good for the Month of April.

Typical birds for the Month of April have been the first Reed and Bush Warbler species: Sedge Warbler (Acrocephalus schoenabaenus), Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus), Savi's warbler (Locustella luscinioides) and Grasshopper Warbler (Locustella naevia). Furthermore we caught the first Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica), the first Nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos) and a spotted crake (Porzana porzana).

From a migrational point of view most of the birds have been Blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla) with 153 individuals. During the first two weeks of April migration was still low with an increasing diversity and the last two weeks were marked some very interesting captures: 2cy male Whinchat (Saxicola rubetra), the first Wyrneck (Jynx torquilla) and a very early Common Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus).

 This month special has definitely been the Greenshank (Tringa nebularia) which was a first for the Ringing station.

Thanks as usual to the team for the effort they make in our station .

Other activitys:

• New monitoring project for the Water rail --> read more
• Bachelor project --> read more

Visit's done by members of the Schlammwissteam:

• Ringing of Tengmalm's owl in Germany --> read more 

Some photos from Jean Theisen from last weekend! Thank you for the photos!!

After two bad seasons in 2013 and 2014, we accompanied this year two experienced ornithologists who controlled nestboxes of Tengmalm’s Owl (Aegolius funereus) in a forest of the Hunsrück in Rhineland-Palatinate. Because of the good food supply this year, the Tengmalm’s owl is likely to experience a better breeding season. This nocturne species has a body height of only 24-26 cm and it primarily subsists on small rodents such as mice. Its habitat consists of low mountain ranges between 450 m and 800 m above sea-level. The Tengmalm’s owl mainly prefers coniferous forests mixed with leaf trees including old nesting holes of the Black Woodpecker. Unfortunately, the brood of the Tengmalm’s owl is threatened by martens which climb up trees and eat their clutches.

Depending on the weather conditions, the females generally start breeding in April. A few chicks had hatched already when the ringer checked the nestboxes.  In this ringing session only the females were ringed. A recapture of a female or a nest-ringed young owl is rare but there are already a few recaptures of Tengmalm’s owl in Belgium. They hatched and were ringed in the region Eifel, which shows that this owl species migrates between different low mountain ranges.

Ringing this month was definately marked by the progress of the ongoing Water Pipit Project, in total 50 Water Pipits (Anthus spinoletta) were captured, 40 new and 10 recaptures. Some of the recaptures have been wintering every year in the reserve for the last 4 or 5 years at least!. You can follow the progress of this project on Schlammwiss website. (click for more information)

In total, 435 birds were ringed and recaptured of 32 species. It was a good month compared to other years and as usual more spring migrants show up the first time during this month.

Some of these are White Wagtail (Motacilla alba), Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla), Stonechat (Saxicola rubicola) (2 birds ringed and recaptures from each). 1 Skylark (Alauda arvensis) and 1 Green Sandpiper (Tringa ochropus) were also first of season. As expected, the top species for this month that peak the migration back to their breeding grounds in this period were Robin (Erithacus rubecula) (64 ringed and recaptures), Dunnock (Prunella modularis) (55 ringed and recaptured), Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita) (28 ringed and recaptured) and Reed Bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus) ( 95 ringed and recaptured).

We also noted a small movement of Wrens (Troglodytes troglodytes) with 18 birds ringed and recaptured.

Other interesting species ringed were 3 Firecrests (Regulus ignicapilla), 1 Short toed Treecreeper (Certhia brachydactyla), 3 Redwings (Turdus iliacus), 2 Coots (Fulica atra) and 2 new Water Rails (Rallus aquaticus).

The special threat for this month was a Little Grebe that we caught in the net while flying from one pond to the other!! We did not ring a lot Little Grebes (Tachybaptus ruficollis) during the years for obvious reasons as this species don't fly around but prefer the water where they are well adapted to dive and swim, so finding the bird in the net was a surprise.

Although usually the month of March is a quite one for bird ringing as most of the migrants or summer visitors have not arrived yet, it is always a pleasure to see the first spring migrants and the first signs of breeding after the long winter months.

Thanks as usual to the team for the effort they make in our station .

Working time: 114 hours

Autor: Joseph Dunlop

Other activitys:

• New Update for the waterpipitproject --> read more

Visit of our members from the Schlammwissteam:

• Pallas's leaf warbler in Belgium -- (Jim, Raoul, Charel, Guy) --> see photos below
  
• Ringday -- (Jim, Cedric, Joseph, Raoul, Charel) --> read more

Members of Schlammwiss Ringing Team met early on Sunday 22 March to hit the road to Genk in Belgium for the annual Ringday organised by the Belgian Royal Institute of natural sciences.Apart from the regular bird ringing and other scientific projects, the Ringing team makes sure to attend these sort of conferences to keep in contact with other ornithologists and update itself on recent studies and research on birds and bird ringing.

We arrived around 11 am where we attended a guided tour of the Het Wik nature reserve. An interesting biotope with marshes and reed beds surrounded by mixed forests which provide excellent habitat for birds. We were given information about ringing and management on the site.

At 2pm we started with the first talk which was about the ringing results of the reserve Het Wik, it followed by a very interesting talk about why bird ringers should take measurements on birds , what the measurements means, when and how. This talk solidified our beleifs and our insistance to take regular and accurate measurements. We were given several examples of cases where the measurements makes difference in species , populations and races of particular bird taxa. Measurements also help to determine sex and age in some species. A fine example is weight of a bird in comparison to fat levels, this can show whether the bird is migrating or not.

The third talk was also of high importance for all bird ringers it concerned the moult of birds, a must know to all bird ringers and trainees that ring birds regularly. Bird moult can tell a lot, it shows different stages in a birds life so knowing how birds moult is one of the biggest tool for ringers, ornithologists and scientists. We are used to ringing passerines so hearing a talk about catching and ringing waterbirds for 10 years was interesting for us.

It concerns the reserve of Sint Agatha Rode where they use a water cage trap with food to attarct ducks , of special interests was the information about the recaptures and the data provided from this activity as there are not a lot of ringing stations that focus on ringing water birds.

The last talk was about building a bal chatri trap for birds of prey. This is a special trap that needs a special permission to operate.

Overall, this ringday was a huge success from the social aspect for our team and most importantly for the opportunity to learn and share knowledge on birds and bird ringing. Member's of Schlammwiss team have also attend last year's Ringday and a symposium for birdmonitoring at Mainz University in November 2014.

Autor: Joseph Dunlop

On thuesday the 19. march we (Jim, Raoul, Charel and Guy(Birdringingstation 'Schifflange')) went to Belgium to see the Palla's leaf warbler (Phylloscopus proregulus). We found the bird together with Goldcrests (Regulus regulus), Firecrests (Regulus ignicapillus) and Chiffchaffs (Phylloscopus collybita) in a big wetland area.

Autor: Charel Klein

Description of the Water Pipit project --> click here

On the weekend of the 6th and 7th March we opened the nets again in Schlammwiss site and for the first time in Mensdorf. We had a beautiful spectacle of over 50 Water Pipits flying over the reeds for some time at Mensdorf checking where to land to roost. Most of them landed on a tree or went down in the wetlands before they flew again into the reeds. We had the biggest catch so far for this project in Mensdorf and the biggest catch ever of Water Pipits in one go for the reserve!

Weekend:

• 41 waterpipits
• • 34 new captures
  • 7 recaptures from 2013 & 2014
• 3 birds not tagged because too weak (muscle and fat very low)

Total:

• 44 birds tagged
• • 30 new Water Pipits
  • 14 recaptured Water Pipits from 2013 & 2014
• Need 6 more specimens

For every activity we didn’t open more than 5 netlines! After the ringing activity we closed all nets correctly and bring the Pipits back to their sleeping place.

Thank you to the team! For helping me tagging the Water Pipits until 2 a.m!

(Dave Lutgen, Raoul Mettenhoven, Joseph Dunlop, Pascale Krager, Claude Kraus)

Autor: Charel Klein

The month of February is usually one of the slowest ringing months of the year.

This is usually because of two main reasons:

One is the maintenance work in the reserve that takes priority on bird ringing and secondly is that the spring migration has not started yet and the only birds around are those that survived the cold winter.

(--> more about the report of the weather see below)

In total, we ringed 48 birds and recaptured 100. The usual pattern was observed again this year , first spring migrants to arrive, as every year, were Reed Buntings (Emberiza schoeniclus), 8 in total in the last two weeks of the month. 1 Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) was also ringed .

The Water Pipit (Anthus spinoletta) project has started so 2 new birds were ringed and 4 recaptured.

Other interesting captures were 1 Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) quite out of season, 3 Moorhens (Gallinula chloropus) and 3 Fieldfares (Turdus pilaris) that were attracted to the apples in the orchard. The two Middle Spotted Woodpeckers (Dendrocopos medius) and the Nuthatch (Sitta europaea) are still hanging around the feeders in the forest. The usual winter birds are still around with 44 Blue Tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) ringed and recaptured, 6 Yellowhammers (Emberiza citrinella), 3 Willow Tits (Poecile montana) , 7 Cahffinches (Fringilla coelebs) and 10 Robins (Erithacus rubecula) .

We thank the team for the maintenance work they performed this month on the reserve.

Autor: Joseph Dunlop

-------------------

Other activitys:

• Start with the waterpipitproject --> read more about the project informations or about the first update
• "Fit by nature" activity for the Ecological Succession of Wetlands
• First signs of spring --> read more

Visit of our members from the Schlammwissteam:

• Dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis) and Lesser scaup (Aythya affinis) in Netherlands & meeting of birdringinggroups at the institut royal des sciences naturelles de belgique in brussels
• Island -- (Jim) --> see photos
  
• Spotted nutcracker (Nucifraga caryocatactes) -- (Jim & Dave & Raoul)--> read more
  

In Mid-February, we were able to observe the first signs of spring. At the end of November, the last cranes migrate to their wintering grounds in the south of Spain: this for most of us heralds winter. In contrast, when in February the first cranes are migrating back to their breeding grounds in the north of Germany or Sweden, some of the optimistic ornithologists claim that spring has started.

As Luxembourg is situated on a 100-kilometre passage on the migratory track of the cranes, we have the opportunity to observe big groups of up to 1000 individuals migrating to the north. Last week, temperatures have risen by 5°C; this increase was a signal for up to 20 000 cranes to start their migration. This spectacle was observed by a lot of hobby ornithologists including myself; this means that between the 21 and the 23 of February I was able to count up to 5000 birds heading to the north. Not only cranes announce the spring, other indicators were singing like blackbirds and chaffinches; these two species hardly migrate, which explains their presence on the feeders during winter.

Another species introducing the spring is the white stork. The first arriving white storks are always males, they are first because they need to occupy their territory and nest. Waiting for the female birds to arrive, they work on their nests in order to present a well-formed home, on which both of them can raise their chicks. A highlight for Luxembourg was the first breeding pair of the white stork in 2012. This bird species was extinct for decades, but it seems that the population is rising. Last week the first storks arrived and excited a lot of ornithologists.

Apart from the aforementioned species, some of the most impressive birds of prey have also returned. The first red kites were observed in January. Last week, we were able to observe our local breeding couple, starting to rebuild their nest. In addition to the red kites, we observed the first reed buntings. This bird species, which uses reeds to feed and to raise their chicks benefits from the last grains on the feeders to survive the month of March. As reeds start to grow late in March, reed buntings depend on remaining grains which they find along fields or on the feeders.

An additional spring species is the woodlark (Lullula arborea), which started singing in the vineyards last week.

Autor: Dave Lutgen

Definition:

The process whereby one plant community changes into another. It involves the immigration and extinction of species, coupled with changes in the relavtive abundance of different plants

Crawley 1997

The nature reserve „Schlammwiss“ in the Syrvalley near Übersyren consists of a vast reedbed, which has naturally established itself around several ponds, and a big marsh area. These two vegetation types would, without any maintenance of an open landscape in terms of a periodical mowing/cutting or extensive pasturing, as we would find it near Mensdorf, be exposed to the natural succession of plant communities. Wood such as several willow species, alders and elms, which can cope with moist soils would claim these permanently and seasonally flooded areas and thus displace the desired vegetation.

In order to support a certain structural diversity consisting of meadows, reeds, sedges, some shrubs and trees and so favour linked habitats for diverse insect and bird species, it is essential to carry out maintenance measures. This includes on the one hand removing the spreading wood and bushes especially in the reed area and on the other hand regularly mowing the marsh area to keep it open.

Due to the heavy snowfall during January, which has flattened the whole reed and sedge area, accessibility was given and one could easily remove all shrubs and woods. Furthermore a committed participation of many members of the Schlammwiss-team as well as many helping hands from the “Fit by Nature” activities enabled to do the job.

Many thanks to our volunteers and Alain Maury (and co.) !

Autor: Max Steinmetz

Description of the Water Pipit project --> click here

Summary:

·        Water Pipits (Anthus spinoletta) have been observed roosting in 'Schlammwiss' Nature Reserve since 2000.

·        Since 2012 we started ringing these birds in the roost, thus collecting various data and information on these birds.

·        In winter, Water Pipits usually spend the day in open wet pastures catching insects and in the evening they gather in small flocks and roost in reedbeds with thick undergrowth vegetation.

·        Until this day, we still don't know the origin of our wintering birds. With this project we aim to catch and tag with small GPSs 50 Water Pipits, so that hopefully we will recapture some of them again and get a better picture on the whereabouts of these birds. Our aim is to learn where these birds breed, their migration route and the roosting places they use. To get all this data we need to recapture the birds again in the first three months on 2016.

Groundwork:

In the last two weeks, volunteers and members of the schlammwiss team, have been busy preparing and maintaining the sites (reedbed), where the nets will be set up for this project. Some work has already been done last autumn like cutting trenches in the reedbeds to set up the capture area.

Information:

We are very cautious and have been discussing where to set up the nets to minimize as much as possible the risk that these birds will abandon the roosting site. This is why every step of the work is meticulously taking time and done under supervision of the project coordinator and the ringers. Apart from the roost in Schlammwiss nature reserve, there is also another roost of Water Pipits that we are working on in Mensdorf area. We have already prepared 5 trenches in Mensdorf area to set up nets. With this new site we can work for two consecutive days but use two different sites to minimise disturbance.

GPS:

We’ve got 50 Pinpoint GPS from Biotrack that we received on the 25. February for this waterpipit project. They are working different from the geologs that we used for the reed warbler project.

We can use the GPS for 600s. We tested one GPS in the field to find out

·        How long does it need to record one reading?

·        Does it make any difference --> outdoor (wetland) or when the bird is hidden in the undergrowth?

·        Does movement of the bird make a difference?

After test we can say:

·        It needs around 5s to record the coordinates

·        No difference when the bird is in an open area or undergrowth

·        If it’s moving, it takes more time to record a coordinate (after 70s it switches off)

With this knowledge, we’re calculating that overall we will have between 120-125 recordings on each bird. The aim of this project is to know exactly the origin of these pipits and where they breed.

So the recordings are:

--> see shedule below (photo 1)

We’ll take 5 coordinates per week during the breeding season to find out the coordinates of their breeding grounds. Since we are not sure when they start to breed we programmed the 5 weekly readings from mid May until August. The GPS will take the coordinates at 0830HRS when the birds are very active.

During the migration to their breeding place in April and then back to our wintering grounds around November, the GPS will take 4 coordinates per week. From the test we know that the GPS needs more time to take coordinates when the birds are on the move. So we programmed the GPS to take the coordinates at midnight when the birds are sleeping either during migration or in their roost in winter.

We don’t have enough time and power in the GPS to find out where the pipits spend the day during the winter, questions like: do they feed near or far from the roosting sites? We can take just some coordinates during this time but since the readings in the winter months are programmed to be taken at midnight we will only know whether they come to the same roost every night or if they visit other roosting sites in the region. Maybe we can charge the GPS again next year and see where they are feeding during the day in winter.

First capture:

We (Charel Klein, Dave Lutgen and Raoul Mettenhoven) opened the first nets Friday the 27th February. Since we have been observing the roost for some years now we know which areas they prefer to sleep and we know where water pipits concentrate in the roost. For the first ringing session (we needed to refresh the method of putting GPS on) we decided to open an area where birds don't concentrate. We opened the nets at 5 pm and closed at 7 pm (control at 6). There was football game in the nearby football ground and it was rainy.

We caught:

·        6 waterpipits

o       4 control from 2013 & 2014

o       2 new birds

·        3 Wrens (Troglodytes troglodytes)

·        1 Reed bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus)

We put the GPS the same way as we did on Reed Warblers and use the same harness material.

Before we put the GPS on we check :

·        Net number

·        Fat & muscle

·        Age & sexe (= comparison with photos from the years before and Lucas Jenni book)

·        Winglength & length of 3rd primary feather

·        Weight & other remarks

Second capture:

With Charel Klein, Max Steinmetz and Philip Birget we opened Saturday the 28th February different nets at Schlammwiss site from the first time. We didn’t catch that much because of a football game in the nearby football ground and over falling balls in the reeds. To the end of the day we caught 3 reed buntings, 1 yellowhammer and 1 waterpipit (which we tagged the day before). We checked if everything is okay with the bird and let it free again.

Back to the sleepingplace:

After each session we close the nets after 7 pm and after the ringing and processing of the pipits, which sometimes takes hours, we always return the water pipits back to the site where they were caught. So they can get out of the roost with the other birds the next morning, this will hopefully decrease the stress and disturbance on the birds after the process of GPS tagging the previous night.

Autor: Charel Klein

As one of the most mystical birds, the spotted nutcracker spends all of his time in coniferous forests. The main nutrition source are cones. It's fascinating to which degree, evolution enabled this species to occupy an ecological niche that has hardly any biodiversity.

Apart from the spotted nutcracker, we were able to observe some red crossbills (Loxia curvirostra).

Autor: Dave Lutgen

Le "Natur- a Vulleschutzveräin Ieweschte Syrdall", section N&E, et la fondation "Hëllef fir d'Natur" organisent dans le cadre de la Journée mondiale des zones humides et la Convention de Ramsar (convention relative aux zones humides d'importance internationale, particulièrement comme habitats des oiseaux d'eau) une visite guidée dans la réserve naturelle SCHLAMMWISS le dimanche 1er février.

Plus information:

http://www.mywort.lu/schuttrange/47592392.html#.VMeZW_gedHY.facebook

As usual , January was a quiet month for bird ringing. In total 8 ringing sessions were carried but much more technical visits and work were done. In the beginning of the month , an inventory of all the ringing material and rings was carried out. Still, with 8 sessions only, 448 birds were ringed and recaptured mostly in the last two weeks of the month when the weather turned cold and chilly.

This is a good number for January!

Most of the birds are caught near the bird feeders at this time of the year or at the water's edge with special traps. Interesting captures were a Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) on the 17th, 1 Chiffchaff (Phy. collibita) and 2 wintering Water Rails (Rallus aquaticus) thanks to the effort made to check the winter population of Rails in our reserve . To note also were 6 Long tailed Tits (Aegithalos caudatus) of the nominate ssp, 3 Mallards (Anas plathy.), 17 Yellowhammers (Emb. citrinella) and 1 Magpie (Pica pica).

We had also some remarkable recaptures of 3 different Nuthatches (Sitta europea) and 3 Middle Spotted Woodpeckers (Dendrocopus medius) that are visiting the feeders on a regular basis, the latter is quite worthy of note since it is not that common to have 3 Medium Spotted Woodpecker visiting our feeders on the habitats of our reserve.

It was a good opportunity for the team to learn more about this secretive species of woodpecker. Schlammwiss Reserve is not only about bird ringing but our team also keeps a good lookout on the birds around.

The big task for this month was observing the water pipits (Anth. spinoletta) roost in preparation for the GPS project that will take place in the coming months, more info on this project on our website, click here. 

There was up to 6 Teals around (Anas crecca) 2-3 Water Rails (Rallus aquaticus) wintering in Sias area, regular flocks of Siskins (Carduelis spinus) visiting the Birch trees during the day and 2 Black headed Gulls (Lar. ridibundus) were also observed in the first days. Cormorants number increased in the reserve as the water starts to freeze in lakes and waterways around the reserve but fortunately the water does not freeze in the water treatment ponds so it's a good fishing place for Cormorants.

A white wagtail (Mot. alba) and at least 2 Grey Wagtails (Mot. cinerea) are passing the winter in the resrerve too. Up to 6 Great White Egrets (Ardea alba) were obsreved flying over the reserve , some roost in the reserve too.

We also observed an increase in the numbers of Fieldfares (Turd. pilaris) and Blackbirds (Turd. merula) at the last week of the month probably due to the recent cold snap that pushed more birds from the North to move South.

The nestboxes have been cleaned on Sunday morning, the 18th with Raoul, Tiago and Cédric. We got a surprise in one of them being populated by a mice family.

Thanks to the team for the effort they make even in this cold weather to work, ring and observe birds in our reserve.

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Other activitys:

• New Year meeting --> read more
• First "Fit by nature" activity --> read more
  

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Visit of our members from the Schlammwissteam:

• Wallcreeper in Dinant (Raoul & Dave & Jim) --> read more
  
• Bonn for ringing parakeets (Jim & Nicole & Cédric & Dave) --> read more
• Radolfzell for ringingexam in Germany (Dave & Charel) --> read more
• Hasel/Schopfheim for 3 million Brambling (Dave & Charel & Max) --> read more

Some photos from Jean Theisen from the last 2 weeks! Thank you for the photos!!

We started today with a cormorant in the net!

Unfortunately he found the way out before one of our birdringers could catch him...

Anyway we had a good day! Just less birds than yesterday..

We recaptured a Grey wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) (adult male) from 2013 !!

and a Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita) from november 2014. The bird stayed over the winter.

Furthermore one White waigtail (Motacilla alba) (with a ring from us! ), two stonechats - male & female - (Saxicola rubicola) two red kites, about 30 siskins and some water rails have been see.

In Mensdorf (2 km away in a natura2000 area) we checked about a second sleeping place of waterpipits (Anthus spinoletta). We counted 30 birds and managed to photograph one with a ring!

The waterpipits come every year to our natural reserve and stay over the winter. This year we try to give them a gps- transmitter to find out from where they are (where they breed?). Further information will follow...

Yesterday, we counted about 89 waterpipits coming to their usual sleeping place

For more information about the weekend check the ringinglist

Autor: Charel Klein