History: The nature reserve "Schlammwiss" was founded in 1982 by the foundation"Hellef fir Natur" (HFN). Afterwards the group "Letzeburger Natur- a Vullenschutzliga" (LNVL) founded the station "Schlammwiss". The station is leaded by the "centrale ornithologique Luxembourg" (COL), a part of the asbl. Natur & Emwelt. Due to the fact that Luxembourg doesn't have its own bird ringing central, we work in cooperation with Royal Belgian Instutitute of Natural Sciences. Therefore, we use rings from the Belgian Museum of Natural Sciences.
Location: The bird ringing station "Schlammwiss" is located in Luxembourg, between the communities Schuttrange & Munsbach. The nature reserve is part of the 375ha big Syrvalley and is an extremely important Natura 2000 zone. The reserve is periodicly flooded due to the Syr river, which is an important generator of biodiversity.
Research area: Around 30ha are used for researche, on a length of 1km and a width of 30-120m. The main area is covered by reeds and wetlands (20ha). Furthermore, the resarch area is subdivided and caracterized by an orchard, a forest, several ponds distributed throughout the reedbed and a purification plant (SIAS). The main techniques employed are mist nets and rail traps in order to realize population estimates (i.e. breeding population, migration, overwintering population) and survival estimates by Capture-Mark-Recapture. There are several projects running in the nature reserve and visitation are possible.
Summary of the ringing activity this month
In march, the bird ringing station "Schlammwiss" caught about 855 birds of 34 species. This number is subdivided in 581 E, 187 W and 87 K. None bird foreign origin has been caught.
The total amount of birds for the month is higher than the average amount of birds caught in february at the station. The graphic below shows the average amount of birds for each month during the years 2001-2014.
E: first capture of this individual
W: recapture of an individual which was already captured this year
K: individuals which were ringed one or more years ago or individuals with a foreign country or station
Top 5
| 1. | COCCOC | Hawfinch | 172 |
| 2. | PARCAE | Blue tit | 112 |
| 3. | ERIRUB | Robin | 74 |
| 4. | EMBSCH | Reed bunting | 73 |
| 5. | PARMAJ | Great tit | 61 |
Interesting birds captured:
- 1 Anthus pratensis
- 53 Anthus spinoletta
- 4 Carduelis spinus
- 172 Coccothraustes coccothraustes
- 1 Garrulus glandarius
- 1 Luscinia svecica
- 1 Phoenicurus ochruros
- 39 Phylloscopus collybiata + 2 spp. abietinus
- 1 Rallus aquaticus
- 8 Sylvia atricapilla
First spring arrivals:
| Species | Date |
| Phylloscopus collybiata | 10.3 |
| Phoenicurus ochruros | 24.3 |
| Luscinia svecica | 25.3 |
|
Rallus aquaticus |
31.3 |
| Sylvia atricapilla | 31.3 |
Summary
Distribution of the age:
| Code | Amount | Definiton |
| C | 5 | older than four years |
| B | 10 | born four years ago |
| A | 3 | older than three years |
| 9 | 13 | born three years ago |
| 8 | 10 | older than two years |
| 7 | 23 | born two years ago |
| 6 | 150 | older than one year |
| 5 | 298 | born last year |
| 4 | 341 | age unkown, but not born this year |
| 3 | / | born this year |
| 2 | 2 | age unknown |
| 1 | / | nestling |
Foreign birds that we controlled this year:
| Month | Species | Country |
| January | / | / |
| February | Sturnus vulgaris | Beglium |
| March | Phylloscopus collybita | Belgium |
| Phylloscopus collybita | Belgium | |
| Emberiza schoeniclus | France |
The team of the bird ringing station Schlammwiss are mostly volunteers who did an excellent work this month!
We say thank you for everyone who was helping this month!
In summary we spent around 46 hours during 9 days working at the station.
We also welcome the visitors on our station:
All our sightings of this month are saved in ornitho.lu
Observation
Compute total number of birds
Compute total number of observation
Photos of this month
Extra story:
A recapitulation of our waterpipitproject this year
Thanks to the editiors of this report:
Charel Klein
Jim Schmitz, Cédric Brodin