Further news from the Axe Estuary Ringing Group

Since the report in last year’s summer newsletter, the Group has been actively exploring new areas of Colyford Common, Black Hole Marsh and Stafford Marsh, some of them recently purchased by East Devon District Council. Black Hole Marsh has been landscaped to encourage waders, duck and other waterside birds. The exciting prospect of catching and ringing birds on these sites were soon realised when three Common Sandpipers were caught in a single session, together with Pied Wagtails that flirted with the nets. Stafford Marsh, when landscaped, will be the home of a new public hide and ringing station. In the meantime, we have caught more than 40 hirundines, including 25 House Martins. The hide and ringing station are expected to be operational by next spring and will cater for several ringers operating at the same time; a far cry from our present hut that holds three or four people at a squeeze.

The ringing of birds at Seaton Marshes, Colyford Common, and adjoining private land is part of a programme to monitor and study the breeding, wintering and migration patterns of birds along the Axe Estuary. The work has helped to confirm breeding of Cetti’s, Reed and Sedge Warblers here. In the hand, birds caught near their breeding habitats show distinct brood patches (featherless areas on the bird’s belly that help transfer heat to the eggs); other catches, such as recently fledged young, also represent signs of breeding. This information is important in confirming where migrant and resident birds started their lives.

Autumn has been our usual time for special sessions aimed at catching waders that frequent the mud around the lagoons. The invertebrate animals that teem there attract hungry waders at high tides, when the estuary mud is covered by water. Last autumn we caught and ringed Knot, Redshank, Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew, Dunlin, Ruff, Oystercatcher, Common Snipe and Jack Snipe. Ringing of these birds has produced several interesting recoveries. An Oystercatcher caught on Colyford Marsh in October 2007 had been ringed on Bardsley Island, Gwynedd, Wales on 7 June 1995 and a Black-tailed Godwit, one of four colour-ringed by the Group this spring, was located a month later in Iceland. Other Black-tailed Godwits colour-ringed on the Axe have been located on the Exe Estuary, and apparently move across the Channel to France and return to the originally ringing area in only a matter of days. These migrations to find food are amazing, and colour-ringing has enabled such movements to be monitored without having to catch the birds. Last autumn the Group caught its first Little Egret and attached colour rings as part of a national scheme. Unfortunately this juvenile, caught on Colyford Marsh, only survived 72 days and was found dead nearby.

Ringing at Seaton Marshes has also produced some interesting recoveries: a Wigeon was found shot on the River Zapagnaya, Kiev, Russia on 17 April 2009. Another, shot at Giessenburg, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands on 19 January 2008 had, like the previous bird, been ringed at Seaton on 15 December 2007, and had perhaps started its migration back to its breeding grounds in Russia. Wrens are normally considered to be sedentary, but one caught on the last day of 2008 had been ringed by the Goldcliff Ringing Group who only operate in South Wales. So did this little bird travel across one of the Severn bridges or fly across the Bristol Channel?!
Members of the Society can experience catching and ringing wild birds. The Group, subject to favourable weather, have invited AVDCS members to its field session at Colyford Common on the morning of the 30 October (see programme). For those who are unable to come along there is the Annual General Meeting in the evening of the same day when I will be giving a short illustrated talk on the work of the Group.