Well,this is a tricky site to navigate,trying hard to not make a pigs ear of the blog,Im sure once I get familiar with all the icons my posts will get a bit more professional-like!!
Before I get on to other interesting stuff from yesterday,today I’m multitasking like all the ladies do!!
I,E.Making some bird records from the balcony,processing todays’ moths,adding to the blog,keeping an eye on the DP World Golf final round,processing photos from last visit to my study site in Almeria province!!
So before getting on to yesterdays birds there were a few moth trap invaders to report too
Acrosternum heegeri
Have been finding plenty of these little critters in and around the traps these last couple of months or so.They only seem to be attracted to the light of the traps and nothing more
Common Rhinoceros Beetle Phyllognathus excavatus
Rescued this fella from the balcony floor as it had got stuck on its back on the tiles
When lifting up the broken up egg boxes to look for moths one needs to be careful as you dont want to grab 1 of these or its an early wake up call!! Ive had 2 this week.It has various English names,European Wasp,German Wasp or German Yellowjacket.In Latin Vespa germanica.Amazing what flies around in the dark but helped by all the extraneous lighting.Its not dead,just slightly torpid as has had just less a minute in the freezer to calm it down for the photograph.it soon warmed up and flew off.
Well going back to the ringing session this week,having trapped 2 Long Tailed Tits in the feeding flock,I could not remember when I had last caught a LOTTI at this site so I checked the Junta de Los Rios excel folder and found that since I had started ringing there in March 2000 I had only trapped the species in 2014,a total of 8 birds in the July of that year and 6 alone on the 9th-WOW,doesnt time fly!!
So,back to yesterday the 9th.,alarm bells ringing ,or rather NOT.For the 2nd time this week reset alarm on mobile for 6.00 and forgot to save it,senile dementia set in!! I got up as nature was calling and thought ,I feel quite awake really so checked the phone and it was 7..00!! Whatever clothes came to hand and were flung on,luckily I still had about an hour before it started to get light.,dodged a bullet.
And anyway just like the other occasion I neednt have panicked,as there were the fewest moths in the traps that I can remember since last winter time.Why ?? Well to tell the truth it was a bit cooler,but the wind was the telling factor,as where I am situated,a W.wind whatever the strength is a bit of a no no ,the moths just dont venture forth.Its pretty much the opposite to the birding and bird ringing as a general rule.Coupled with the fact that a number of species that I would normally be catching,are coming to the end of their flight period..To tell the truth I feel lucky to catch any unsuspecting moth with the huge amounts of unnecessary light pollution surrounding me.,and its getting worse with the horrendous building program going on down here on the Costa del Sol.So far I have seen since been living here,3 booms and 2 busts,and where is this boom gonna end,in tears again,its hard to predict,and if you thought house prices were bad in UK,uuuffff,the new apartments down here cost a fortune for what you are getting!!
Back off the soap box and more important things.Firstly the moths.I only trapped 17 of which there were 8 species.As has been for some time the commonest was Dark Mottled Willow,Spodoptera cilium,followed by some other regular species of late,Grass Webworm,Herpetogramma licarsisalis,Small Marbled,Eublemma parva and Mniotype occidentalis.As for Trichophaga bipartita,I only ever seem to trap 1 in a session.But 1 did catch 1 new moth,a beautiful thing when you look closely at it,and it is so variable,Mallow Moth,Larentia malvata.Its English name comes from 1 of the larval food plants.Looking back in my records for last year,I caught 1 on 5th,Nov.and 1 on 11th,Nov,2024.On 1 of the mothing sites its flight period is given as mid Sept to mid Oct.but down here in S.W.Spain flight times can be very variable.Well I am going to post what I have as dont want to loose the type then shall attempt to add some pictures.
Sardinian Warbler 1st.Winter Female12m.Ringing lane set in edge of scrubCommon ChiffchaffBlue Tit Adult MaleBlackcap 1st.winter MaleBlackcap Female
Maybe better add a few notes for the uninitiated regarding these birds.So working along from left to right top line.
Keeping it simple Female Sardinian Warblers as a rule have a grey crown and males a jet black crown.They are the commonest scrub warbler down here.I must apologise for all the fingers in the shots.They are just record photos for me as it is difficult to hold a bird in 1 hand keeping it calm and photographing it using a mobile phone in the other.
All nets are strategically set to trap the birds.Again keeping it simple,many birds move along the edges of vegetation rather than in the centre of thickets so this net is set at right angles half in and half outside .There are 2 bird callers on the ground by the net,as this makes the birds present in the area inquistive and they dont see the very fine mesh of the net and fly into it and become a little tangled ready for me to safely extract and process them.Sometimes I target a specific species ,and some respond very well to their own call.
Photo 3 is a Common Chiffchaff,not possible to sex as both males and females look the same,in ringing terms they are not sexually dimorphic.This waif weighs a mere 7 grams or so but was in great condition carrying plenty of fat so probably had flown a long to get here.It will spend the winter in the area or may even fly over to Morocco
Bottom line first is the usual pesky Blue Tit,taking its annoyance out on my fingers.Believe me I have ringed 100’s of them in UK back in the day and they are just the same there!! This is a typical male ,a female has a much duller blue coloration.
Working along to the 1st.winter male Blackcap.1st.winter means it was born this year and one of the tell tale signs is the brown tips to the crown feathers which are quite clear in this shot.All the 26 Blackcaps I trapped today were migrant/wintering birds.They could have come from anywhere in W.Europe incl.UK.How do I know?? Well firstly local Blackcaps have a shorter wing length than migrant birds but there is an overlap,You cannot put nature in boxes .There are always exceptions to the rule.But I have found a simple rule to sort out the anomalies.By measuring the wing length and Tail length,then dividing wing into tail,gives a figure less than 1.90% plus with a figure more than 0.85 are local birds and less than 0.85 are migrants.
Local birds have a proportionately longer tail.
Last picture is a typical female Blackcap and yes you have guessed it,female Blackcaps have a brown cap and males a black cap!!
Well in total I trapped 40 birds which is far more than I normally would catch in an E.wind,hence the surprise.The other surprise was that on the last net round there were 29 birds waiting to be extracted.”Dont panic” And what is unusual ,it was a mixed feeding flock,something you would normally find in a woodland.plus in this flock were 2 Long Tailed Tits (Sorry no Photo),and I have only ringed 8 others at this site since I have been ringing there and I started in the year 2000.!!
Those 8 I trapped in July 2014,6 on 1 date alone,so probably were from the same nest.
So thats all for now but watch this space.Although the wind from W.today is not good will put out a couple of my sheltered moth traps to see whats about.So more photos to follow tomorrow,hoprfully something interesting.But as with bird ringing you never know what might turn up,nature is full of surprises!! BFN.
Any Monty Python fans will understand!! Well for starters it rained enough to settle the dust.Don say i didn’t tell you. LOL.I keep telling my friends, trust me I’m a doctor. Being a weather forecaster must be a nightmare, look at poor Michael Fish (For those old enough to remember him) W.wind it wasn’t for sure,God damn Levanter, which where I live and ring is a real downer normally. So yesterday I eventually got to the site ,dragging my long suffering wife along ,by 08.00,already getting light.But got the 3 usual nets uo by 09.00,1 in some fab jungle in the river bed,and tuther 2 in typical Mediterranean type dry scrub.Luckily it was relatively calm for 1st 2 rounds so had time to take a few pictures for the blog and even grab a cuppa and breakfast. So trapped and ringing usual birds for the site at this time of year,7 migrant Blackcaps,2 ocal Sardinian Warblers,Blue Tit,a passage Chaffinch and Common Chiffchaff.Havent gotten used to this site yet so not going to risk loosing the text so am posting then try to add some photos.
RAIN!!
Well it stated raining at 5pm but its just drizzle not damaging but good for the campo which badly needs it. A good friend went birding locally today just for an hour or so at the Guadalquiton Bunker beach area before rain arrived .,and reported House Sparrows, Goldfinch (on passage),Crested Larks,White Wagtails (on passage) Fan Tailed Warbler, Yellow-legged Gulls,Cormorants (wintering),Gannets (wintering),Little Grebe,Wood Pigeons (big movements in Autumn),Collared Doves,Common Kestrel,Griffon Vultures, Blackbirds, Common Chiffchaffs, Male Cirl Bunting (never tired of seeing them),and Stonechat
Rain??
Well despite all the doom and gloom on the weather forecasts as per usual it looks as if in our little corner of SW Spain is going to miss the worst of it, but watch this space!! So early tomorrow off bird ringing at my main ringing site where the 2 major rivers of the area meet,the Rios of Genal and Guadiaro. Winds are quite good it appears tomorrow basically W..At moment because of the summer drought and hottest August that I have ever experienced in the 25 years here, the Genal is not flowing at the site and the Guadiaro is but a trickle so there should be plenty of passerines coming down to drink Hopefully a few pictures of birds ringed and safely released on the blog tomorrow. I am a member of a local very active ringing group and have the necessary licence to trap and ring birds
Well,everyone has to start their blog somewhere so why not with this Sickle-bearing Leaf Leaf Katydid Phaneroptera sparsa. I moth trap from my balconies here in Sabinillas Malaga province S.Spain regularly each month and its surprising what wildlife is attracted to the lights or to the moths in and around the traps and this is 1 example
Of course there are what we call Moth trap invaders that are after a free lunch such as this Giant African Mantis Sphodromantis viridis. These are from November 4th.which was a great night to moths both in.numbers and species.1 Example is this
Golden Twin-spot Chrysodeixis chalcites. Well,lots of interesting stuff to follow soon.
Doc.B's Nature Blog 