Onwards and upwards

I have been making good, steady progress with fieldwork all this week. The successful catching at the Bridge site continued over the next few days, and there are now 19 newly ringed birds at this site. If I can, I will visit there again tomorrow morning to mop up a few more birds and clarify whether there has been another re-sighting from last year. I have been catching at the other sub-site known as 'John's Farm' too, and have caught a further 10 birds here. Both of these smaller sites had only 5 ringed birds last year. John's Farm is quite a bit smaller than the others with not as much potential to expand until perhaps when the corn fields are harvested. I have noticed that there are quite a few birds hanging out in the corn, and if last year is anything to go by then these birds will maintain their territories even when the corn is gone. They will be far easier to catch when there are places to put the traps.

I am really pleased that we have managed to expand the Bridge site. Last February I found very few birds in the spot where I have now caught 14 birds, which makes me wonder if Whinchats do shift territories over the winter. If they do then I should find out. Ringing all or most of the birds in a contiguous area not only makes re-sighting more productive, but gives a much clearer picture of what is going on between territories. Knowing who the neighbours are may shed more light on why some birds may have smaller or larger territories than others, for example.

The weather has been pretty bad over the past few days. Wednesday evening felt very looming and stormy when I was re-sighting. The next morning I was transported back to Scotland as we started fieldwork in steady rain that stopped and started all morning. Conditions during catching really make a big difference, and unsurprisingly we had a bad day in the field. No birds! We left with our pride a little dented and wishing we had traded a soaking for sleeping in. Yesterday evening saw very heavy rain that continued throughout the night. It is a blessing in disguise that I scheduled today for catching up with data entry and organising equipment, as I doubt I would have made it to the sites after such a downpour. Plus I left my shoes outside... The ground had just started to dry up so I hope the tracks have not gone back to the treacherous state they were in when I arrived.

A misty and soggy morning at John's Farm

Spirits are still high as the total of newly ringed birds is now 40 this season. This is the same as last year - so far - and I still plan to catch more birds to include in the territory study. I will also fit geolocators to 40 more birds at another site within Plateau. Perhaps by the end of the winter I will have ringed 100 Whinchats. In fact that sounds like a nice round number, so let's make it the target for the season!

More exciting news is that the total number of returned birds so far is now 15, with 11 of these at the main APLORI site. I think I am getting close to finding most of them, but I am sure one or two will crop up during the following months when I focus on re-sighting.

11 of the 15 returning birds are at the main APLORI site.
All in the same territories they held last year.

The most intriguing aspect of all this is the fact that birds are returning to the same territories as last year. This has got me thinking about how these birds ended up here again. Did they arrive before the others? What if a bird was already there? Did the returning bird eject a resident bird from the territory, and if it did, does this suggest that returning birds are the ones that are more dominant? What happened if a bird came back to find its old territory already occupied by a more dominant bird? Did it move on to another area altogether, or have these birds just reshaped their old territories to accommodate another individual? Perhaps next year I will aim to answer these questions and plan to be here to see the birds arrive. We will see. The plot thickens!

Next week I will focus on trying to re-catch returning birds so that I can plan for fitting geolocators later in the season. Re-catching birds that come back with their geolocators is essential, as we need to have the device in hand to access the data. I anticipate a challenging and most likely a very frustrating week ahead! Good news that John's Farm was full of Whitethroats and so I can think about that aspect of the work soon.

Emma