About Terns

The Common Terns seem to have had a successful breeding year at LLNR and a number of juvenile birds can be seen begging food from the adults.

I recently took this picture which suggests that both parent birds had caught fish and appeared to be queuing up Heathrow style to feed junior.

In actual fact the first adult Tern offered the fish to the youngster then veered off to feed another, leaving the second adult to feed the confused juvenile. I can only assume a case of mistaken identity.

Above, the young Tern finally gets a feed.

Article by Tony Bedford

Photos copyright Tony Bedford.

Welcome Back

The first Marsh Tit to be recorded on the site in the last 5 years was ringed by Kenny Cramer and his team last Sunday. Lets keep our fingers crossed that this is the start of a return of this scarce species.

Clock This

Those of you who have been following the ringing stats for LLNR for a while will know that in 2017, an impressive 5 cuckoos were ringed at LLNR which accounted for around 10% of all the fully grown cuckoos ringed in the UK that year. 

Since then, despite Kenny's best efforts, we have spectacularly failed to catch another one... until now...A handsome juvenile male stayed in the net long enough to be extracted and processed, ending the long running streak of bad luck. 

At least 3 individuals were present (probably more) and so the cuckoo quest continues...

Best Laid Plans

Following a not too successful inaugural year for the new Sand Martin Nest Bank - we did get some harvest mice in a few nest chambers - a group of FoLLNR volunteers have just carried out some improvements for the 2020 season. 

No we haven't started a "Paragliding section" - waterproof membrane being moved into location

A waterproof membrane has been fitted across the roof and to create a more natural finish turf has been laid on top to help the "Sandbank" blend into the surroundings.

Turfing the "Sandbank"

Some of he reeds in front of the nest bank have also been trimmed to ease access by our feathered friends. A little more trimming may take place when water levels have dropped although we intend to leave some reeds to keep things as natural as possible.

And whilst all the work was going on we had an overhead observer keeping an eye on proceedings

End of Year Bird Ringing Report - By Kenny Cramer

Dear all,

First of all, let me wish you all a very Happy New Year, I hope 2020 brings you good health, happiness and plenty of everything else you wish for!

2019 has been another amazing year for ringing at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve and our other sites in Milton Keynes. I will attempt to summarise a few of the highlights.

Linford Lakes Nature Reserve

During 2019 we ran 28 ringing sessions resulting in 1084 birds ringed and 345 birds retrapped for a total of 1429 captures. This was slightly behind the 2018 total of 1546, due to several factors including:-

• poor weather and poor health curtailing ringing activities for much of December
• less targetting of the feeder site resulting in fewer captures of common tit species
• mild weather at the end of the year resulting in fewer captures of winter thrushes

2019 did however turn out to be our most diverse in terms of species. We encountered 44 species which beat the previous record of 38 set in 2019. This included 10 species which were new ringing records for the site consisting of Barn Owl, Carrion Crow (caught in a potter trap), Common Tern, Grasshopper Warbler, Kestrel (ringed in the nest), Lesser Whitethroat, Mistle Thrush, Common Snipe, Sparrowhawk and Starling.

It turned out to be a very good year for warblers with record numbers of Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Reed Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Garden Warbler and Whitethroat ringed as well as the aforementioned Grasshopper Warbler and Lesser Whitethroat. This could be attributed to the density of the vegetation on the bund which seemed to be very attractive, particularly to migrating birds, and allowed for the cutting of some extremely effective net rides resulting in some very large catches.

Long tailed tits also appeared to have had a very successful breeding season with 68 birds newly ringed which is almost double the previous record of 35 back in 2015. 28 new reed buntings was another record beating the 21 ringed in 2018 while a new tawny owl in November was only the second to be ringed at Linford. 2 new green woodpeckers were the first to be ringed at Linford since 2016 and Goldcrest numbers bounced back to 22 after dipping to just 12 in 2018.

On a less positive note, blackbird numbers were down with just 12 new birds ringed, the lowest total since 2015 although this is likely to have been impacted by the mild winter and reduced ringing in December resulting in fewer winter visitors being caught. 4 new bullfinches was our lowest ever total for Linford. No coal tits were ringed in 2019, and despite several targetted attempts, we once again failed to ring any cuckoos although several individuals were present on site. A single siskin and no redpolls were ringed in 2019 again, partly due to mild weather and reduced ringing opportunities.

The completion of the Sand Martin bank in early spring was a significant achievement. No sand martins nested there in 2019 which was perhaps to be expected, (just a single pair nested in the old bank), however several harvest mice did find it to their liking! Now that the structure has had a year to 'naturalise', we can hopefully look forward to a successful breeding season in 2020. 3 new potter traps were deployed towards the end of the year which produced 2 new water rails (and a somewhat unexpected robin!) Several new nest boxes for tawny owl, little owl and kestel were deployed at Linford and several other locations around MK. Although no breeding was recorded in 2019, a barn owl was seen to be roosting in one of the kestrel boxes.

We had several controls/recoveries as follows:-

A reed warbler controlled at Linford was originally ringed as a juvenile in 2017 at Marsworth Reservoir by our colleagues at Tring Ringing Group.

A chiffchaff ringed at Linford as a juvenile in September 2018 was retrapped 24 days later in East Sussex (not reported until Jan 2019).

A great tit ringed at Linford in September 2018 was recovered locally on 1st Jan 2019.

A juvenile reed warbler ringed at Linford in July 2017 was retrapped in Portugal in August 2018 (not reported until Jan 2019).

A cettis warbler ringed as a juvenile at Linford in November 2018 was retrapped in Ingrebourne Valley, Essex in October 2019.

Species	New	Retrap	Total
Barn Owl	1		1
Blackbird	12	6	18
Blackcap	138	12	150
Blue Tit	179	68	247
Bullfinch	4	6	10
Carrion Crow	1		1
Cetti's Warbler	8	8	16
Chaffinch	9	1	10
Chiffchaff	129	16	145
Common Tern	1		1
Dunnock	30	23	53
Fieldfare	2		2
Garden Warbler	20	6	26
Goldcrest	22	2	24
Goldfinch	32		32
Grasshopper Warbler	1		1
Great Spotted Woodpecker	2	12	14
Great Tit	77	72	149
Green Woodpecker	2		2
Greenfinch	26	3	29
Jay	1		1
Kestrel	2		2
Kingfisher	7	6	13
Lesser Whitethroat	2		2
Long-tailed Tit	68	23	91
Meadow Pipit	1		1
Mistle Thrush	1		1
Moorhen	1		1
Redwing	28		28
Reed Bunting	28	9	37
Reed Warbler	79	23	102
Robin	31	13	44
Sedge Warbler	25	4	29
Siskin	1		1
Snipe	1		1
Song Thrush	7	6	13
Sparrowhawk	2		2
Starling	6		6
Tawny Owl	1		1
Treecreeper	6	5	11
Water Rail	2	1	3
Whitethroat	21	6	27
Willow Warbler	26		26
Wren	41	14	55
Grand Total	1084	345	1429