Report of the month - March - Naturschutz Ieweschtesyrdall Schlammwiss Birdringingstation

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 659 birds of 35 species. This number is subdivided in 331 E, 114 W and 214 K. 3 bird foreign origin has been caught.

The total amount of birds for the month March is lower (-139) than the average amount of birds caught at the station from 2001-2018 and lower (-123) than the number of last year. The graphic below shows the average amount of birds for each month during the years 2001-2018 in comparison of the numbers of this years, 2018 and the working time for this and last year at the station Schlammwiss.

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.	PHYCOL	Chiffchaff	91
2.	EMBSCH	Reed Bunting	72
3.	ERIRUB	Robin	45
4.	CHLCHL	Greenfinch	26
5.	CYACAE	Blue Tit	26

Interesting birds captured:

23 Anthus spinoletta
3 Coccothraustes coccothraustes
2 Luscinia svecica
2 Regulus ignicapilla
2 Regulus Regulus
1 Phylloscopus collybita abietinus
1 Spotted Crake

See the report of 2018

Summary

Distribution of the age:

Code	Amount	Definiton
C	10	older than four years
B	7	born four years ago
A	5	older than three years
9	8	born three years ago
8	14	older than two years
7	37	born two years ago
6	47	older than one year
5	204	born last year
4	326	age unkown, but not born this year
3	/	born this year
2	1	age unknown
1	/	nestling

First spring arrivals:

Species	Latin Name	Date (this year)	Date (last year)
Blackcap	Sylvia atricapilla	17.2	31.3
Water Rail	Rallus aquaticus	23.2	31.3
Chiffchaff	Phylloscopus collybita	2.3	10.3
Stonechat	Saxicola torquata	3.3	17.3
White Spotted Bluethroat	Luscinia svecia cyanecula	16.3	25.3
Firecrest	Regulus ignicapilla	16.3	9.4
Goldcrest	Regulus regulus	23.3	/
Black Redstart	Phoenicurus ochruros	24.3	24.8
Willow Warbler	Phylloscopus trochilus	30.3	1.4
Spotted Crake	Porzana porzana	31.3	/

Foreign birds that we controlled this year:

Month	Species	Country
January	Cyanistes caeruleus	France
February	Parus major	Belgium
March	Turdus merula	Belgium
	Troglodytes troglodytes	Belgium
	Erithacus rubecula	Sweden

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 66 hours during 11 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

The weather information are offered by Meteolux.lu

Thank you!

Photos of this month

Some photographers sent us their photos which we included into our report.

All other photos are provided by Jim Schmitz.

Thank you for the photos!

Did you take any photos at the station, a visit or of any birds with a ring that could be from our station and want to publish those in the next report of the month?

Contact us!

Anabela Carvalhinho