Welcome to the LDV NNR ringing blog, this blog is designed to share the experiences, findings and tales from a group of dedicated ringers. We specialise in conservation orientated research projects, largely focusing on wildfowl, waders, owls and birds of conservation concern, in and around the Vale of York NNR's.

NB - Whilst the purpose of this blog was initially designed to cover our nationally important wildfowl ringing activities, it now also features wildlife and work posts, explaining how we manage the NNR for both wildlife and people.

For daily sightings please visit our Twitter account: https://twitter.com/ldv_nnr (@LDV_NNR)

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Wednesday 2 August 2017

22/07/17 - Kestrel success

At the end of last week we returned to our new Kestrel site, three weeks after finding five tiny newly hatched young. On arrival at the site, a natural tree hole in a large Ash, we were greeted by two large chicks peering down on us. Hoping the other chicks were at the back of the hole, we climbed up to unfortunately find just the two of them. Both of the chicks were quite well feathered and likely to survive, and being so advanced enabled us to sex them by looking at the colour of their tail feathers (grey for males, brown for females). 
 

This brood aside, on the whole it’s been good news, Kestrels seem to have had a very successful breeding season around the valley this year with a good number of birds being seen across the site - just this last week we've started to see fledged broods at Wheldrake and North Duffield Carrs - with six recently fledged chicks at both sites. 




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