Spring ringing in Bulgaria

It's been a while since my last post. Unfortunately, 2025 wasn't a very successful year for me in terms of ringing, as I barely managed any proper sessions. This year started much the same way, with no winter sessions conducted at all; however, I’ve fortunately been able to dedicate several mornings to ringing this April.

Since spring migration is quite sparse in my area, I decided to focus on the two Ficedula species that migrate through the region: the European Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) and the Collared Flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis).

Armed with my "master skills" in Audacity, I created a mix of calls and songs for both species and headed out.

While I did see Pied Flycatchers in the area, I unfortunately didn't manage to ring any. On the other hand, three Collared Flycatchers were ringed. I consider this a great result, as I had only encountered two individuals of this species previously.

Below are the total numbers of ringed birds and some photos. In May and June, I’ll be focusing on nest monitoring and ringing, so hopefully, I’ll have some interesting updates to share soon!

Species Name	Latin Name	Total Count
Blue Tit	(Cyanistes caeruleus)	1
Great Tit	(Parus major)	4
Chiffchaff	(Phylloscopus collybita)	5
Blackcap	(Sylvia atricapilla)	16
Lesser Whitethroat	(Curruca curruca)	1
Goldcrest	(Regulus regulus)	2
Wren	(Troglodytes troglodytes)	1
Song Thrush	(Turdus philomelos)	1
Blackbird	(Turdus merula)	2
Robin	(Erithacus rubecula)	9
Nightingale	(Luscinia megarhynchos)	1
Collared Flycatcher	(Ficedula albicollis)	3
Dunnock	(Prunella modularis)	3
Tree Pipit	(Anthus trivialis)	1
TOTAL		50

First ringing session for August - 05.08.2024

 We have a very dry and warm summer here in Bulgaria this year and I was not sure if, at that time of the month, there would be enough bird movement for the proper ringing session, but since it's been a while since my last ringing with the nets I decided to just go for it and see how it goes.

I woke up at 04:30 and set up only two nets at my usual rining place - 1x9m and 1x12m.

Initially, I was planning to use sound, but my portable speaker decided to give up on working so I had to continue without it.

The totals for the mourning were more than what I expected and the variety of species was a nice addition. I even recorded the full ringing session for YouTube so If you are interested you can check it out later in the posts.

Total: 28

Blackbird(Turdus merula) - 11

Common nightingale(Luscinia megarhynchos) - 3

Blackcap(Sylvia atricapilla) - 5

Whitethroat(Sylvia communis) - 2

Lesser whitethroat(Sylvia curruca) - 2

Great tit(Parus major) - 2

Blue tit(Cyanistes caeruleus) - 1

Red-backed shrike(Lanius collurio) - 1

Reed warbler(Acrocephalus scirpaceus) - 1

Red-backed shrike pair video

I'm not sure how many of you know, but I've been working on a YouTube channel for the past two years.

Here is one of my latest videos in which you can see a Red-backed shrike pair feeding their young with different types of food.

I hope that you will enjoy it and if you do please like and subscribe to my channel.

2023 results

 As always, I'm posting my ringing results for the previous year "just on time". As you'll see later in the post, it was a very successful year for me in terms of total ringed birds and a number of species. I've managed to ring a few new species and for the first time, I properly ringed birds during the late autumn.

The ringing camp in Durankulak was once again a very good ringing experience where I had the chance to ring some species that I usually don't see at my place. If you are interested to learn more please follow the Facebook page of the camp here --> https://www.facebook.com/Durankulak.Bird.Ringing.Camp 

Highlights for 2023:

• My first Semicollared flycatcher (Ficedula semitorquata) - finally after few years of nestbox building I ringed my first Semicollared flycatchers.
• Five new species ringed in my location - Redwings, Whinchats, Wryneck, Siskin and Semicollared flycatchers are the new species. 
• Best year in terms of total ringed bird(for me) - 991 new birds and 19 retraps.
• And last but definitely not least my first bird with a foreign ring! - So after 20 years of ringing and few thousand ringed birds at my hometown I managed to catch a Blackcap with Lithuanian ring. I have a dedicated post about it so if you want check it out here - https://birdsbg.blogspot.com/2023/10/visitor-from-lithuania.html

So without further ado, here are the total results for 2023:

Species	New	Retraps
S.atricapilla	328	1
P.major	106	8
P. caeruleus	87	5
A. trivialis	68
E. rubecula	52
Ph. trochilus	36
C. chloris	34
T.merula	27	4
A. caudatus	22	0
F. coelebs	21
R. regulus	19
Ph.collybita	19
S. borin	16
M. apiaster	15
F. montifringilla	15
S.communis	13
T. iliacus	13
L. collurio	8
E.citrinella	8
S. curruca	8
T. philomelos	7
C.coccothraustes	7
P.lugubris	5	1
T. pilaris	6
L. megarhynchos	6
F. semitorquata	6
R. ignicapilla	5
Ph. sibilatrix	4
M. striata	4
H. icterina	3
S. rubetra	2
T. troglodytes	2
O. scops	2
Ph. phoenicurus	2
S. europaea	2
C. europaeus	2
P. domesticus	2
A. scirpaceus	1
S.spinus	1
P. palustris	1
P. modularis	1
A. palustris	1
L. luscinia	1
D. minor	1
J. torquilla	1
A. schoenobaenus	1

Last ringing sessions for 2023 - 29.12/31.12.2023

 I was very motivated to end this year strong and that's why I decided to make two more sessions in the last days of 2023. 

On the 29th of December, I ended up with only two ringed birds, but one of them was a Redwing which for me was enough of a reward to make up for the early morning wake-up.

The session on 31.12 proved to be much more productive with 15 new birds and 3 recaptures:

- Blue tit -2

-Great tit - 2(3)

-Fieldfare - 1

-Chaffinch -1

-Brambling -1

-Greenfinch -2

-Goldfinch -1

-Yellowhammer -5

There was noticeable movement of small Yellowhammer flocks during the whole day and I was able to see a Sparrowhawk lurking around the nests, but as always it didn't go in.

I'll be posting my 2023 results in the upcoming weeks and I hope that we'll have even better 2024!

More Bramblings - 28.12.2023

The forecast for today was predicting a sunny and windless day so even though I'm still sick I decided to make another ringing session in the morning.

The plan was identical to the one I had yesterday, but this time no thrushes showed up on the first check of the nets. I saw a small flock of four Fieldfare flying high above the ringing site but that was it.

On the positive side, later during the morning, I ringed two more Bramblings which makes my yearly total of this species 12 (until this year I had only 3 Bramblings ringed at this site).

The totals for today are: 1 Blackbird, 2 Bramblings, 2 Chaffinches, 1 Wren, 1 Sombre tit, 2(2) Blue tits, 3 Great tits and 1 Long-tailed tit.

Sombre tit

Wren

Chaffinch

Christmas ringing session - 27.12.2023

 My initial plan was to conduct a ringing session on Christmas, but of course I got sick and it took me two days before I was able to get out of bed. So this morning still quite sick but full of motivation to end the year strong, I woke up at 05:30 and went to my ringing site.

The weather was extremely warm for the season (15 C) and I was not expecting much, but I was hoping that there are still some winter thrushes around the place. So at 06:00 I had my 3 nets ready and the T.pilaris/T.iliacus mix was already playing.

As expected, the results were poor in terms of numbers, but I can't complain about the species that I got. 2 Redwing, 1 Great tit and 1 Brambling.

In the upcoming days, I'll probably try a few more sessions with the hopes of increasing those Redwing numbers, but it all depends on the weather so fingers crossed!

1y Redwing(Turdus iliacus)

male Brambling(Fringilla montifringilla)