Roller Coaster: Mid June 2013 - Fun and games with landing nets

The arrival of Dr Chris Hewson from the BTO at the start of June heralded the beginning of an intensive period of roller catching and chick processing. Or attempted roller catching anyway… One of the main lessons from the 2013 field season is that Cypriot rollers are a bugger to catch. In a two and half week period, assisted by both Chris and Dr Aldina Franco (my primary PhD supervisor at UEA), we managed to catch 11 adult rollers and deploy geolocators upon 9 of them. When the birds hopefully return to Cyprus in spring 2014 the data on the geolocators will allow us to identify the migration routes and approximate African wintering areas of the Cypriot roller population for the very first time.

Chris awaits the arrival of a roller
at an Androlikou nest site

The main capture technique used for the adult birds was mist nets erected across the entrance of the nest cavity. When the rollers fly in to feed their chicks they are caught in the very fine netting and can then be carefully removed, before being measured and ringed. This method worked very well at most of the nest sites, but a few required a slightly more energetic input whereby a hand-held landing net was placed over the nest entrance. Suffice to say that this is an acquired skill, but both Chris and I were seasoned pro’s by the end of the trapping period.

My first roller!

Aside from catching and processing adult birds, June was also a very busy month due to the large number of roller chicks requiring ringing and measuring. They really are disgusting little things, which delight in soiling you with as many different bodily effluents as possible. The chicks grow very quickly, with the entire period from hatching to fledging only comprising about 3.5 weeks, so it was all go for much of the month. Several of the nests were predated during the 2013 study period too, with snakes posing one of the most likely culprits.