Groppers going north, south AND west!

We don't get many reports of ringed Grasshopper Warblers and most of these are just short distance movements. This last autumn though we had three very contrasting movements, with details just processed recently.

The first was a bird (ring V680191), ringed at Titchfield Haven, Hampshire, on 5 September. It was then recaught by ringers at Villeton in northern France six days later, having travelled 728 km south! This is only our seventh Grasshopper Warbler movement to France, so was quite a surprise.

In complete contrast was X749276, ringed in Sussex on 13 September and recaught by ringers six days later (coincidentally) on Orfordness in Suffolk. So this bird had left the south coast and headed 146km northeast in a week, rather than south!

Even more bizarrely, AP40279 was ringed in The Netherlands on 13 September, which travelled due west before being killed by a cat in Caerphilly just three days (and 643km) later! This is only the third foreign-ringed Gropper found in the UK, after two Senegalese-ringed birds were found within 35 km of each other in 1992 (and only seven days apart).

The map below shows all three movements, with the ringing locations in blue and the finding locations in red.


View Groppers in a larger map

It is interesting to think if these birds were just taking different routes south or if one got slightly lost...

For more details on some of the BTO's work on migrants, have a look at our 'Out of Africa' pages on the project blog.

Eagle Owls and Oysercatchers

Its not uncommon for rings to turn up at plucking posts or in/under raptor nests, but occasionally the species are rather more interesting than normal. In the past we've mentioned Peregrines vs Hobby and Peregrine vs Quail but one that came in today was most unusual.

This was a record of just a metal ring (SS14393) and black colour ring found in an Eagle Owl nest in Sor-Trondelag in central Norway! The species was a bit surprising (Oystercatcher) but even more so was that it had been ringed in 1963! OK, so it was only the rings that were found, with no bird, so they could have been in the nest for a while... It was originally ringed at Gronant in NE Wales on 15 November 1963, and the finders did mention that the ring looked rather worn!

We have over 160 records of ringed Oystercatchers killed by birds of prey, mostly Peregrines, but also Sparrowhawks and Goshawks and even a Merlin!. Interestingly, we do also have three previous records from Eagle Owl nests, two records from White-tailed Eagle nests and one from a Gyr Falcon nest. All of these were in Norway, which is where our winter birds spend their summers.

How to catch a Coot

We have 'borrowed' this bit of video from Kane Brides' own blog, but we thought it was worth posting up here. Having been asked a few times how he catches so many Coot (as part of a colour ringing project), Kane reveals all, even if it is as simple as a loaf of bread and some patience!

In Kanes' own words:

"Most of the birds I catch are in the water - so am on my hands/knees when catching - however some birds do wander out of the water and will feed at your feet. They seem to be more confident when the weather gets cold and natural food dries up - I've found November and December to be my most productive months. Also they seem to be more confident when larger wildfowl such as Mute Swan / Canada Goose are surrounding them."

Birds are aged on leg colour (adults have bright yellow, orange or even red on the side of the leg, juveniles have dull legs with the sides grey gradually becoming yellow/orange), breast colour (adults have a black breast and juveniles have white streaks on the breast) iris colour (reddish in adults and brownish in juveniles) and the size of the frontal shield (smaller in juveniles).

Adult

Juvenile.

Our first Iccy movement

Following the news of breeding Icterine Warblers this summer in Scotland (see here), we have recently heard news of our first ever foreign movement of the species (if a bit belatedly...)


R533992 (above) was ringed at Dungeness Bird Observatory, Kent, on 14th May 2009, a day when three Icterine Warblers had turned up at the Observatory! Just six days later it was recaught at Zuydcoote, in northern France. This actually isn’t a huge hop though, as the two sites are only 70 miles apart, the distance from Dungeness to central London!

Coincidentally, when I checked the details with Dave Walker at Dungeness, he told us he’d also just seen a Stone Curlew at the Obs, a rather unusual autumn record. Perhaps not surprisingly this was colour-ringed, and we are just waiting for details now…..

Blue Tits on the move???...

We rarely hear of long-distance movements of Blue Tits, so it was quite exciting to hear last week of a Belgian-ringed bird in Norfolk. This was recaught by David Fuller at his site near Garboldisham. You'd imagine this would be juvenile dispersal, but we found out today that BLB-10945741 was ringed at Essen, northern Belgium, on 10 October 2008, almost a year previously!


View Blue Tits in a larger map

The map above shows all foreign movements of Blue Tits, with blue pins marking BTO-ringed birds found abroad and green pins marking foreign-ringed birds found here (the red pins show the movement of David's bird). It is interesting that of the 10 movements of BTO- ringed birds, seven were ringed in Kent and no less than four were ringed at Dungeness Bird Observatory! There have only been four foreign-ringed birds found here (all recaught), and one of these turned up at Dungeness as well!

So the Blue Tits in your garden might not be as uninteresting and resident as you might think.....