Orkney Rosefinch to Germany

Earlier in the week we received the exciting news of a recapture of one of 'our' Common Rosefinches, highlighting the fact that they're not really ours at all, as this was a bird breeding in Germany!

D397284 was one of two Common Rosefinches ringed at North Ronaldsay Bird Observatory, Orkney, on the evening of 21st June 2013,  and was recaught (and colour-ringed) last week by ringers at Graal-Mueritz, near Rostock in northeastern Germany.

D397284 on North Ronaldsay in June 2013

The project here has been colour ringing birds since 2002 and since then 200 birds have been marked. The Orkney bird is one of just three 'controls' caught by the team, with others from Denmark and Greifswalder Oie island near the Polish border. The team have also fitted 20 males with geolocators in 2013, of which six have so far returned and two have been recaptured to allow the data to be downloaded.

North Ron's rosefinch with newly-added German colour rings

Hot off the press, D397284 was seen again today (30th May) mating with a local male, proving that she is indeed a breeding bird at the site.

There are just three previous records of British-ringed rosefinches found abroad: two in Belgium and one on the Faeroe Islands. Going the other way, North Ronaldsay does have a bit of a history with foreign rosefinches, having controlled birds (both in 1990) originally ringed in Germany and Norway. In fact, the only other foreign-ringed rosefinch in the UK was also in the Northern Isles, with a colour-ringed Swedish bird seen on Fair Isle in 2011 (blogged here). Details of these and other UK rosefinch recoveries (and those of any species!) can be found on the BTO's online ringing report.

Thanks to Roland Neumann for letting us know about this bird and sending on a photo of its new rings and to North Ron Bird Obs for the photo at ringing.

Wintering Rosefinch

Orfordness in Suffolk often seems to generate some interesting 'Demog Blog' stories, including Norwegian colour-ringed Little Stint, Finnish-ringed Turnstone, German-ringed Avocet, Polish-ringed Kingfisher and Norwegian-ringed Dunnock.

Their most recent claim to fame passed across my desk at the BTO (well in my remote office in Cornwall) recently, in the shape of a Common Rosefinch ringed on Orfordness on 20th October 2012 (photo below courtesy of David Crawshaw). This was the second record for the site and was caught in a short net at the same time as seven Lesser Redpoll and a Yellow-browed Warbler in what was a busy day at the site. Remarkably, it was then recaught in northern Belgium (207km from Orfordness) on the very unseasonable dates of 1st and 4th December! Winter records of Common Rosefinch in western Europe are few and far between, so why this bird chose to winter in Belgium is a mystery, but seemed to be doing OK, weighing more than it did when first ringed.

This is only the second BTO-ringed Common Rosefinch to be found abroad. The first was a bird ringed at Fair Isle Bird Observatory recaught two weeks later on the Faeroes, and to be honest most of the records of foreign-ringed birds have been in the Northern Isles. In fact, 1990 was a bit of a purple (or scarlet) patch at North Ronaldsay Bird Observatory (Orkney), with a German-ringed bird recaught there in June 1990 and a Norwegian-ringed bird recaught there in September 1990, just eight days after ringing! The only other was a Swedish colour-ringed bird seen on Fair Isle in September 2011, just nine days after ringing.

Interestingly, within the UK, there are just two movements: a bird from Fair Isle to Spurn Bird Observatory (17 days) and from Isle of May Bird Observatory to Orkney (eight days). Bit of a Bird Obs theme developing as well...

September Swedish Sweeties

Last week we received some very exciting news from Sweden.

One piece of news came from Fair Isle where they heard that a coloured ringed Common Rosefinch seen amongst a flock of 15 birds in early September had in fact been ringed as a juvenile on 25th August on the west coast of Sweden (see map in yellow). There are only two previous records of Common Rosefinches ringed abroad and found in the UK - one came from Germany and the other from Norway, so this is a FIRST from Sweden!

Direct from the Swedish ringing scheme, last week we heard about a Wryneck that had been ringed as a pullus, one of a brood of 9, on 26th of June 2011, in Svinno, Sweden. It was subsequently found dead, 'possibly killed by a cat', near Bideford in Devon on 28th September (see the red pins in the map). Wrynecks now breed in the UK very rarely, but every year a couple of dozen Wrynecks are ringed with BTO rings. 1965 was a particularly exceptional year, with 114 birds ringed! Wrynecks ringed abroad and found in the UK are a very unusual event, and this Wryneck found near Bideford is only the fourth Wryneck ever recovered with a foreign ring - all of which have come from Scandinavia.

Visit the online ringing reports to find out more exciting stats about ringed birds.

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