Want to see a Whimbrel? Den mark it with a colour ring

It's always a pleasure to hear the Whimbrel's distinctive call when flying over and it's very special when one is caught (see online reports). Relatively few are ringed in Britain & Ireland and with the addition of colour rings the reporting rate has increased substantially. The pie chart below shows how few dead birds are found in relation to the number of reports received of colour rings.


The Mid Wales Ringing Group started a colour ringing project in 2010 to try to answer some basic questions regarding Welsh birds in particular, like movements, staging areas, survival and site faithfulness. Some of these birds have been reported (dead and alive) in quite a few areas including Scotland, France and North Africa.

A Whimbrel wearing a Mid Wales colour-ring combination was recently reported in Denmark. The BTO online reports show this to be only the fourth BTO-ringed Whimbrel to be reported in Denmark. Yellow D74 was ringed on 30 April 2016 at 2:50 am and 72 days later it had travelled a minimum distance of 1,059 km to Storevorde, Denmark.

If you were hoping to see a BTO-ringed Whimbrel outside Britain & Ireland, there is a much greater chance of seeing one in Guinea (195 reports), Guinea Bissau (224 reports) and Iceland (366 reports).



Colour-ringed Whimbrel photo taken by Jens Veilgaard Vendelbo

Whimbrel photo taken by Jens Veilgaard Vendelbo

So if you ever see a Whimbrel, or any other wild bird for that matter, report it at www.ring.ac. The information will be very useful and could hint towards a new movement or behaviour.

For more information on this and other Mid Wales goings on, click here.

Dunnock doing time in Denmark

At this time of year Dunnocks are in full breeding mode. We have found a few nests here on the BTO reserve so far this year with their amazing sky blue coloured eggs. The vast majority of Dunnock recoveries we receive are of birds that haven't travelled very far.

Livermere, Suffolk - John Walshe

We sent a report to John Walshe recently of a Dunnock that he had ringed at Livermere, Suffolk, (pink point on map) as a young bird on 31 Oct 2013 which had hit a window... in Denmark (red point on map)! It was found on 12 Mar 2014 at Braband So, Aarhus. Luckily it was only stunned and was later released back into the wild.

John writes:
"Looking at the BTO's online reports pages for Dunnock, there have only been 35 reports of BTO ringed Dunnocks found abroad and this is only the 2nd to Denmark. I've ringed nearly 4000 and only ever had 19 recoveries, never more than 2km from place of ringing."

Dunnock at Livermere- John Walshe

John continues:
"Dunnocks are the perfect illustration of the same species, with the same DNA that can behave different in different parts of their range. Scandinavian Dunnocks are forced to move in winter to escape the cold, whereas birds in the UK have no need to, in our milder climate. If the gulf stream was suddenly turned off and the UK gets colder in winter, could our Dunnocks become partial migrants like more northern birds?"