Something for Saturday? Second ever ringed Green-winged Teal sighted in Suffolk!

With the wildfowl shooting season either finished or nearly finished (depending on location), our recovery rate of ducks and geese is about to reduce substantially. Birders and ringers, however, will continue to provide much needed data on distribution, longevity and movements.

Green-winged Teal, a scarce visitor to Britain & Ireland from North America, is a good bird to record on your BirdTrack list when out birding. Some individuals will have escaped from captivity, which complicates the situation some what, but that deserves a whole post in itself.

BirdGuides are currently reporting a very interesting Green-winged Teal at Blythburgh, Suffolk which, importantly for the BTO Recoveries Team, is wearing a nasal saddle, and thus has a known history!

Green-winged Teal taken by Barry Yates

The nasal saddle works by only covering the top of the upper mandible, thereby not interfering with feeding or other behaviour. Even though we don't use nasal saddles as part of the BTO Ringing Scheme, this marking method is used to great effect in Portugal, as a previous report of a Lesser Scaup on the Demog Blog shows.


Green-winged Teal taken by Barry Yates

The origin of this bird is unknown. It may have escaped from a European collection or it may be a genuine vagrant. We do know however that it was ringed as a juvenile male at São Jacinto Dunes Nature Reserve, Aveiro, Portugal (40º41’N 08º44’W) on 21/01/2015. Since then it has stayed in the area until at least 10/02/2015 when it was next reported and photographed in Suffolk on 01/02/2016 and is still being reported at time of writing.



There have only been two British or Irish ringed Green-winged Teal in the 107 years of our Ringing Scheme (in 2001 and 2003) and in that time we've only had one report of a foreign-ringed Green-winged Teal being found in Britain & Ireland, which was shot on the Isle of Scilly in 1971. Hopefully the Suffolk bird will continue to be reported to us and our Portuguese colleagues on its journey.

For more information on the work done by our Portuguese colleagues, check out their website, www.pt-ducks.com and if you see this bird feel free to report it to BirdGuides and to us via www.ring.ac (using the ring number J15195 and scheme of Lisbon).

Ringer migration confirmed by a Blackcap

Back in September, we posted about the large numbers of Blackcaps that were moving through the central and western parts of the country. We were contacted recently with a fantastic story of a chance re-encounter between a member of the Brewood Ringing Group and one of these migrants.

Colin McShane writes:

Over the last 8 years I have been leading an Autumn ringing trip to the Parque Ambientale, in Vilamoura, Portugal with support from Vitor Encarnacao who heads up the Portuguese Ringing Scheme. Our trips have been successful on several levels and many British ringers have joined us over the years to expand their experience.

We have also controlled a number of birds from northern Europe, including Reed Warblers from Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden, and Bluethroats from France. On 06 October 2014 during this year’s trip, I extracted a male Blackcap from one of our standard mist nets and was very pleased, although not too surprised, to find that it was carrying a BTO ring. Back at the processing station, Dave Clifton (who has been an ever-present fixture on these trips) was doing his stint as the scribe. Having announced to the group what I had extracted, I began to process the bird - first reading out the ring number several times for accuracy.

Dave went quiet. He quickly got onto the phone to his wife, who checked in his ringing book back home. Hey Presto!! The bird was indeed one (of only two Blackcaps ringed at the site) he had ringed at Duckley Plantation, on the north shore of Blithfield Reservoir, Staffordshire on 11th September 2014 - only a few weeks before we had left for Portugal!!




Unfortunately Dave wasn’t able to buy a Lottery ticket on that day, but it must be a given that he was pretty certain of a big win with that kind of luck. We are looking forward to next year’s trip where we are certain that we will catch one of the many Red Spotted Bluethroats that we have been ringing in the Varanger region of northernmost Norway - no problem.....?

Thanks to Scott Petrek for letting us know - Eds

Marsh Harriers strike out across Europe

Phil Littler and John Middleton (North West Norfolk Ringing Group) write:

On 5th February 2014, the first live British-ringed Marsh Harrier was sighted in Spain by Javier Elorriaga, along with Yeray Seminario, Juan Martin and Ramon Navarro. The wing-tagged male Marsh Harrier (BN - green pin on map below) was ringed as a nestling in North Norfolk on 3rd August 2013 by the North West Norfolk Ringing Group. This bird was seen at La Janda, near Cadiz, an area of flooded rice fields, which has a high concentration of Marsh Harriers in winter. It was then seen again on 8th February by Geoff Gowlett who sent us the photo below. BN was first seen by Alex Colorado on 9th December 2013 approximately four kilometers from the latest observations.

Male Marsh Harrier BN. The sex was determined using the Dutch foot span measurement method, which this Norfolk project have championed in the UK (c) Geoff Gowlett

Prior to this only two British-ringed Marsh Harriers had been recovered in Spain; one ringed in Lincolnshire and the other in Suffolk, both found dead in 1991.

Subsequently, we received a report of a second Marsh Harrier (LB - red pin on map below) from Suffolk that had been wing-tagged in the same project. It was seen by Juan M Perez-Garcia on 13th Januar 2014 at Parc Natural El Hondo, Spain, a site that is both a RAMSAR site and a Special Protection Area (SPA) for birds.

Previously, on Christmas Day 2012, a report came in of a wing tagged bird near Lisbon, Portugal (AP - yellow pin on map above). This represented the first live sighting of a British-ringed Marsh Harrier in Portugal, and only the second ever recovered there.

AP, a female, was ringed in July 2011 at Sculthorpe Moor, Norfolk, and was seen near Aerodromo de Leziria, a small airfield used for aerial crop spraying of the extensive rice fields in the area. We know this female survived its return migration because in April 2013, she was photographed coming in off the North Sea at Spurn, Humberside.

On 11th December 2013 Green DX, ringed in June 2013 near Haddiscoe, was reported from Belgium by Frank van de Velde who photographed it at De Blankaart Nature Reserve, another first for a British-ringed harrier to Belgium.

DX with it's new wing tags - by Alison Allen

Marsh Harrier DX - by Frank Van de Velde

Unconfirmed, but 99% sure, was a distant sighting in Senegal on 24th January 2013 by a French Ornithologist Jean Francois Blanc who was studying Montagu's Harriers. He saw a green wing-tagged Marsh Harrier who thought that the markings were black OO. This was rather disappointing as OO has not been used but CC has; was it that bird? It would have been the first recovery of a British-ringed Marsh Harrier in Senegal. Jean also observed two Belgian wing-tagged birds.

Not only exciting foreign recoveries were being received, but Marsh Harriers that had been wing tagged in this collaborative project were also being reported from as far as the Loch of Strathbeg near Aberdeen, to the Dale Peninsula in Wales, Burton Mere in Cheshire and the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.

More details about the Norfolk wing tagging project can be found here.

Colourful clockwork toys

There is still a lot to learn about Sanderling migration and the International Wader Study Group, among others, are trying to answer some of these questions by colour ringing birds and tracking their movements.

The group have now colour-ringed more than 3,000 Sanderlings in Ghana, Mauritania, Portugal, Netherlands, Poland, Iceland and Greenland, plus a few individuals in Svalbard and Sweden. Many of them can be observed in July-September in the UK on their way south. For many birds the group has long tracking histories of individual birds, some of which have been reported as far south as Namibia.


Luckily only one Sanderling in the photo above is colour ringed and can be identified in the tangle of legs as (D35548). This bird was ringed at Brito Salina, Alcochete beach, Portugal on 16th March 2010 and then was also seen there on the 30th March. This bird was then resighted at Dawlish Warren, Devon on 29th July 2010 where the above photo was taken. This bird must be returning to its wintering area in Portugal after a short breeding season in northeast Greenland or even Ellesmere Island, Canada.


View Sanderling from Portugal in a larger map

For more information about the project click here

Sightings can be send directly to the group for their specific project or via www.ring.ac

Thanks to Owen Selly for letting us know and also for the great photo.