The twelve recoveries for Christmas

Partridge in a Pear Tree
There is no mention of a Pear tree on the BTO BirdFacts pages for Grey Partridge however we do have 127 recoveries for this species. Most of these recoveries are of shot birds, as you would expect, but we do have several that have been radio tagged and the mortalities reported. One of the predators of these is quite surprising. Click here to open this recovery

Two Turtle Doves
We have even fewer recoveries for Turtle Dove (101) on the system, due to a severe decline in numbers since the late-1970s. As a result, they are still on the 'Red List' of 'Birds of Conservation Concern'. These reports are mainly of birds found dead, shot or found after being killed by a predator but it is pleasing to see that 73 of these reports are from ringers re-catching ringed birds; helping to further understand their decline and movements.


Recoveries Of Turtle Dove for Britain & Ireland

You'd have to have good eyes to get this recovery. Click here to open this recovery

Three French Hens
Even though our Ringing Scheme doesn't ring chickens, it does ring the majestic Hen Harrier. There has been some great work in recent years on wing tagging Hen Harriers, increasing the life histories of these birds from their breeding quarters to their wintering areas. One bird getting an amazing 87 sightings compressed into just two years.

For our selected recovery, it has to be a French one though. Click here to open this recovery.

Four Calling Birds
At this time of year the Tawny Owl is starting to think about the up and coming breeding season and on those frosty nights, can be heard calling to each other. One recovery that you haven't seen the report for was a Tawny Owl ring found in Iceland! This caused some confusion here in the Ringing Team, as we have never had a foreign recovery of Tawny Owl. After much investigation we found out that this ring was put on a Tawny Owl chick, which died in the nest. This ring was collected (to avoid subsequent reporting) and put on the ringer's binoculars. After a binocular strap broke on a birding trip to Iceland, this ring was later found and reported to our Ringing Scheme.

Our chosen recovery however is different and is an unusual way to go. Click here to open this recovery.

Tawny Owl. Photograph taken by Lee Barber

Five Gold Rings
One of the highlights for 2015 were the numbers of Goldcrest caught. We posted previously just how good the Goldrush was.

The chosen recovery has links with the three French Hens. Click here to open this recovery to understand how.

Six Geese a-Laying
How can we not look at goose nest records after a title like this!? For 2015, the BTO Nest Record Scheme has received 108 Canada Goose, 49 Greylag Goose and seven Egyptian Goose nest records. This has remained stable but very low over the years. If you have any records please let the Nest Record Scheme know.

An amazing recovery from the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust. Click here to open this recovery.

Seven Swans a-Swimming
One of our highest reported groups of birds are swans. Being large, white and living in populated places they are easily found and reported. Many land on roads thinking they are rivers and being less maneuverable they do crash into wires, walls and bridges.


One of our Thetford, Norfolk colour ringed Mute Swans this morning, showing just how easy it is to get colour ring sightings. Photograph taken by Lee Barber

The Bewick's Swan is famous for it's migration route but this recovery points out they do live a long time. Click here to open this recovery of 28 years!

Eight Maids a-Milking
We were not able to find any maids in the BTO ringing database but there are quite a few cows mentioned. Unfortunately, it seems like they are not too keen on swans which can get trampled. We have a very different recovery involving a Sparrowhawk for our chosen recovery. Click here to open this recovery.

Nine Ladies Dancing
The Great Crested Grebe is famous for it's pair bonding display, where it rises out of the water and dances on the surface. Few grebes are ringed and even fewer are found later, giving a grand total of eight records to choose from. How the finder got this recovery is unknown but it probably took hours. Click here for the recovery.

Great Crested Grebe. Photograph taken by Chris Knights

Ten Lords a-Leaping
This may be a tenuous link but in the movie, 'Lord of the Rings', Gandalf leaps off Saruman's tower onto a Great Eagle. This looks remarkably like a Golden Eagle and we have 35 recoveries of this species. Click here to open this recovery.

Eleven Pipers Piping
Not 11 records of a Purple Sandpiper, but just one. This is the number of records we have of dead Purple Sandpipers. By re-catching 'purps' our valued ringers have increased the information on this species by 928 records. These include the data from a colour-ringing project in Norway which has produced an amazing 51 sightings in Britain & Ireland. Click here to open this recovery.

Twelve Drummers Drumming
The Snipe is famous for its drumming breeding display and we have received quite a few recoveries of this species over the years from 24 other countries. One of these was from one of our Constant Effort Sites (CES). Only one Snipe has been ringed at Cranwich CES to date and so far there is a 100% recovery rate for this species. Click here to open this recovery.



Measuring a Snipe. Photograph taken by Lee Barber

The Demography Team wishes you all a very Merry Christmas and happy New Year

Where are your Purps from?

I recently heard of a colour-ring sighting of a Purple Sandpiper at Godrevy Island, Cornwall, in late October 2011. This got me thinking, as the origin of the county's wintering birds has interested me since moving down here recently. The only previous recovery in the county was an Icelandic-ringed bird seen at Penzance in November 2004 and May 2005. So it was a bit surprising to find this bird had been ringed on the island of Nidingen off the southwest coast of Sweden in May 2011.

There are two distinct populations of Purple Sandpipers that winter in the UK, of birds breeding in the east (northwest Europe) and west (Canada). These populations have, predictably, rather different wintering areas, as can be seen below. The map shows the country of ringing of birds found in the UK and the predominance of Icelandic-ringed birds (I) in the north and west and Norwegian-ringed birds (N) in the east is obvious. Zoom in to see more detail and click on the map for a key to the other codes.


View Purple Sandpipers in a larger map

The two populations can be identified on biometrics though, with bill length and wing length being of most use. So where are our Cornish birds from? Well with one from Iceland and one from Norway, perhaps only biometrics will tell.

From one cold coast to the other

Many birdwatchers agree, Purple Sandpipers are very special birds. Not only is the rocky habitat they can be found on unusual for a sandpiper, but also for their interesting movements. The majority of birds found here originate in Norway and Iceland but we have had birds from the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Svalbard. We have even had 2 birds ringed in Britain and found in Greenland!


For 3 years a ringing team from Spitsbergen, Svalbard have been colour ringing Purple Sandpipers in a hope to find out the wintering distribution of breeding birds. Previously we have had 5 birds ringed on Svalbard and found here but due to this project, we are currently processing 3 reports from November alone. These were seen in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and Cleveland.


If you see a colour ring Purple Sandpiper (or Dunlin) with either orange, lime or dark green colour rings and leg flags, please let Kjell Mork Soot know (kjellmorksoot@fugler.com). The details needed are:

* Species
* Date and time
* Flag and ring colour position and combination
* Location name and/or coordinates
* Finders name and contact details
* Photo if possible

He will then get back to you with the details and share the information with the corresponding ringing schemes.

Orange HHU (above) was ringed on South Cape Island on 22.08.2011 and was recaught on 06.09.2011 at Longyearbyen (191km north).

Thanks to Ole Edvard Torland for the photos.