From across the pond

Britain and Ireland are part of the East Atlantic Flyway, so we regularly get a few high Arctic breeding birds from Greenland or Canada in our country like Greenland Wheatear, Barnacle Goose, Pink-footed Goose or Purple Sandpiper.

The majority of recoveries are of Brent Geese (66%), but 19 species have been recorded either coming from, or going to, North America, Canada or Greenland (the latter is covered by the Denmark Ringing Scheme).

Brent Geese have been excluded from the pie chart to better illustrate the other species involved.

These are not all recent recoveries however. The oldest report is from 18 July 1948 (juvenile Arctic Tern ringed in the Bay of Fundy and found by Lairg, Highlands three months later). Due to a colour ringing project on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, we have received quite a few Turnstone reports (37% of the total). Several species stand out, including Great Shearwater (one caught by a trawler and the other caught on a boat), Peregrine (downed by a falconer's Peregrine) and a Caspian Tern (found dead).

Below are a few examples of more recent recoveries :

Ringed Plover - you may remember that Ringed Plovers from Canada have been featured recently on the Demog Blog, so we have several reports of them.

Ringed Plover. Photo taken by Lee Collins

Green-winged Teal - one turned up on the Hayle estuary, Cornwall on 9 November 2016 and it didn't take long to notice it was ringed! It took the Cornish ringers and birders quite a while to get enough photos of the bird to get the ring number, but finally on 19 January 2017 they had enough to trace it. Amazingly this bird was ringed as an adult in Quebec in August 2015!

Green-winged Teal. Photo taken by Anne Carrington-Cotton

Knot - in February we received a report of a dead Knot at Old Hunstanton, Norfolk. The likely ringer would have been the Wash Wader Ringing Group but the ring was clearly from the American Ringing Scheme. American rings are also used in Canada, which is probably where this bird was ringed. If this is the case, then this would be the 10th Canadian ringed Knot to be found in Britain or Ireland. Several BTO staff travel to Delaware every year for their holiday to ring 'Red Knot' as part of the Delaware Shorebird Project, so there was quite a 'flap of excitement' until it became clear that it was not one of theirs. We, and the finder, are awaiting the ringing details from the scheme.

Recoveries from the States are still very few and far between so each one is unusual in itself. The information from the tagged Ringed Plovers will be very interesting to follow in the coming years.

For more information on the movements of birds look at our Online Ringing and Nest Recording Report on our website.

Technical wizardry helps monitor Merlins

For many of us who can’t enjoy this species on its breeding grounds in the moorlands and uplands, the Merlin (Falco columbarius) is a bird of autumn and winter when they can be spotted in the lower lands chasing Skylarks or other passerines. The BirdTrack graph below illustrates that pattern, with an obvious peak in October. An increase in sightings in October is potentially also due to the presence of passage migrants and the incoming winter population.

Merlin chart from BirdTrack

Recently, Roy Filleul, a birdwatcher and photographer from Jersey, captured images of a juvenile Merlin on the side of a pond. The following day we received a phone call from a member of the public reporting a Merlin that had been taken into care in the JSPCA (Jersey Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). Unfortunately this was the same bird that had been photographed by Roy and, sadly, it didn’t survive due to injuries.

Merlin, by Roy Filleul

The bird in question was ringed in the nest last June in Lancashire, one of their strongholds (click here for top five counties for species in 2013). Although this Merlin didn’t travel a long distance or move in an unexpected direction, this is the first time one ringed in the UK has been found in the Channel Islands.

As you can see from the photograph, as well as being ringed, this bird was also PIT (Passive Integrated Transponder) tagged. These tags work in a similar way to Microchips for a dog or cat except that they are mounted externally (on a ring) rather than being inserted under the skin and are read by a receiver placed by the nest (by a licence holder). Metal ringing allows us to gather information on movements as well as survival; for example, it is possible to infer that when you stop catching a bird, that is normally caught year on year at a particular site, it has not survived (the principle behind the Retrapping Adults for Survival Scheme). As it is often very difficult to re-catch adult raptors, using a PIT tag allows us to follow a bird throughout its life to obtain data that categorically tells us the bird is still alive. If nests are monitored by a licensed nest recorder, levels of productivity over its lifetime can also be obtained from PIT tags. Unfortunately, as this bird died before returning to its breeding grounds, we will never know what information we might have gathered from this individual.

Currently in the online ringing database we have 54 recoveries of UK-ringed Merlins that have been found abroad, 35 of them in France. Also notable are the 31 Icelandic Merlins found in the British Isles, mostly recovered in Ireland. This reflects the fact that many British breeders winter on the continent and our remaining winter population is joined by winter visitors, predominantly from the Icelandic breeding population. See map of recoveries below.

Merlin recoveries map, from the online reports

Adios Caledonia

Roy Dennis' team have colour ringed more than 1500 young Ospreys since 1966 and in 2007 they started using GPS tracking devices to 'fill in' the gaps left by colour-ringing alone. These satellite devices enable live monitoring of individuals and have revealed entire migration routes, identified stop-over sites and disclosed previously unknown hazards for different species. At Loch Garten 12 Ospreys chicks have been fitted with satellite tags and their movements are followed by many online fans and reserve staff. The 12 birds have been named and their return to their birth place as breeding adults is much awaited.

Sadly, the fifth day of the new year brought bad news to Roy Dennis, Loch Garten and all the Osprey fans, as Caledonia, a female bird ringed and satellite-tagged in 2012, had been found dead in Spain. We now know that Juan Antonio Martínez Martín, a member of SEO/Birdlife, found Caledonia dead in the garden of a convent in Seville, where it had hit some cables and killed itself during thick morning fog.

All photos thanks to Jesús Fernández

 At Loch Garten, the return of Caledonia was expected with excitement as this should be only three months away. She seemed to be a 'very safe' Osprey, having spent several days in the Guadalquivir River area where she eventually died, and had travelled the same route that saw her sad end before. The Guadalquivir River basin in south west Spain is used as wintering grounds or stop-over by many species including Ospreys.

San Clemente convent, by the Guadalquivir River, where caledonia was found.

The RSPB Community is devastated with the loss of Caledonia, they have posted photographs of her and told their own personal memories here.

This little story highlights the hazards that large birds face, in particular the iconic Osprey. They tend to attract the love and attention of the public, even reserves and conservation measures are established across countries for their benefit. However, in their lifetime, they not only need to overcome the natural elements, they also have to overcome the barriers that we put for them, for their home ranges expand beyond the reserves.

In the UK and Ireland 189 Ospreys were ringed in 2012, and in that year we received 134 reports of BTO-ringed Ospreys found in other countries. To find out more about ringing totals in the UK and Ireland, visit the Online Ringing reports.

Finding locations of Ospreys ringed in the UK and Ireland (purple)
and ringing location of birds later found in the UK and Ireland (yellow).

Thank you to Juan Antonio Martínez Martín for finding and reporting the bird, to Jesús Pinilla and Arantza Leal from SEO/Birdlife for providing further finding details, to Roy Dennis for ringing the bird and to Jesús Fernández for the photos.