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?"

Whats going on with wintering Blackcaps?

Very few Blackcaps used to stay/survive in this country during the winter but instead go south to Iberia or northern Africa. These days it is still very nice to see one in winter but it wouldn't warrant organising a big twitch.

Are Blackcaps staying for the winter or is something else happening?

Ringing recoveries have shown that our Blackcaps in summer are replaced with birds from continental Europe when winter arrives (e.g. 159 ringed from Belgium and 50 from The Netherlands so far). These birds are now able to survive better, possibly due to warmer winters and/or an increase in garden bird feeding.


Saying that, we have just heard from John Walshe, where he had ringed a breeding female Blackcap on 17 May 2010 and he has just caught it again at the same site in mid Suffolk. Obviously this bird hasn't gone south as expected, so is this a new strategy to get back to the breeding grounds quicker or is this just a rare occurrence? More ringing for winter Blackcaps is needed I think.

Thanks to John Walshe for letting us know and Dawn Balmer for the photo.