Birds of a feather, fly together

It's pleasing to have a flock of Siskins arrive in your garden, and thanks to ringing, we might know where they come from or go to, but can ringing tell us anything about the link between these individuals in the flock? A note in Bird Study by Juan Senar and Jeff and Allison Kew in 2015 revealed that the individuals in Siskin flocks have stable social bonds and move in stable social units.

Two more recent examples of Siskins apparently travelling together between Britain and both Finland and Sweden provide even more evidence to reinforce the existence of social bonding between migrating Siskins.

Hugh Insley writes:

The moment you take a ringed bird out of a net and realise that the number on the ring is not one of your own, is always pleasing. When the ring has a foreign inscription the pleasure rises to excitement.

Swedish ring being examined. Photo by Sandy Davidson

Following several spells of easterly winds this March, I wasn’t entirely surprised to find that one of the Siskins visiting my garden feeders (green pin on map below) was carrying a Swedish ring and had been ringed as a 5,M (last years fledgling, male) on 25 April 2017 at Overboda, Västerbotten (63 deg 51 min N 19 deg 55 min E) 1,490 km ENE of Inverness (red pin on map below).

Swedish Siskin recoveries are not as frequent as might be expected from such a close neighbour. Up to 2016 there had been 38 Swedish-ringed Siskins reported here, with 110 BTO-ringed individuals recovered there. This compares with 105 from, and 172 to, Norway. So, even though another bout of easterlies had followed, I was quite surprised to catch another Swedish ringed Siskin, on 4 April and even more so to get a third the following day. What was really interesting was that the third bird’s ring, was only seven numbers different from the bird caught the previous day so that it was nearly certain that these two birds had been ringed at the same location and were travelling together. Both birds had been ringed on 23 July 2017 at Handol, Jamtland (63 deg 16 min N 12 deg 26 min E) 1,119 km ENE of Inverness (blue pin on map below).



An email exchange with Malcolm Calvert of the South Manchester Ringing Group, with whom I swap quite a number of Siskins, revealed that he had had a similar experience over the weekend of 22/23 February 2016 when one of six Siskins caught in his North Cheshire garden was an adult and was carrying a Finnish ring; the bird had been ringed at Pori, Satakunta, Turku and Pori (purple pin on map below) on 15 May 2015. The following day Malcolm caught another six, and was delighted to learn that one of these had been recaptured two months later on 29 April 2016 at Niinivisi, Kupio  Finland (yellow pin on map below), albeit some distance from the ringing location of the Finnish ringed bird caught in his garden (brown pin on map below). Finnish recoveries are even scarcer than those from Sweden with only four Finnish-ringed birds reported here and 28 BTO-ringed ones reported in Finland up to 2016.

Two male Siskins squabbling over seed. Photo by Desmond Dugan

Any foreign recovery is interesting, but to find two different examples of pairs and probably groups, of Siskins apparently moving together is remarkable. It seems likely that Malcolm’s two Finnish recoveries involving his Cheshire garden would have involved birds that had been wintering in Britain. The Swedish birds in my Inverness garden could also have been birds that had wintered in Britain, returning north with all the other Siskins which seem to move up into the Highlands in March and April. Many of these travel via the Manchester area, as evidenced by all the exchanges with the South Manchester Ringing Group, or perhaps they might have been the result of drift migration following all those easterly winds?


Siskins at a feeder. Photo by Desmond Dugan

Siskin was the sixth most-ringed bird in 2017 with in excess of 35,000 individuals ringed. Even so, or perhaps because of this effort, every year is bringing new knowledge to our understanding of these charismatic little garden visitors.

Little Owls in Lincolnshire

Anecdotal reports suggest that some species have started breeding early this year. In this post, Bob Sheppard provides an update on the Little Owls he monitors in Lincolnshire:

Little Owls readily take to nest boxes, particularly in old farm buildings. The box design I use is important as it mimics a hole in a tree. My father designed the box back in 1998.

A very big clutch of Little Owl eggs. Taken by Bob Sheppard/Alan Ball.

In the past nineteen years our Little Owls have increased as more boxes have been installed and we now have 80 pairs breeding. We monitor the adults for the Retrapping Adults for Survival scheme as well as submitting records to the Nest Record Scheme. In late April/early May, my colleague Alan Ball (who works with me to monitor all the boxes every year) and I catch all the adult females at the boxes (males are rarely caught in the boxes). The females are very site faithful and so we often retrap the same birds for several consecutive years. We then make a follow up visit to ring the chicks.

Little Owl struggling to sit on all those eggs. Taken by Bob Sheppard/Alan Ball.

This year we have found eggs during the first week of April which is very early indeed for Lincolnshire. Clutches of four are the average but we do find quite a few fives, including three already this season. Six egg clutches are not unknown and we once had a seven! The egg-laying season is unusually staggered this year; in several boxes we have heavy females yet to lay. Recoveries are rare (see online reports) but we meet lots of old friends as we open the boxes.

Ed - For more information on the details of Little Owl biology, see our BirdFacts page. Lincolnshire holds the record for the highest number of nest records of Little Owl (77) in 2016, with Norfolk following quite a way behind (14). For the 2015 results of any species click here.

Who ringed the Plover?

The BTO Online Reports map for Ringed Plover shows a very broad distribution of recoveries of birds that visited Britain or Ireland at some stage during the year. By looking in detail at the time of year they were ringed and subsequently found, we can start to tease apart what is going on. Thanks to the Gulf stream making our shores relatively warmer than those further north, thousands of small waders winter here and some birds that have bred here move south to winter in France, Spain and even Africa.

Ringed Plover recoveries. Purple: ringed in Britain & Ireland, Orange: found in Britain & Ireland

At this time of year there will be a mix of birds moving south and birds that have just arrived. Telling the difference between these is where ringing comes into its own. As we have posted previously, Lee Collins spends hours throughout the year looking at birds' legs at Dawlish Warren. One of his recent finds included this colour-ringed Ringed Plover (below).

Ringed Plover - photo by Lee Collins

After a little searching it became clear that this bird was ringed 42 days previously at Dufour River, Byulot Island, Canada! This is currently the second report on our system of a Ringed Plover from Canada. This bird was ringed while 'he' had an active nest with eggs (which hatched two days later), so assuming they were not predated, he must have made a very quick trip to Dawlish Warren from Canada. He was one of 73 birds fitted with a geolocator. When these birds arrive back in Canada, and Don-Jean Leandri-Breton resumes his nest study, hopefully the retrieved geolocators will provide information on when and where these birds have been since the geolocator was added.

To get the full effect of how remote the ringing location is, just zoom out of the map below.

Photo taken by Don-Jean Léandri-Breton

Photo taken by Don-Jean Léandri-Breton

For more information see the Dawlish Warren blog.

Hola Common Gull!

Calum Campbell from Grampian Ringing Group writes:

After the continuing success of the large gull colour-ringing project in North-East Scotland, this summer Grampian Ringing Group undertook a new project to cover Black-headed and Common Gulls. One of the main aims of the project is to find out the dispersal and wintering patterns of the chicks from the various colonies in the region. On 30th June this year, we visited an inland colony of 2200 Common Gulls stretching over vast moorland (red pin).

Tillypronie colony - Euan Ferguson

There are very few colonies of such scale left in the UK after large declines in the breeding population. During the single ringing visit we ringed 180 chicks, 150 of which were also colour-ringed. Since ringing, six sightings have come in of Common Gull juveniles dispersing from this colony. Five of them were dotted around the North-East coast, valuable information, but we did get one sighting we did not expect.

Common Gull in Santa Crus de Oleiros - Antonio

A few days ago an email arrived from Sergio Paris, reporting that his friend Antonio had seen and photographed a Common Gull carrying an orange darvic (2XKN) in Santa Cruz de Oleiros, North-West SPAIN (green pin)!

According to the BTO recoveries database up until last year 94,916 Common Gulls had been ringed in the UK and Ireland. Only 1 of these had been recovered in Spain, a bird ringed in Kerry, Ireland in 1957 (blue pin)! Found only 7 miles from this one!


View Common Gull in Spain! in a larger map

This sighting is exceptional for the project and the ringing scheme but with only six sightings we are far from building a clear picture of where the majority of Grampian’s Common Gulls spend the winter. All sightings of all species of gulls are much appreciated and if you are not a ringer, sightings can be reported via ring.ac.

Swanderings abroad

Being large, white and usually occuring in large fields or water bodies, swans are an 'obvious' part of our countryside. In winter there can be large concentrations of birds, especially at WWT (Wildfowl & Wetland Trust) reserves, mainly comprising of the migratory Bewick's and Whooper Swans.
   
Our other swan species, the Mute Swan is seen in the UK all year round. Around 124,700 Mute Swans have been ringed in the UK and Ireland and from recoveries it's obvious that the majority of Mute Swans are sedentary. Once a bird finds a mate and a territory it remains faithful to the site and rarely moves more than 5km.

Mute Swan - Jill Pakenham

I received a phone call recently regarding a Mute Swan that had wandered into a John Deere tractor shed at Ringwood, Hampshire. It was very thin and in heavy moult so had to be taken into care but the signs are looking promising of a full recovery. Thankfully this bird was ringed and this ring hinted to its origins staight away. It was wearing a German ring from the Helgoland Ringing Scheme! It will be interesting to know when it was ringed, to see if the sea crossing had anything to do with its poor condition.

You will be used to seeing maps on the Demog blog but the BTO are now able to produce them on our 'recoveries summaries by species' online ringing reports section of our website. The map below is from the Mute Swan page which shows how special a German Mute Swan recovery is.

Mute Swan recoveries. Ringed in Britain or Ireland; Found in Britain or Ireland