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).

Snow Buntings on the move

We recently heard of some fascinating results from a French project colour-ringing wintering Snow Buntings. 'A5' was ringed on 29th December in Calais and was then seen further north at Dunkerque on 28th January before returning to Calais from 5th-25th February. It was then that it headed off, seen at Shingle Street (Suffolk) on 10th March (and still present yesterday - 21st March), becoming the first French-ringed Snow Bunting ever to be reported in the UK (shown in red on the map below).




View Snow Buntings in a larger map



This was also the first sighting for the project outside of France, but the second wasn't too far behind, when 'E0' was reported from South Shields (South Tyneside) on 16th March (shown in blue on the map). Interestingly though, when this bird was caught at Calais on 9th February (where it remained until 18th February), it was already wearing a Belgian ring! Presumably linked to greater ringing effort, there are seven previous records of Belgian-ringed Snow Buntings in the UK, with previous movements all to the north of this: the map below shows all Snow Buntings movements, from the BTO's Online Ringing Report.



There are two races of Snow Bunting wintering in western Europe: nivalis (long-distance migrants breeding in northern Europe and Greenland) and insulae (short-distance migrants breeding in Iceland and Scotland). Nivalis from western Greenland winter in north America, whilst those from eastern Greenland winter from northern Scandinavian to western Russia and we don't really know much about those from southern Greenland. It is likely that they winter in western Europe and most birds caught in winter in France are nivalis and are thought to mostly be from here. So the fact that these two colour-ringed birds both headed northwest from France in spring is perhaps the first evidence of this.

Thanks to Quentin Dupriez for the details here, John Richardson for the photos of the bird in Suffolk and Mike Marsh for originally letting us know about the Suffolk bird.

Tawny Owl have to learn quickly

John Walshe writes:

"On 2 July 2003 while on my way into work to do a night shift, I came upon an adult Tawny Owl sitting stunned in the road at Stowupland, Suffolk having presumably just been clipped by a car. I stopped and picked it up, planning to just move it out of harm's way, whereupon it came back to life. I thoroughly examined it for any injury and it was unharmed and safe to ring. Luckily I had my ringing equipment in the car and promptly ringed the owl and released it.

Tawny Owl - Jill Pakenham

I didn't see or hear any more of this owl until nearly 8 years later, coming back from a night shift on the morning of 1 June 2011. There it was, again in almost the exact spot but badly stunned in the road but just alive. This time it seemed to have taken a bigger hit as it didn't revive at all and died. It's amazing that it had survived all that time by a fairly busy road which eventually claimed it, though not before raising lots of broods."

We have received varying numbers of Tawny Owl road reports over the past few years but relatively very few compared with Barn Owls (830 recoveries from 2009- November 2012). Below are the number of Tawny Owls that have been reported being hit by vehicles from 2009 to November 2012.

Thanks to John Walshe for letting us know.

Suffolk Marsh Warbler that almost got away

It took five years to make it through the process, changed identity a couple of times, but the second foreign-ringed Marsh Warbler to be found in Britain has finally come to light.


When a slightly odd-looking Reed Warbler wearing a Norwegian ring was caught on the Suffolk coast in August 2004, no one at the time realised its true identity.


After a fair bit of investigation across the North Sea in Norway, this bird was actually pinned down as a Marsh Warbler. This could also be confirmed retrospectively from photos taken of the bird at the time, which have come to light recently (above). It was actually ringed as a young bird in Norway in July 2004, caught on autumn passage.

We have very few international movements of ringed Marsh Warblers, but the map below nicely shows where birds are coming from on migration, and where our birds are heading in the autumn. Green markers show the movement of the bird mentioned above, with blue markers showing where British-ringed birds have been found and red markers showing where birds found in Britain originated.


View Marsh Warbler in a larger map

Thanks to the ringers in Suffolk (who shall remain anonymous) for sorting this out and letting us know about the cock-up.