Travels of an urban gull

We've just found out one of 'our' new population of city gulls is holiday-ing in Spain for the winter. Lesser Black-backed Gull GA37483 was originally ringed as a chick in the massive colony at Orfordness, Suffolk, in July 2002. The colony was home to 25,000 pairs of gulls, but after years of Fox predation, the colony has shrunk to just 7,000. Many of these have birds moved inland, and since 2006 Norwich is slowly being colonised. Most birds are seen in industrial sites around the city, and one site held over 30 pairs last year.

These birds still retain their natural migration patterns though, and GA37483 does get around. It was seen in Portimao, Portugal, in March 2003 and is currently in Malaga, Spain (see Google map below).


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How do we know all of this? Well GA37483 also carries a single red ring with SUD stamped on it, enabling it to be read through a telescope. The photo here shows a similar Orfordness bird, with ring RJS. Many birds such as gulls and waders carry these colour rings, and they are unique to that bird. So if you do happen on a colour-ringed bird, then do report it online at www.ring.ac.

Thanks to Mike Marsh from the Landguard Ringing Group for letting us know about this bird, and also for the photo.

Nokia Bittern found in Wales

We mentioned cold weather movements before (Woodcock) and wonder if this recent ring report may be linked..... On Wednesday, a Bittern was found dead at Hendre Lake, St Mellons, near Cardiff in South Wales. It had been dead a while (as the photo attests!) but was found to have a ring inscribed with "Museum Zool Helsinki Finland".

Thanks to Jari Valkama at the Finnish Museum of Natural History, we found that his bird was ringed in the nest at Nokia, western Finland, on 5 July 2008. We have very few ring recoveries of Bittern, and this is the first from Finland.

The map below shows all of the foreign movements of Bitterns, with those ringed abroad in blue, and the one BTO-ringed bird found abroad in red. The lovely green markers show Nokia and Hendre Lake!


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Thanks to Gareth the Community Park Ranger for the report and photo, and to Jari for the quick response on its origins.

Buzzard meets Chimpanzee

Eyebrows were raised this morning over a report of a ringed Buzzard from Monkey World in Wareham, Dorset. This involved a rather unfortunate Buzzard that managed to find its way into the Chimpanzee enclosure at the site... It may have been in trouble anyway, having canvas string caught around it neck, but when found this morning was missing its head and one wing!

GF17932 (its BTO ring number) was originally ringed as a chick in the nest in June 1993, making it nearly 16 years old at its unfortunate demise (the oldest BTO-ringed bird died at 24 years old)! It probably hadn't ventured far in this time though, being ringed only 5km from Monkey World.

This isn't your normal food chain link, but Buzzards can be versatile too... See the recent story of a Buzzard catching a Grey Phalarope, amazingly caught on camera by birder Paul Freestone.

Credit crunch kills Kingfisher!

Today we must sadly report the first bird victim of the credit crunch. Kingfisher SB35872 was originally ringed at Higham Marshes in Kent in December 2007. Over the next year, it apparently took a regular shortcut through a local factory, which was conveniently open seven days a week.


But as the credit crunch hit, the factory has been forced to close for three days a week, trapping the Kingfisher inside. It was found dead yesterday when the factory reopened - a sad demise for such a stunning bird.

RIP SB35872...

Even more Woodcock!

Following on from the rush of Woodcock reports two weeks ago, they've just kept coming in! Today I heard of one German-ringed and two French-ringed birds being found. We also checked the number of birds found with foreign rings and reported online (at www.ring.ac) and found another three from France and birds from Sweden, Belgium (the tenth ever) and Lithuania (only the second ever)!

The most reports we've had in one year was 14 in 1969, so this winter's count of 12 (so far) is quite impressive!