21 December 2012

Last minute Christmas time news

This week has been a very interesting time to be in the Demography team.

Ringers have a great habit of checking any dead birds they find for rings, as they are well aware that any wild bird could have one. Mark Lawrence for example, was travelling down the road in a car and noticed a dead Blackbird that had been hit by a car but duly stopped to check it for a ring. Amazingly it did indeed have a ring... from Sweden!

During a ringing session this afternoon (21/12/2012) Denise Wawman was ringing in her garden in Somerset and caught a Brambling with a ring. Assuming she had ringed it in a previous year she was rather shocked to read the address on the ring was from Russia! This would be the 3rd ever from the Russian Ringing Scheme.

Brambling - Denise Wawman

The big news is that we have just issued the 6000th ringing permit! Twenty year old Zac Hinchcliffe (below) received this permit recently after ringing over 2,800 birds. He has been on ringing sessions catching Oystercaters and caught birds that could have been even older than he was.

Zac Hinchcliffe with permit number 6000... and a Long-eared Owl chick
Thanks to all our ringers and nest recorders who have done us proud again this year with their efforts during a very wet season and also to everyone who has found and reported a ringed bird.

2 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed the ringing demo at Martin mere recently and can;t wait to be able to train to be a ringer. From Findlay

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  2. Well done Denise!

    As regards dead birds i was out walking with my dad and found a dead bird on the side of the road, fishing around in the dead body my dad said "what the heck are you doing?!" to which i replied "Seeing if it has a ring!". a few weeks later my dad was out walking with my mum and he found a dead bird. Fishing around in the dead body my mum says "What the heck are you doing?!". My dad says "Seeing if it has a ring!"...

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