Tay Bearded Tits on the move: can you help?

In the UK, the largest single population of Bearded Tits, also sometimes known as Bearded Reedlings, occupy the Tay reedbeds, in eastern Scotland. Over the 2014 breeding season, Tay Ringing Group have been working hard to monitor this important population, ringing an incredible 635 birds - and now these birds are on the move...

The Tay reedbed runs for 15km along the estuary, the largest continuous reedbed in the UK

Around this time last year, Iain Malzer conducted a radio-tracking study of these elusive birds, following them around the reedbed. He was intrigued when he found that none of them moved out of the Tay area during what is assumed to be a traditionally dispersive period. However, this year the picture is quite different. When the population reaches the huge numbers we’ve seen on the Tay this year, ‘Beardies’ sometimes undergo irruptive movements, flying in small flocks in all directions. By understanding the extent and drivers of these movements, we can observe how connected these birds are at a population level, how they remain stable genetically and how they colonise and occupy new areas of reedbed.

Photo (c) Amy Lewis

Typically though, this year Iain didn’t have any trackers on the birds, and so is now asking for help in finding these dispersing birds. As previous Demog Blog posts have suggested, the birds can turn up in the smallest patches of reed, so we are checking everywhere for sightings of colour-ringed birds. Already we’ve had reports from the Isle of May, Aberdeenshire and Loch Leven, but birds can move much further: the longest recovery within the UK was a 390km movement between Suffolk and Devon, and other records have even shown birds moving abroad. This is our chance to record the first long-distance movements from the Tay population.

Many of the birds ringed on the Tay have unique colour-ring combinations, allowing us to identify exactly who they are. Birds may have three colour-rings in any combination of red, orange, green, yellow, light blue, dark blue, white, grey and black. Reports of any sightings, colour-ringed or not, at your local reedbed will be an essential contribution to the understanding of the movement systems of these peculiar birds and their wider conservation.

One of the colour-ringed birds (a female) from the Tay reedbed

To report a sighting drop Iain an email or get in touch with us here at Demog Blog.

So if you're out over the autumn and winter, listen out for the unique ‘pinging’ of Beardies (have a listen on xeno-canto here) and let’s leave no reedbed unchecked.