Meds, Reds and Rockits

The BTO ringing recoveries team are in daily contact with other ringing schemes all over Europe and occasionally even America or Africa. European ringing schemes are part of EURING, which is the coordinating organisation for European bird ringing schemes and strives to coordinate and maintain good quality data and research for the benefit of wild birds.

Part of the EURING protocol is for member schemes to use a standard set of codes when referring to birds that have been ringed or recovered. The data can then be more easily shared and understood by other ringing schemes. In the autumn, contact between the ringing schemes increases as migratory birds cross borders and seas; many foreign-ringed birds are found in Britain or Ireland as well as BTO-ringed birds being found abroad.

Looking at recent records (from October until the time of writing), there have been quite a few reports of foreign-ringed birds reaching our shores. Mediterranean Gulls from Poland are becoming a regular occurrence, with eight individuals reported since October. Other recently seen Mediterranean Gull were originally ringed in Belgium, France, Denmark and Hungary.

Ringed, colour ringed and unringed Mediterranean Gulls. Photo taken by Dawn Balmer

A sighting on 2 October of a Norwegian Little Stint on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides was really exciting, so too was a Peregrine from Finland which was seen in Norfolk.

The recovery rate for Redwing is very low, but recently there has been a scattering of interesting recoveries, as the birds start to arrive here en masse with the cold northerly air flow. A Redwing wearing a Finnish ring was caught at Wolverhampton Racecourse in early November. Another Redwing was found freshly dead after hitting a window at Charlestown of Arberlour, Moray on 24 October after being ringed 387 days previously at Akureyri, Nordur, Iceland. The most outstanding report was a Redwing which was caught at Rhostryfan, Gwynedd, Wales wearing a ring from the Czech Republic on 31 October. This bird was ringed on 10 November 2014 at Olomoucky Kraj 1,508 km away!

Redwing with a lot to eat. Photo taken by Tom Wallis

On 6 November, a non-ringer reported that a Greenfinch had hit their window at Hoddesdon, Hertford; unfortunately it didn't survive. This bird was wearing a ring that was put on in The Netherlands and if the species is confirmed, this would be the 10th record of a Greenfinch from there being reported here.

A juvenile Norwegian Rock Pipit was caught at Poole Harbour, Dorest on 3 November. It was ringed (and colour ringed) at Maletangen, More og Romsdal (1,464 km). This is one of seven Rock Pipits to be reported to us since October, all of which were colour ring sightings apart from this recapture and a bird hitting a window in Whitburn, Tyne and Wear. More information on the recoveries can be found on the Online ringing reports page.


The Norwegian Rock Pipit. Photo taken by Shaun Robson

As you can see from this round up, we are receiving lots of reports of birds ringed in more northerly countries, but we will soon also be getting records from our more southerly ringing scheme colleagues of 'our' birds that have been seen or caught whilst moving further south for winter.



Chick couldn't wait to get to Britain

Gull spotter Andy Deighton writes:

Norfolk Bridge, on the river Don in Sheffield, has been a good place to get close views of loafing gulls over the summer. The birds feed at the nearby Viridor glass recycling plant and loaf, bathe and preen on the river weir and adjacent factory roofs.

Decent numbers of immature Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Black-headed Gulls spend late summer here, with smaller numbers of Herring Gulls, the odd Greater Black-backed, Caspian and Yellow-legged Gull.

From mid-June, numbers of adult, post-breeding Black-headed Gulls started to build up on the river Don, with the first juvenile noted on 30 June and three to four juveniles present over the next few days.



Juvenile Black-headed Gull. Photo by Andy Deighton

The nearest known large Black-headed Gull colony is at Old Moor, about 14 km away, so any juveniles in Sheffield might not be expected to have travelled far from the breeding colony.

Checking the birds on 7 July, a colour marked Black-headed Gull was of interest, wearing colour ring white T25T. After reporting this via the BTO Euring website, it was a surprise to find this bird had been ringed as a chick in Poland, on 6 June, and was still present at that location on 28 June. It was then with us just nine days later having travelled a massive 1,070 km journey within approximately six weeks of hatching.

The bird wasn’t seen subsequently so was presumably still on the move.

Elderly Shag strengthens our position in Europe!

Jim Lennon from the Shiants Auk Ringing Group writes:

Ringing seabirds can be mucky and challenging work, especially when you’re ducking under a rock to reach a Shag chick, while keeping an eye out for its protective parents (often the croaking male). However, this is soon forgotten when you receive news of one of them nearly 31 years later!

Shag chick 1227282 was one of a brood of three ringed on the Shiants Isles, Western Isles, on 30 June 1985 by Ms Sam Powell, a trainee ringer from South Wales working with the Shiants Auk Ringing Group. A total of 725 pulli from 377 broods was ringed on the Shiants that year.  Most of the subsequent recoveries were of birds that perished within the first 12 months, a few survived for four or five years and an exceptional bird was found dead after nine years.

But 1227282 outlived them all by a country mile.  For the next 30 years following ringing, it most likely spent its life breeding on the Shiants and in the waters of West Scotland, but we’ll never know for sure as it was never heard of again until John Taynton, a RSPB worker on the Shiants, found it freshly dead on 26 April 2016 i.e. a life span of 30 years 302 days.

According to the BTO’s latest longevity list (2014), this makes the Shiants bird the oldest ringed Shag in Britain & Ireland, and also in Europe (see Euring), raising the record by nearly a year.

Note:
The Euring information is not updated as regularly as the BTOs longevity lists because it needs to access all the data from all the Euring ringing schemes and this can take some time.  It currently indicates that a 34 yr old bird from the Shiants is Europe's oldest  Puffin but two just shy of 36 years old and one almost 37 years old, are listed on the BTO longevity records site.

Common Gull ringed when the Queen was 10 weeks old

Thanks to the Euring reporting website that non-ringers use to report ringed birds, we receive an average of 90 reports of BTO ringed birds per week. This number doesn't include recoveries by letter and ringers catching ringed birds of course. Most of the reports are of recently dead birds but there is a very small percentage of rings that have been found using metal detectors.

The ringing details of these birds take more time to find, as these birds have usually been dead for some time but well worth the effort. One report recently was of a ring that was found on 04 November 2012 at Green Ore, Wells, Somerset by John Durnell. As soon as we read that the ring also had Whitherby, High Holborn, London on the ring we realised how old this ring was.

Ringing in this country first started in 1909 but this ring was placed on a 1st year Common Gull on 3 July 1926 at Ard na Cailc, Dornoch Firth, Highlands! This was a distance of 738km in 31,537 days between ringing and finding (although the bird was dead for most of this). Amazingly ony 28 Common Gulls were ringed in 1926 compared with 716 last year.

Thanks to John Durnell for letting us know and for supplying the photos.

10 Millionth Milestone continued...

Back in Feburary we posted a story regarding a Swallow that was the 10 millionth record to be added into the EURING databank (click here to read that post) .

This female Swallow was ringed on 16 April 2011 in Malta, while on passage and was later caught by another ringer in Raby, Czech Republic on 19 Jun 2011. She would have then travelled to South Africa for the winter, and we have just heard that this bird is now back at her breeding site in the Czech Republic!

Current reports of Swallow breeding success in the UK have not been good so far this year. Growth of chicks has been slower than normal and some failed attempts have been reported, especially during the wet and stormy weather. Hopefully the latter half of summer will be more benificial to Swallows.

Thanks to Dick Jeeves for the photo.

10 Millionth Milestone

The British and Irish ringing scheme is part of a much wider group of ringing schemes across Europe called the European Union for Bird Ringing (EURING), which was formed nearly 50 years ago. EURING encourages co-operation, common standards and data exchange across Europe.

The EURING databank is currently located at the BTO and its purpose is to collate information on bird demography. This makes data much more accessible for scientific studies. It holds records dating back over 100 years, covering 552 different bird species.


A female Swallow, ringed in Malta (blue pin) has now become famous after being the 10 millionth entry into the EURING databank. It was ringed on 16 April 2011 during passage, and was caught by another ringer during routine ringing operations on 19 June 2011 in Raby, Czech Republic (red pin)!


Recent studies using the EURING data have examined flyways, migratory divides, connectivity, irruption, evolution, phenological changes, moult migration, dispersal of sedentary species and birds as vectors of diseases. Other studies have focussed on survival, mortality, habitat use and population trends.

For more information on EURING see their website.

Thanks to George H Higginbotham for the photo.