Dipper in Essex

Continental Black-bellied Dippers are recorded most years on the islands in the north of Scotland and on the east coast of the UK. However, ringing recoveries have been surprisingly lacking in the origin of these migratory Dippers that visit the UK in the winter.

More than 1900 Dippers were ringed under the BTO ringing scheme during 2010, most of them ringed as chicks (1700). Encounters of ringed adults are rather low, outside of special projects and recoveries of foreign ringed birds are very unusual.

So we were quite surprised when we had a phone call about a Dipper from Norway! This is the fourth ever recovery of a Dipper with a foreign ring found in the UK and this bird was unfortunately attacked by a cat near Colchester, Essex.

We don't know yet where in Norway this bird came from but previously we have had three other movements of Dippers between the British Isles and Scandinavia, as the map below illustrates.

The one in Purple was ringed as a chick on 22 May 2004 near Bergen and later controlled by ringers in Voe (Shetland Mainland) on the 2 Feb 2006. The one in yellow was ringed as a chick north of Kristiandsand (south Norway) on the 31 May 1993 and later found killed by car the 28 Oct 1993. The one in red was ringed as an adult on 4 Mar 1985 in Orkelljunga (south Sweden) and controlled by a ringer two years later in Crail (Fife Region) on 3 Apr 1987.

View The Only Way is Essex in a larger map

Thanks to Jon Evans for the photograph of the Black-bellied Dipper.

Spoonbills and Barnies on the move

Reports of colour-ringed brids are always nice to receive, as they almost all have really nice histories attached to them. Just this week we've been following some commuting Spoonbills and a Barnacle Goose.


One of these four Spoonbills at Caerlaverock was ringed in The Netherlands in June 2006 and has been previously seen wintering in Spain. Two Spoonbills currently hanging out at Cley Marshes NWT reserve in Norfolk also have colour rings, also originally ringed in The Netherlands. One was ringed in June 2006 and has spent its winters in Cadiz, Spain (as the Caerlaverock bird had), and the other was ringed in June 2007 and has been seen rather more frequently! Click the pins on the map to view the sighting dates around the country for this bird.


View Spoonbill in a larger map

We also heard of Barnacle Goose Red BP, which was a feral bird ringed in July 2005 in Bedfordshire. It has since been seen in Swindon, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire (9 May 2009), Cheshire (16 May), South Yorkshire (17 June, pictured below) and now Rutland Water, Leicestershire (from 18 June).



Many different species will be ringed, so do keep an ewye out for them. One photo we couldn't resist using is this one taken by Phil Kenyon of two birds from a local Dipper project.