Swanderings abroad

Being large, white and usually occuring in large fields or water bodies, swans are an 'obvious' part of our countryside. In winter there can be large concentrations of birds, especially at WWT (Wildfowl & Wetland Trust) reserves, mainly comprising of the migratory Bewick's and Whooper Swans.
   
Our other swan species, the Mute Swan is seen in the UK all year round. Around 124,700 Mute Swans have been ringed in the UK and Ireland and from recoveries it's obvious that the majority of Mute Swans are sedentary. Once a bird finds a mate and a territory it remains faithful to the site and rarely moves more than 5km.

Mute Swan - Jill Pakenham

I received a phone call recently regarding a Mute Swan that had wandered into a John Deere tractor shed at Ringwood, Hampshire. It was very thin and in heavy moult so had to be taken into care but the signs are looking promising of a full recovery. Thankfully this bird was ringed and this ring hinted to its origins staight away. It was wearing a German ring from the Helgoland Ringing Scheme! It will be interesting to know when it was ringed, to see if the sea crossing had anything to do with its poor condition.

You will be used to seeing maps on the Demog blog but the BTO are now able to produce them on our 'recoveries summaries by species' online ringing reports section of our website. The map below is from the Mute Swan page which shows how special a German Mute Swan recovery is.

Mute Swan recoveries. Ringed in Britain or Ireland; Found in Britain or Ireland

Not a 'fair way' to go

We occasionally hear of some very unusual and unfortunate deaths of ringed birds, and the demise of Mute Swan W03598 is no exception. Originally ringed as an adult in September 2000 at St Dogmaels, Cardigan (Dyfed), it was seen in Llanelli (Carmarthenshire) in December 2011 (60 km from St Dogmaels). It presumably spent the winter in the area as it was rather bizarrely struck and killed by a golf ball whilst flying low over Machynys Golf Club, Llanelli yesterday.

It's rare for us to hear of golf-related deaths: a quick check of the database shows at least 12 recoveries attributed to golf balls, including such species as Canada Goose (Surrey), Mallard (Somerset), Kestrel (Dorset), Black-headed Gull (no fewer than seven birds), Swift (Merseyside) and Sand Martin (Tayside)! Even more unlucky was the Barn Owl that died after becoming tangled in golf netting in Devon.

White wonderland

As you may guess, we receive quite a lot of reports in the Demography team regarding swans. So far this month, we've had 26 reports of Mute Swans, 10 of those were reported alive and 9 were ring-read sightings, one  was caught in netting and released.


Of the 16 swans that were reported dead, the stated cause of death was: hit by a car; flew into overhead wires; sick; or oiled. We have also received a remarkable report of one swan that lived for 20 years and we got its whole life history (it was a long report), who it was paired with and what happened to them. This bird managed to raise quite a few cygnets in its time, and even survived being shot in the head twice, but unfortunately it didn't survive the third shooting.


Last year we received a lot of reports regarding the other white bird, the Barn Owl, but this year we have had relatively few. Of the 12 reports received so far this month, seven of them had been found dead (one with its head down a rabbit burrow) and four were hit by vehicles. The last one was reported by a bird of prey centre who report that they are increasingly receiving Barn Owls which have been killed by Buzzards. I'm not sure how common this is or if it is just restricted to the Fife area of Scotland. We'll have to keep an eye on this.

Thanks to Edmund Fellowes for the Mute Swan picture and Neil Calbrade for the Barn Owl.