Choppy times for Manxies

Manx Shearwaters and their migration provide one of the most fascinating bird stories of the British Isles. They breed in inaccessible places and historically have been difficult to observe, let alone study, outside their breeding period. For this reason, the Manx Shearwater has been a mysterious species for ornithologists for many years. Luckily, technology, the Ringing Scheme and the fact that it is a long lived species have combined to provide us with a lot of information on the life history of the Manx Shearwater, including its distribution and behaviour in summer and winter.

The 300,000 breeding pairs of Manx Shearwaters in Britain & Ireland are distributed among about 50 colonies, the largest ones being Skomer in Wales and Rum in Scotland. Several thousand 'Manxies' are ringed by BTO ringers every year; the table below show the last five years from the Online Ringing and Nest Recording Report.

Most 'regular' recoveries of Manx Shearwaters are generated at their breeding sites, when they return to breed at the same colonies year after year. Since the BTO Ringing Scheme started, over 100 years ago, we have received about 1,000 reports of BTO-ringed birds from foreign countries, all except one on the Atlantic coast, most of them in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. 

Nowadays, the more exciting and revealings facts about the pelagic life of this species come not from ringing but from satellite and datalogger tracking. When the birds return to breed in their burrows on islands in Britain & Ireland, they can be fitted with special devices that are safe for the birds and give more detailed information about their movements and behaviour.

Researchers studying this species have been able to reveal where most 'Manxies' spend their winters and what routes they take to and from the breeding colonies. One such research project is led by T Guilford - some result from which, below, show the estimated routes and stopovers of 12 birds fitted with geolocators. 

Different colours indicate different birds, the 'lines' are joined dots and do not represent actual trajectories of the birds. 

Migration and stopover in a small pelagic seabird, the Manx shearwater Puffinus puffinus: insights from machine learning
T Guilford, J Meade, J Willis, R.A Phillips, D Boyle, S Roberts, M Collett, RFreeman, C.M PerrinsProc. R. Soc. B 2009 276 1215-1223; DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1577. Published 24 February 2009

Most of the South American reports occur between November and January, and the number of dead birds reported along the coasts of the Atlantic varies from year to year. So far this Autumn we have received 10 reports, a few more than we would expect. Many of the finders who kindly let us know about these Manx Shearwaters mentioned the stormy weather they have experienced on the other side of the Atlantic. These intense stormy periods may be linked to a strong 'El Niño' event in the Pacific, bringing unusual weather to many parts of the world including North and South America. 'El Niño' literally translates as 'the child', because this weather anomaly typically manifests around Christmas time when the birth of baby Jesus (the child) is celebrated. The graph below puts the 2015 'El Niño' event in context compared to previous strong 'El Niño' events.

The graph above shows how this year's event ranks in terms of severity compared to other strong 'El Niño' events. More information can be found at: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tbw/?n=tampabayelninopage

It is also interesting to see how many birds have been reported washed up on the shores of the east Atlantic in the last two decades. 

In North America, Deaborah Kotzebue, who lives Texas, USA, found a Manx Shearwater in Gulf Shores, Alabama, washed up after a stormy period. She sent us some photographs to illustrate what the place is like. 

The other nine reports of Manx Shearwaters were of birds washed up on beaches in Brazil, South America. One of them was found on Campeche beach, Santa Catarina, by surfer Paulo Vieira. I asked Paulo if the weather had been particularly stormy and he replied "Yes, it has been very stormy  down here in Santa Catarina State, and southen Brazil in general. We are suffering the effects of 'El Niño', which produces a lot of rain during the Spring (above normal range). Since mid-September until early-November it has been raining a lot down here".

At the end of the wintering period we will give an update on Manx Shearwaters on the other side of the pond.

The Manx Shearwater was chosen as the bird of the month in September 2015. See the distribution map in the Atlas Mapstore.

A Chaffinch from Lithuania

Chaffinch by Jill Pakenham

Here at the BTO we know a lot about the common species. We are excellent at monitoring their numbers during the breeding and wintering seasons through several of our schemes. The information gathered by thousand of dedicated volunteers is used to help answer the key conservation questions of our time.
The Chaffinch is undoubtedly one of our commonest species, and as is often the case with such species, (take the Dunnock for example), it is easy to overlook them.

BTO ringers ring more than 30,000 Chaffinches each year. 1,402,733 were ringed during the period 1909-2013, and more than 10,000 have been recovered and reported to us in that period.
Many Chaffinches travel to and from the Continent, and even to the Faroes and Iceland! In the winter we are more likely to encounter Chaffinches that have originally been ringed abroad, as they visit UK & Ireland avoiding the harsh continental cold. In the BTO's recovery database there are 15 Chaffinches that covered a distance greater than 2000km, the furthest recorded distance in our scheme is 2362km, as shown in the map below.

T848360 was ringed a Female in 22-01-2006, coordinates 51°35'N 1°43'W (Wiltshire), later Caught by ringer in 31-07-2006, coordinates 60°41'N 32°57'E (Leningrad) Russia. Greatest distance recorded in the BTO database for a Chaffinch: 2,362km 

In the map of recoveries below you can see that the movements of Chaffinches to other countries are most likely to be between the UK and the Scandinavian countries, Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany, with a few going further east to Latvia, Russia and Lithuania.

Chaffinch: Ringed in Britain & Ireland, Found Here; Ringed Here, Found in Britain & Ireland

This week, we received a recovery of a Chaffinch ringed in Lithuania. This bird was ringed at Ventes Ragas on 30/09/2012 and killed by a cat in Gurteen, Galway on 25/11/2013. It travelled a respectable distance of 1926km and is the first ever Chaffinch ringed in Lithuania reported to the BTO. Before this bird, we have only one other record of a Chaffinch travelling between UK and Lithuania; that was ringed in Kilnsea, England, and later found in the same ringing station in Ventes Ragas, Lithuania.

Vast information on ringing and recoveries of all species in the UK & Ireland and associated maps can be found in the Online Ringing Reports - if you haven't visited yet, take a look!

We have also talked about Chaffinches here.

Jack Snipe for the Year List!

Jack Snipe are a difficult bird to survey, let alone ring, so what are the chances to get a foreign recovery?

A quick look at the online reports shows that the chances of receiving a recovery of a Jack Snipe are pretty slim, with only only a couple of birds recovered in good years (see table). Most of the recoveries are from shot birds.

Ringed and Recovered Jack Snipes, from on-line reports

Year	Ringed	Recovered
2011	39	0
2010	89	1
2009	77	1
2008	72	2
2007	87	0
2006	97	2

They are generally only seen when they are flushed at a very short distance and the estimation of total wintering numbers is based on information from the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, not on actual 'in the field' counts. It has been calculated that apparently one Jack Snipe is shot for every 10 Common Snipe (in France and The Netherlands).

I am sure you all will agree with me that Jack Snipe are always a great find, in the field or in the net, and the same goes for processing recoveries. So that is why, so far, the highlight of the month has been a report received from the Hiddensee Bird Ringing Centre with the details of a Jack Snipe ringed as a juvenile in August 2007 in Burgstadt, Sachhsen, Germany. This bird saw the end of its days in St Austell (Cornwall) on the 14.01.2012 when it was shot.

View Jack Snipe for the year list in a larger map

The History of One Med Gull and Three Rings

Luke Phillips, who works for the RSPB, told us last week about a Mediterranean Gull that is visiting Radipole Lake RSPB Reserve 18 years after it was first caught for ringing in The Netherlands.

According to the ringing database, this would be the longevity record for Mediterranean Gull recorded in the UK, but not as old as the longevity record for Europe, which was a Med Gull ringed by the Greek Ringing Scheme and recorded 22 years and 1 month later.

Many Mediterranean Gulls are ringed and colour ringed in the Continent, but only a few dozen are ringed in the UK each year. In 2010 only 22 birds were ringed with a GBT ring, contrasting with the 618 ringed birds that were recovered/resighted during the same year. The number of birds wintering and breeding in this country is increasing, and this trend is expected to continue in the future.

The travels of this Mediterranean Gull are very well documented, its life history spanned 6 pages!

In summary:

It was ringed in The Netherlands as a pullus and was given colour ring WHITE 96A on 02/06/1993.

It was caught again in Belgium in 1999, the metal ring was replaced and the colour ring had been. In 2006 was caught again in Belgium, the metal ring replaced and a WHITE 3K20 added.

As 3K20,it was seen on 06/12/2011 in the UK for the first time at Radipole Lake where up to 450 Med Gulls were recorded in a single evening by Luke Phillips.

The colour ringing of Mediterranean Gulls is well coordinated in Europe and sightings can be reported here.

To find out more about longevity records in the UK go to the on line ringing reports, and for European longevity records go here.

Thanks to Luke Phillips for telling us about this gull and to Chris Parnell for both finding the bird and for providing the photograph.

Whats going on with wintering Blackcaps?

Very few Blackcaps used to stay/survive in this country during the winter but instead go south to Iberia or northern Africa. These days it is still very nice to see one in winter but it wouldn't warrant organising a big twitch.

Are Blackcaps staying for the winter or is something else happening?

Ringing recoveries have shown that our Blackcaps in summer are replaced with birds from continental Europe when winter arrives (e.g. 159 ringed from Belgium and 50 from The Netherlands so far). These birds are now able to survive better, possibly due to warmer winters and/or an increase in garden bird feeding.


Saying that, we have just heard from John Walshe, where he had ringed a breeding female Blackcap on 17 May 2010 and he has just caught it again at the same site in mid Suffolk. Obviously this bird hasn't gone south as expected, so is this a new strategy to get back to the breeding grounds quicker or is this just a rare occurrence? More ringing for winter Blackcaps is needed I think.

Thanks to John Walshe for letting us know and Dawn Balmer for the photo.

Winter Whitethroat ringed in Devon

After our brief mention of a winter Blackcap movement, this recent capture is far more bizarre!

On 17 January Jon Avon was ringing in his Devon garden and found this Whitethroat in his net! We're not sure of the age of the bird, but the colour of the eye and tail both suggest it might be a first-winter bird.


Amazingly, despite the recent Arctic conditions the bird was in really good condition, weighing in at 12.9g which is what you'd expect a Whitethroat to weigh in autumn.


Thanks to Jon for the photos and to find out what our migrants should be doing in the winter, check the blog here.