Tuesday 29 October 2019

Ringing recoveries

Hello

A busy ringing session at Bradden in South Northants today netted 107 birds made up of 55 Blue Tits, 34 Great Tits, a Coal Tit, a Long-tailed Tit, a Nuthatch, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, 3 Robins, 2 Wrens, 2 Goldcrests, 3 Dunnocks, a Goldfinch and 3 Chaffinches. Two Ravens were present there.

A rather quiet day for birds in the county today but Pitsford Reservoir continues to retain two Great White Egrets, now four Red-crested Pochard, four Pintail and two pairs of Stonechat all courtesy of Angi. A juvenile Whooper Swan was found by the River Tove at Bozenham today (Graham Martin), a Ring-necked Parakeet was visiting a bird table in Grafton Regis and a pair of Stonechat remains at Blueberry Farm.

Bramblings today included one in our garden again and two in the Brampton Valley with the Chaffinch flock below Hanging Houghton. At Harrington Airfield this morning two Woodcock were flushed and other birds included three Bramblings and a covey of four Grey Partridges.

Some recent ringing recoveries are as follows:-

1. A Great Tit which was ringed as a first year bird at Pitsford Reservoir on 23rd August 2019 was then caught again by ringers over at Stanford Reservoir on 8th October 2019, a distance of 20km movement over a 46 day period;

2. A Blue Tit which was ringed as a nestling in a nest box at Pitsford Reservoir on 20th May 2019 also found a mist net at Stanford Reservoir on 15th October 2019,  148 days having elapsed between the two records;

3. A Great Tit was caught and ringed at Laxton in the Welland Valley in north Northants on 21st September 2019 and then caught again at Harrington Airfield on 20th October 2019, this bird travelling 26km in a south westerly direction during a 29 day period;

4. A Tree Sparrow was ringed as a nestling in a nest box at the RSPB reserve of Saltholme, Stockton-on-Tees on 7th June 2019. This bird then appeared in a mist net at Pitsford Reservoir on 23rd October, 138 days later. That is a distance of 253km with this young bird effectively travelling almost directly south. This is not unprecedented as plenty of Tree Sparrows nesting in the north east of the UK migrate south in the autumn and we have recovered birds from the NE coast before.

Regards

Neil M


Great Tit
courtesy of Cathy Ryden.

Blue Tit.

Tree Sparrow.

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