More ringing recoveries

Hello

My day was taken up maintaining wild bird feeding stations today - despite the mild conditions there are still plenty of hungry birds out there!

At Pitsford Reservoir today there were two Great White Egrets north of the causeway and an adult Yellow-legged Gull off the dam.

The Bittern was again seen briefly in flight at Summer Leys LNR today and the four Black-necked Grebes were near the dam at Stanford Reservoir. A Raven flew over Hanging Houghton and a few Siskins were noted at Kelmarsh Hall.

Some more ringing recoveries associated with Northants Ringing Group activities are as follows:-

1. A juvenile Blue Tit was ringed at Geddington, Northants on 17th June 2020 courtesy of our colleagues in the Rockingham Forest Ringing Group. This bird was found in a mist net at Kelmarsh Hall on 27th November 2020, the little sprite travelling 16km to find us in middle Northamptonshire 163 days later!

2. A second calendar year Black-headed Gull was caught and ringed near Pomorskie, Poland on 8th March 2018 and was marked with a yellow colour ring. The bird was re-sighted at two different locations in Poland on 9th July 2019 and 10th March 2020, and then seen at Grimsbury Reservoir not far from Banbury on 4th July this year. Bethan and Jacob re-sighted this bird at Pitsford Reservoir on 3rd December 2020 when it was off the Sailing Club and coming to bread;

3. A first year Goldfinch was caught and ringed at Hanging Houghton on 23rd September this year and then caught again at Dungeness Bird Observatory, Kent on 26th November. In the sixty-four days between records the bird had moved 205km in a south-easterly direction. I would speculate that this bird was perhaps en-route to winter in France/Iberia; 

4. A first year male Siskin was caught and ringed near Telemark in Norway on 27th September 2020 and then extracted from a mist net at Linford Lakes, Milton Keynes on 7th December (71 days later). This little finch had travelled 1025km in a south-westerly direction.

Regards

Neil M

Sparrowhawk courtesy
of David Arden.

Male Siskin feeding
on alder, courtesy of
Robin Gossage.

A paddling of Goldeneye
courtesy of Robin Gossage.