And now from a little further......

 We haven't heard yet any details from the 3 foreign controlled Siskin I reported on in my last mailing; but we caught another ringed bird 2 days ago which sheds a bit more light on the derivation of all these birds.

On the middle line of this ring you can clearly see the letters LITH; this bird was originally ringed in Lithuania, which is even further east than our previous birds.!!

A couple of us have visited the Kaliningrad region of Russia, which borders the eastern Baltic and is directly south of Lithuania. From our experiences, many thousands ( probably millions) of birds migrate along the Lithuanian and then the Kaliningrad coast before entering Poland and spreading out over Europe. Our suspicion is that at least some of the Siskin roaming around the UK at present are birds from Russia, this one of which was ringed en route in Lithuania. Time will tell, but we are quite hopeful that of the 2000+ Siskin we have ringed in the last 2 months, some of them may be controlled in eastern European countries where we think they have come from. Fingers crossed!!

Returns from far and wide!!

 This last few weeks have been crazy!! Every now and then we have a ''Siskin Year'', when for whatever reason, many more Siskins visit our gardens and feeding stations than is normal. The last time this happened was about 15 years ago.

We're not really certain what causes it but it must be something to do with the availability of their natural food ( Alder cone seeds), and the size of the population/success of breeding. It appears that the result is a mass emigration of these birds in all directions, with lots coming to the UK.

The result has been that we have ringed around 2000 in the last few weeks!! But it remained a mystery where they had all come from. Our only hint was a bird which had been ringed near Inverness, which we caught near the start of the invasion.

However, in the last 2 days we have ringed almost 150 new Siskin, but we have also controlled 4 birds already ringed by others. One is a British ringed bird, but the other 3 are very exciting........

You can just make out ND in the top line and SK in the middle line. The top line tells us the bird was ringed in POLAND, and the ringing centre is in GDANSK !! Looking forward to hearing more deatils in due course. The next one.........

Not quite as clear, but the middle line is HIDENSEE and the bottom line is GERMANIA--so this bird was ringed in Germany!! and finally 

The middle line here says PRAHA--so this bird was ringed in the Czech Republic!! 

It looks like this invasion is from birds in the central European area, and it's going to be really interesting to see exactly where they have come from--and how many more have been caught throughout the UK.

On a much more local note--but nonetheless valuable data, we re-trapped a Blue Tit a couple of days ago, and thought the number looked familiar. On checking we found that we originally ringed it on 14th December 2019, at Brewood Park Farm. Then again at the same site on 25th April 2023, and now on 23rd March 2024. A survivor!!

More news soon--especially when I find out where the Siskins came from.

It's a Siskin year!!

 In recent years I've posted quite a few comments about how our member Pat, who lives west of Welshpool, catches big numbers of Siskin in his garden. As an aside, here is a picture he sent a few days ago of a patch of lawn under his feeder....

A mouth-watering selection of Siskin, Chaffinch and Brambling! He sends these to the group now and then just to make the rest of us envious......

But over recent weeks, many of us have found numbers of Siskin visiting out feeders. Every now and then there is an expansion of the population and/or a crash in their natural food availability and they seek food in gardens. So over the last 2 weeks team members have caught several hundred of these delightful birds. A small clue as to their origins came from a bird we caught at our Kingswood Trust site, which was carrying a ring which had been put on 3 years ago just outside Inverness.!

Alongside Siskins, there are often numbers of another small finch, Redpolls. At a ringing demonstration last weekend at Jubilee Wood, we caught 40 Siskin and a dozen Redpoll---but one of the Redpoll was quite special. It was greyer, and bigger than 'our' Redpoll and it had a noticeably pale rump--which you can see on this picture...

Redpolls have a complex genetic system where birds from different areas of their wide breeding range, look slightly different. This bird was one of the Scandinavian race, called either a 'Common', or sometimes 'Mealy' Redpoll--from who knows where?

Paul is tearing his hair out at the spinner feeding stations at BPF, because he's getting good numbers of farmland finches and buntings coming ti feed, but the weather has been either too wet, windy or bright to catch many of them. However, he has caught a few such as this female Linnet

And this male Reed Bunting which illustrates an issue which I have posted previously....

We are almost into the breeding season and this male is almost showing its full breeding plumage -especially the black head. However, you can see that the black feathers actually have brown tips, which during the winter hide the black and prevent any bickering between males as they feed in flocks to find food. The brown tips wear off so that as w get to spring the birds then start to compete for females--clever eh?