Comings and Goings

 In the last few posts, I've talked about the fantastic controls we've had of Siskins from eastern Europe. The 'comings'. In the last week or so, we've had reports of Siskins we have ringed which have been found elsewhere--the 'goings'.

This first bird was found in Suffolk....

We have been a tad intrigued by this but I wonder if it is one of the eastern invaders on it's way back to mainland Europe via a relatively short crossing--who knows?

As well as birds from eastern Europe, I think the next image illustrates that birds from Scotland also featured heavily in the birds we caught.

We have already had 5 birds recaptured by ringers on their way back to Scotland.

Not part of the Siskin invasion but equally interesting is this record of a Chiffchaff ringed at Belvide which I reported on recently. 

This bird was re-trapped in Switzerland--only the second British ringed Chiffchaff to be caught in Switzerland--who would have guessed?

Gareth has been putting in the hard yards at his quarry site with little return in many ways for his hard work. However, a couple of weeks ago he scored big time with a superb male Whinchat

These are stunning birds which breed sparsely in upland/ moorland regions. This bird had obviously stopped off to feed and obliged by popping into a mist net. As Gareth says--it's days like this that make the bad days worthwhile.

Meanwhile I and a couple of other old timers had a few days at the bird observatory on Alderney Island one of the Channel Isles. Like many islands--especially in the spring they can be brilliant with lots of birds passing through--or very quiet--it all depends on the wind. As we arrived on the late afternoon flight on the first day, the wind had been ok and we were met by the warden, John, with a photograph of that mornings start bird......

A magnificent adult male Golden Oriole--oh how I wish we had caught an earlier flight!! The wind changed overnight to a brisk north easterly and migration pretty much stopped. 3 days of looking at empty nets--followed as the wind eased by a trickle of migrants. As sure as eggs is eggs, the day after we left, the wind went southerly and they caught 250 birds in  a fraction of the nets we had been using. Ringers always have tales of woe-- a bit like twitchers who arrive at the spot only to be told '' it was last seen 40 minutes ago but hasn't shown since.....''

Redpolls and records

 We have had lots of Siskin on our feeders as have many people around the country. Although nowhere near as many, we have also had quite a few Redpoll also. These two species often wander together--but Redpoll ae much less obvious--often simply looking like " little brown jobs" from a distance without binoculars.

However, they are very attractive birds. They all have the characteristic, red patch on the head ( or poll a it was called in olden times) just like this female....

Males, especially at this time of year are quite unmistakeable, with a bright pinky/red breast. This is a particularly bright example...

Thanks to Paul for these pics from BPF this morning.

This morning the BTO journal Ringing and Migration dropped through the letterbox. It's research papers are a bit 'heavy', and it will be some time before I fight my way through them all. But at the rear of the journal once per year is the collection of data from ringers around the country. Having one of your birds in there is always a bit of a thrill--and this time we had a recovery of a bird which I had forgotten about. 

You can just about make out that it was a Chiffchaff ringed at Belvide at the end of August 2019. It was found ( unfortunately killed by a cat!!) in Switzerland mid March 2021--only the second ever British ringed Chiffchaff to be found in Switzerland!!

That in itself is cause for celebration--but I wonder what the back-story is here. I'm pretty sure it was probably bred near Belvide and caught before it set off on it's way south typically late September. So why did it turn up in Switzerland in March a couple of years later? Several possibilities..... was it slightly off course and on it's way back to the UK?; had it paired up with a Swiss mate and was settling down to breed there?; had it wintered in Switzerland for some reason.? The reality is we don't know--but it's fun thinking about the possibilities!!

Superb Siskin results!!!

 In my last post I mentioned that we had had controls of Siskins from abroad--now we have had feedback on those controls.

The German bird was originally ringed on 7th March 2023--there have only been 56 records of German Siskins found in the UK.

The Czech Republic bird caught on the same day had been ringed on 9th April 2023, there have only been 7 Siskins found in UK from there.

The Lithuanian bird was ringed 5th April 2021,there have only been 12 birds caught from Lithuania.

Close by ( around 2 miles) at one of our other sites we had a bird originally ringed in Poland, from where only 8 birds have ever been recovered.

SO--4 eastern European ringed birds within 1 week was an incredibly significant catch compared to the number of bird recovered here from those countries in over 100 years of the ringing scheme!!

It remains to be seen how many of the around 2000 Siskins we have ringed over the last month or so will be controlled in those same countries, where, presumably these birds will be returning to breed.

On a more domestic note--activity at our feeders is predictably dropping off as birds move out to breed--and summer visitors arrive back from wintering in southern countries.

This morning I had a male Blackcap, which showed an interesting feather feature......

It's often very difficult to age birds at this time of year--but this Blackcap showed a distinctive group of feathers on the wing.

You can see from the blue bar that the feathers under the bar are slightly browner than the grey feathers to the left of the bar. It actually was even more obvious on the real bird --the grey feathers are adult and the browner ones are remnant juvenile feathers so we can be confident this bird was reared in 2023.

More of a curiosity was this Goldfinch which Paul caught this morning...

Although rather more common in Redpoll, this Goldfinch is showing some gold feathers in the rwed head. It's probably a simple mutation. but I really have no further details than that.