Some feedback on Controls/Recoveries

 It's always exciting when you catch a bird that is already wearing a ring which has been put on by someone else--we tend to refer to these as 'controls'.

I have mentioned two birds recently, a Starling and a Fieldfare which we caught and were already wearing rings. We have now had the details of these and as always they tell interesting stories.

First the Fieldfare we controlled last weekend had originally been ringed by members of the West Midland Ringing Group at a farm site only about 10 Km from Belvide, in December 2019. This may not at first sight seem particularly interesting but given a moments thought.....It was originally caught as a juvenile bird on it's first migration to the UK from it's breeding site somewhere north and east of here--Scandinavia and points east. In April 2020 it would have flown back to its natal area and probably spent the summer raising its first brood(s) of chicks. What is quite interesting is that it has returned to practically the same area in the UK this winter--having flown several thousand Km on the return journey. I'm not sure I've read that much about wintering site fidelity in this species--but here's a bit of evidence that it may exist more widely.

Second a couple of weeks ago I reported excitement at our control of a Starling at our Belvide roost carrying a Lithuanian ring. As I suspected it had been ringed at the large observatory at Ventes Ragas in Lithuania. It was originally ringed as a juvenile bird in July 2017- probably as part of one of the massive juvenile flocks which Starlings form post-breeding. This observatory has some of the huge cage traps which can catch sometimes thousands of birds at a time. Whether, like the Fieldfare, this bird has made repeat visits to the Belvide area to winter we don't know, but it sure enough has spent this winter here--again with several long distance return migrations to breed back in Lithuania.

Finally one the other way! This week we heard of one of our Sedge Warblers which we ringed as a juvenile on 16th July at Belvide--probably a bird which had just fledged from a nest at the reserve. It was controlled  in August by one of the French ringing groups which operate a number of sites at some of the very large estuary reed-bed sites across France.

As you can see this bird was controlled in northern France no doubt on its first southward migration to Africa. This is part of a well documented pattern for 'our' birds as we have had several similar recoveries over recent years. Records such as this have, over the years, been the backbone of the study of migration. By putting together large numbers of individual records such as this science has been able to build a pretty comprehensive picture of where many species migrate to and the routes they take to get there. However, there is still much to learn. For example for all three of these birds we know nothing about where they were in the intervening time between ringing and recapture. Over the coming years we will be able to get much richer data from the use of satellite tracking. Unfortunately this isn't yet possible ( or affordable) for such small birds and for amateur groups--but it's coming and I can't wait!!

We have been active during the last week and I shall provide a run down on our results shortly.