Maximum critical chicken photographers dislike taking footage of birds dressed in rings (or what at the different aspect of the Atlantic you name bands). I will be able to sympathise, as a sparkly new ring, clamped to a chicken’s leg, hardly ever complements its portrait. Frustratingly, same old aluminium chicken rings are virtually all the time inconceivable to learn except the chicken is within the hand, as even the most efficient of pictures hardly ever permit the hoop’s quantity to be learn. I’d like to have recognized the place and when the Nice Noticed Woodpecker in my {photograph} under was once ringed, however regardless that the hoop is obviously visual, the quantity stamped on it isn’t.
On the other hand, in recent times there’s been a rising pattern to mark larger birds, equivalent to wildfowl and waders, with both color rings, or Darvic plastic rings. The latter are all the time stamped with huge letters or numbers, permitting them to be learn simply with the assistance of a telescope and even binoculars. Then it’s a question of doing some research on the net to seek out who rang the chicken you noticed, after which emailing the main points of your sighting. With success you are going to get a rapid answer, telling you the chicken’s historical past.
I photographed the Black-tailed Godwit in my {photograph} (above) on 18 September 2020. It was once feeding on dust residences within the harbour of Brancaster Staithe, at the North Norfolk coast. With its hanging aggregate of color rings I suspected that it could be simple to determine extra about this actual chicken, and I used to be proper. I found out that it were ringed on 26 September 2016 at Iken, at the River Alde at the Suffolk coast, so virtually precisely 4 years earlier than my sighting. The guidelines I won didn’t point out the age of the chicken. Black-tailed godwits wintry weather in huge numbers at the estuaries of each Norfolk and Suffolk, and we all know that almost a lot of these birds breed in Iceland. They’re of the race islandica, a sub species of the nominate race, limosa. In breeding plumage islandica godwits increase a deeper crimson plumage than their limosa cousins. Very small numbers of limosa birds do nest in England, whilst a couple of islandica breed in Orkney and Shetland.
After being ringed my godwit (EY70 137) wasn’t observed once more till 1 July 2017, when it was once reported from Aldeburgh The city Marshes, no longer some distance from the place it was once first ringed. It then settled again at Hazlewood marshes at the Alde estuary; it was once reported from right here 12 extra occasions till the final sighting on 9 September. As soon as once more the chicken disappeared, or no less than wasn’t reported, till it was once famous at Titchwell RSPB Reserve at the North Norfolk coast on 10 July 2018. It obviously appreciated Titchwell, for there have been any other 11 sightings from the similar web page, the final on 16 September. There was once only one sighting clear of Titchwell that summer season, at Snettisham RSPB reserve, only a few miles west of Titchwell.
Black-tailed Godwits at the transfer. Many of the Icelandic inhabitants winters within the British isles
The sightings stopped, however then on 18 February 2019 EY70 137 was once noticed on Girl’s Island Lake, Wexford, Eire. Used to be this the place it spent its winters? It sort of feels extremely most probably that it was once. However it was once again at Titchwell once more on 6 July, earlier than transferring to within sight Brancaster Staithe on 13 August. There have been seven extra sightings of it right here, the final on 20 October. Did it then transfer directly to Eire? In the summertime of 2020 it was once again at Brancaster Staithe once more, with the primary file on 23 July. It was once reported a number of extra occasions earlier than my sighting, with the final file that I do know of on 30 September. Black-tailed Godwits are long-lived birds, so EY70 137 might be nonetheless be alive.
This kind of terrific selection of sightings of the similar chicken are spectacular, and a mirrored image at the selection of observers now we have right here in Norfolk and Suffolk. It was once additionally notable that EY70 137 was once a in particular confiding and approachable person, which is why it was once reported such a lot of occasions. The repeat sightings expose an ideal deal concerning the chicken’s actions, however in fact we don’t know the place it bred. One assumes Iceland, however there’s no evidence. That’s why the present pattern to radio-tag birds unearths so a lot more than ringing, regardless that it’s in fact hugely costlier.
I photographed the godwit on account of the rings, but if I pressed the shutter at the Black-headed Gull (above) I hadn’t even spotted that it was once ringed. Most effective once I downloaded my pictures did I spot the hoop, which was once transparent and simple to learn (2BAT). As soon as once more I did my web analysis and controlled to touch the one who had ringed the gull. I photographed it at Gorleston, at the Suffolk coast, on 5 September 2020, however I found out that chicken were rung, as an grownup, at within sight Nice Yarmouth on 16 November 2013, so it was once most likely already 9 years outdated, and may smartly had been older.
The primary sighting of it after being rung was once on the subject of town of Utena in north-east Lithuania on 11 July 2015. Even though those gulls nest usually within the British Isles, within the autumn nice numbers transfer throughout to Britain from nesting grounds in Finland, Sweden and the Baltic states, so it kind of feels perhaps that 2BAT was once a gull that were bred in Lithuania, and that it returned to nest there each and every spring. It was once, alternatively, dependable to its wintering grounds in Suffolk, for it was once observed once more at Gorleston (the place I photographed it) on 6 October 2016, 27 November 2016 and 14 November 2019. Whether or not it’s been observed once more I don’t know, however I discovered its historical past attention-grabbing.
Rings aren’t the one method of marking birds, and with a lot of species wing tags are extra incessantly used. Once I photographed the Purple Kite (above) close to my house in Suffolk I hadn’t spotted its wing tags. It was once most effective when I had downloaded my pictures on my iPad that I spotted that the chicken was once tagged, with a yellow tag 4F in every wing. A snappy seek at the Web printed that it were tagged at Benington in North Hertfordshire in August 2018.
I despatched my file to the Southern Color Ringing Crew, certainly one of whose individuals had tagged and ringed the kite, and inside an hour I had won a answer from the crowd’s chief, Paul Roper, telling me that this was once the primary sighting of some of the team’s tagged kites out of doors Hertfordshire, including that “this was once a chicken stuck in a spring lure in August so doubtlessly a wandering chicken that were bred in different places. It was once ringed via certainly one of my trainees and he’s going to be very happy it’s been observed the sort of distance away”. It was once the primary reported sighting of 4F because it was once tagged 7 months and 27 days earlier than, and it had travelled 82km NE.
Per week after seeing and photographing the kite I used to be in Northern Morocco, staring at birds at the Merja Zerga, a sprawling estuary that it’s crucial feeding space for lots of migrant birds. Right here I noticed and photographed two Audouin’s Gulls, each sporting rings that I may learn from my pictures (see pictures above). Audouin’s Gull is a lovely species limited as a breeding chicken to the Mediterranean, however many wintry weather in North Africa. The rings printed that some of the birds were ringed as an grownup in Portugal, the opposite as a chick in Spain’s Ebro delta, the place the largest colony of those gulls is to be discovered.
Tagging and staining birds with rings that may be learn at a distance continues to expose new info about chicken actions and migrations. It sort of feels sudden that kite 4F hadn’t been recorded between being tagged in August and showing in Suffolk in March, so one wonders the place it had spent the ones months? In relation to the Audouin’s Gulls my sightings ascertain the significance of the more than a few wetlands and estuaries of North Morocco as wintering grounds. As it has a fairly small inhabitants, Audouin’s Gull is assessed as Inclined within the Spanish Purple Ebook, which means that it’s at top possibility.
My most up-to-date revel in with a Darvic-ringed gull was once in Andalucia final month, once I photographed the Lesser Black-backed Gull in my {photograph} (above) at the Playa de Zahora (Zahora seaside, on the subject of Cape Trafalgar). It was once most effective once I first pointed my digital camera at it that I noticed the hoop on its leg, whilst it wasn’t till I downloaded the {photograph} that I spotted that the unlucky chicken was once badly entangled with nylon fishing line. As same old, I checked on its historical past, finding that it had first been ringed at Marbella, close to Malaga, at the Spanish Mediterranean coast on 5 October 2022. 16 days after being ringed it was once observed at Rota, on Spain’s Atlantic coast, with the following sighting at Puerto de los angeles caleta de Velez on 4 April 2023. There was once one additional sighting in 2023 at Vertedero R. S. U. los Ruices on 3 October. My {photograph} was once taken on 4 February, 186km from the ringing web page, and 584 days after it was once first ringed. Thru a couple of Lesser Black-backs nest in Spain, this chicken was once perhaps to had been a wintry weather customer to the realm from breeding grounds in Northern Europe. Jose Sanchez Cordero (the Luscinia banding team coordinator) kindly despatched me this knowledge, and he did question me whether or not it was once conceivable to catch the chicken and untangle it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t, because the chicken was once nonetheless flying strongly. On the other hand, I doubt if it’s going to be returning to Northern Europe this spring.