Nope, not quite in caroling mode yet. This is about bird rings.
You may notice that sometimes birds have on their legs one or more rings. This is not the latest in fashion, no such thing as birdy bling. Instead these are birds have been caught by experts and the rings fitted. Some rings are made from metal and have a code on it. This allows the bird to be identified if caught again. But rather than trust to that, for some birds a combination of coloured rings can be used. This allows the bird to be identified from a distance, assuming the rings can be seen. Given their long legs, wading birds are a very good choice for this.
So what is the point?
Well, by ringing birds then collating the sightings as they come in, it allows scientists to discover more about their lives. Particularly migration patterns and life spans. Over the summer, we had quite a lot of sightings of colour ringed black-tailed godwits. The report on their identities has just come back, and I thought it'd be good to share.
Black-tailed godwits are one of our more obvious wading birds during late summer and early autumn, not least due to their numbers. At peak high tide counts we had 5000 birds on the reserve. They are very long legged, with a long straight bill. In the summer their head and necks are a chestnut red, though this fades to brown outside of the breeding season. They breed in iceland (and a few select places in the UK) and move southwards during August and September to wintering grounds further south, using The Wash as a stop-off point. Some will stay with us through the winter too.
Squabbling black-tailed godwits in the snow. But where did they come from? Photo by Neil Smith
Ten different birds were seen over the course of the summer. I won't bore you with all the details, but here are a few highlights:
Bird OO-YR (they are named after the colour and marking on the rings) was initially ringed near Dalvik in northern Iceland in 2007. Since then it has been seen in Vendée in west France, the Humber, Essex, the Medway, Normandy and the Tagus estuary in west Portugal before showing up here. That is quite some jet setting!
Bird YN-LX was similarly mobile. This bird started off in Siglufjordur in northern Iceland in 2009. Over the following 4 years it has popped up in Friesland in the Netherlands, the Dee Eastuary, the Medway, Rainham Marshes, back up to Iceland and Snettisham in Norfolk.
Interesting in a different way was bird YG-WW. Not the most widely seen bird, after the initial ringing on The Wash, it had mostly been seen in this country. Cley, Ouse Washes, Nene Washes, Welney and Swavesey; most of the sightings were all from the same sort of area. But, the important thing is that the bird was ringed as a breeding adult in 1996. This would make the bird at least 19 years old!
So when you next visit, do keep an eye open for birds wearing coloured rings. By reporting them, you could be helping our understanding of the birds.
(We would like to thank Steve Lister and Ian Glaves for kindly sharing their results with us)
Reedbed, freshwater scrapes, saltmarsh and wet meadow. Frampton Marsh has it all! Come and pay us a visit soon.