Back on the 8th February, Mike Hughes somehow managed to not only pick out a colour ringed Dunlin among the throng on the Target Pools but also managed to get a couple of photos of the tiny white ring that clearly showed the black letters HET.
These Darvic rings are often used as a means of quickly identifying birds at a distance with a specific colour combination. Species such as ducks, geese, swans and larger waders such as godwits sometimes have codes as well but on anything smaller such lettering is almost impossible to read, leaving it to a chance photo, a retrap using a cannon net or a tideline corpse to generate any data.
We submitted the details and got a swift response the Polish Bird Ringing Scheme. Is was caught and ringed on the 29th July 2013 near the mighty Gdansk shipyards and our sighting after 924 days was the first since that date In a straight line that is nearly 1300km but obviously this little wader has covered many thousands more on its travels to and from the high Arctic.
At the moment I am not sure whether a Polish origin falls within the normal range for our British wintering Dunlin but I will endeavour to find out more...