With Reed Warbler captures almost at an end for the year time to look at the results of this the 18th year of our RAS study at Leighton Moss RSPB Reserve. This is a spin off from our main study at Leighton which is our isolated population of Bearded Tits
After a slow start adults eventually picked up and we ended with a total of 174 (112 new birds and 62 retraps from previous years). This is 16 birds short of the average catch of 190 over the last 17 years and a similar proportion of new birds to retraps. Our oldest bird was just 6 years and we had two at five years.
With the mainly good spring and summer weather productivity has been good with a record total of 910 juveniles ringed. The average for the past 17 years has been 601. The excellent ringing weather in September really helped. Bearded Tits have also had a good year with 60 juveniles ringed to date.
We look forward to hearing of a few of our birds caught by other ringers as they migrate south. From past ringing we have had 55 from Southern England, 3 in Belgium, 15 in France, 5 in Portugal 4 in Spain and 2 in Morroco.
John
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