Mark and Dave had a wonderful surprise on the 2nd when the only Brambling they caught carried a Norwegian ring. The group has only ringed 375 over the years and our only other foreign recovery was from The Netherlands.
They also had a good Redwing catch with a few Fieldfares. Heysham also has done well for Redwing tape luring them early morning. Over the years we have ringed 3600 and our recoveries have shown a strong tendency for birds to winter in other areas in successive years. We have only had one bird retrapped locally in the following winter. However we have had two in Italy one in Greece and one most surprising of all one in Azerbyzhan in successive winters. Not that it did them any good for they were all shot!
Grit tray sightings of our colour ringed Bearded Tits at Leighton Moss RSPB has increased our total of adults for the year to 22 males but only 12 females, we have ringed 30 juveniles. Data from our nest boxes suggested rather low first brood productivity. Interesting how catches of species varies between sites in the same year. Coastal Heysham and Middleton report low Goldcrest catches but inland Leighton reports normal catches with 10 on one day this week.
Blue tits appear to be moving more into the reed and scrub at Leighton we have caught 227 to date this year. One of this weeks retrap was 6 years and 8 days after ringing, and it was ringed in 2012 as an adult. Surprisingly this was only the second time it had been retrapped.
John
