Recent Recoveries

The first big batch of 2015 recoveries has come in and as usual there are a good few Barn Owls amongst them. Most recoveries of this species are local birds which have been either found dead or controlled, but this time only 2 fell into this catergory, a bird ringed at the nest in Claypole near Newark whose leg and ring was found in the same area 4 months later in January this year, and another which was found as a road casualty in Balderton in January after it was ringed 4km away at the nest in Hawton in June last year.

A little further afield was a Barn Owl controlled by SNRG friend Garry Barker as an adult in Long Clawson last June, which we ringed as a chick 21km away in Allington, Lincs in July 2013. Even further afield was a bird which reached Dronfield in Derbyshire, 38 km away from its nest site in Kirklington, where it was ringed in June last year. It was picked up as a road casualty in February.

Anything further than this is less common, but a bird ringed in Woolsthorpe near Belvoir in June last year, travelled to Warwickshire where it was killed on the roads in February this year, 93km away. Lastly, a bird ringed as a chick in Clifton Wood in September decided to have a trip to Skegness where it was found freshly dead in January, having travelled 107 km from its nest site.

In non-owl news, a female Pied Flycatcher which was ringed as an adult during the trip to Wales in 2012, was controlled 35km away in Herefordshire, in May last year.

One of Attenborough's Cormorants ringed at the nest in 2013 is still residing at Priory Water in Leicestershire, having its colour ring read in the field again. This bird (CTH, black on yellow) was reported from the same site in October last year.

And finally, a Lesser Redpoll, ringed nearly 40 years ago at Cotgrave Forest on 28 May 1977, was controlled 13 months later on 28 June 1978, 437km away near Antwerp in Belgium (see map below). A good movement, which is often the case with these finches... but maybe the Belgians need to get up to date with their ringing data!

Tom

 A Lesser Redpoll movement from 1978...