Recent recoveries

Just the one barn owl has been picked up in the last couple of months, a bird ringed in June 2014 as a chick in Elton, which was found dead in May this year, near Stolon Solar Farm in Northamptonshire.

A Kestrel ringed as a chick at Scarrington Hall last June was found without its head 70km away in Lincolnshire this June.

A Little Owl ringed in June 2012 in Calverton was found dead in nearby Blidworth in June this year.

Passerines have been well represented:

A Blackbird ringed in Helgoland, Germany in March 2014 was controlled in February at Brackenhurst (see here).

A Starling managed 9 days with a ring on before hitting a window in Hucknall, close to where it was initially ringed.

A Reed Warbler ringed at Holme Pierrepont in July last year hot-footed it to France where it was controlled at Charente-maritime 23 days later.

There have been two decent Common Tern recoveries: a bird ringed at Attenborough as a youngster in June 2014 was controlled in Huelva, Spain only 40 days later... clearly wanted out of the UK! Another Common Tern, ringed as a chick in July 1999 at Attenborough, had its ring read in the field at the same site, very nearly 16 years later in June this year. This bird still has 17 years to go to beat the longevity record, but it shows how faithful birds are to the site they were raised. It would have clocked up a good few thousand miles going from Attenborough to West Africa and back every year for 16 years.


Away from the group's area. a female Pied Flycatcher, caught on this year's nest box expedition on 7 June, had been ringed a day shy of a year previously on 8 June 2014 not too far away in Shropshire.

Tom