With poor weekend weather, I have been unable to get out to ring by myself for a while. However, I
have been watching the birds in my garden. On 2 April, one of the resident families of Blackbirds
brought the first of this year’s fledglings into the garden, making best use of the food we put out for
them. This week, while feeding one of the chicks, I was able to take enough photos of the ring on the
adult male’s leg to determine that I had ringed him in the garden 18 months ago.
Other records of people reading metal rings provides valuable extra data on top of our normal
ringing activities. Data like this submitted to the BTO helps us to track patterns in the bird activity of
individual birds. Members from our group have also read the metal rings on Woodpigeons and Black-
headed Gulls. It’s always worth checking to see if a bird has been ringed, because their movements
can be surprising!
Josh
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