Tit and Swallow Recoveries

One of the many joys of ringing is when I receive an email from fellow ringer, David, outlining details of recoveries of birds ringed by ourselves or other members of the BTO's Ringing Scheme. I receive two such emails this week and here are the details.

The first email was a record of two tits that we had ringed earlier this year as juvenile birds (pulli), in the nest boxes at Linacre Reservoirs. One was a Blue Tit, that was ringed on 4th June in box 5a and was one of a brood of 9 birds. This bird was retrapped last Saturday (see here), by us (Sorby Breck Ringing Group), at our feeding station at Linacre, an amazing movement of approximately 1/2km!!

The second bird was a Great Tit. This bird, too, was ringed by us at Linacre in box 14 on 12th June, one of a brood of 5, and was retrapped again at the feeding station as well. Great to see these two birds doing so well. Hopefully, they'll turn up breeding in the nestboxes in 2014.

The second email I received told me about two Swallows that we "controlled" at The Avenue Washlands back in August (see here). Controls are birds that we catch that have been ringed by other ringers. The first bird, a bird born this year, had been ringed at Middleton Moor, 21km away on 26th July and we caught it again on 30th July. The second bird, another of this year's birds, had travelled a little further (47km), from Wintersett Reservoir in West Yorkshire. It had been originally ringed on 14th August and we caught it again on 26th August (see here). Hopefully these two birds carried on south and are now enjoying the sun in South Africa!