Long Distance Blue Tit

This year I ringed 69 Blue Tit pulli (birds still in the nest) at Linacre Reservoirs and another private site in Coal Aston. In an average  year I'd expect to get a few retraps, usually within a few kilometres of the nestboxes the birds were ringed in. Imagine, then, my joy when I received an email from our data manager, with details about one of this year's birds that had been caught 19km away from its nestbox in Coal Aston.

The bird in question was the last bird ringed from a brood of 10 on 26th May. As you can see in the picture below, the nest is made up of approximately 90% horse hair, and was very warm indeed!

Blue Tits

The bird was re caught by another ringer of our group (Sorby Breck Ringing Group) on 17th November (175 days after ringing) on Bradfield Moor, which is 19km NW of the ringing site. Great record.