Most severe hen photographers dislike taking footage of birds sporting rings (or what on the opposite facet of the Atlantic you name bands). I can sympathise, as a shiny new ring, clamped to a hen’s leg, hardly ever enhances its portrait. Frustratingly, normal aluminium hen rings are nearly all the time inconceivable to learn until the hen is within the hand, as even the perfect of images hardly ever permit the ring’s quantity to be learn. I’d like to have identified the place and when the Nice Noticed Woodpecker in my {photograph} under was ringed, however although the ring is clearly seen, the quantity stamped on it isn’t. 

Nevertheless, lately there’s been a rising pattern to mark greater birds, comparable to wildfowl and waders, with both color rings, or Darvic plastic rings. The latter are all the time stamped with giant letters or numbers, permitting them to be learn simply with the assistance of a telescope and even binoculars. Then it’s a matter of doing a little analysis on the web to seek out who rang the hen you noticed, after which emailing the small print of your sighting. With luck you’ll get a speedy reply, telling you the hen’s historical past.

I photographed the Black-tailed Godwit in my {photograph} (above) on 18 September 2020. It was feeding on mud flats within the harbour of Brancaster Staithe, on the North Norfolk coast. With its placing mixture of color rings I suspected that it will be simple to seek out out extra about this specific hen, and I used to be proper. I found that it had been ringed on 26 September 2016 at Iken, on the River Alde on the Suffolk coast, so nearly precisely 4 years earlier than my sighting. The knowledge I obtained didn’t point out the age of the hen. Black-tailed godwits winter in giant numbers on the estuaries of each Norfolk and Suffolk, and we all know that just about all these birds breed in Iceland. They’re of the race islandica, a sub species of the nominate race, limosa. In breeding plumage islandica godwits develop a deeper pink plumage than their limosa cousins. Very small numbers of limosa birds do nest in England, whereas a number of islandica breed in Orkney and Shetland. 

After being ringed my godwit (EY70 137) wasn’t seen once more till 1 July 2017, when it was reported from Aldeburgh City Marshes, not removed from the place it was first ringed. It then settled again at Hazlewood marshes on the Alde estuary; it was reported from right here 12 extra occasions till the final sighting on 9 September. As soon as once more the hen disappeared, or not less than wasn’t reported, till it was famous at Titchwell RSPB Reserve on the North Norfolk coast on 10 July 2018. It clearly appreciated Titchwell, for there have been one other 11 sightings from the identical website, the final on 16 September. There was only one sighting away from Titchwell that summer season, at Snettisham RSPB reserve, just some miles west of Titchwell.

Black-tailed Godwits on the transfer. A lot of the Icelandic inhabitants winters within the British isles

The sightings stopped, however then on 18 February 2019 EY70 137 was noticed on Girl’s Island Lake, Wexford, Eire. Was this the place it spent its winters? It appears extremely seemingly that it was. Nevertheless it was again at Titchwell once more on 6 July, earlier than shifting to close by Brancaster Staithe on 13 August. There have been seven extra sightings of it right here, the final on 20 October. Did it then transfer on to Eire? In the summertime of 2020 it was again at Brancaster Staithe once more, with the primary file on 23 July. It was reported a number of extra occasions earlier than my sighting, with the final file that I do know of on 30 September. Black-tailed Godwits are long-lived birds, so EY70 137 could be nonetheless be alive.

Such a terrific variety of sightings of the identical hen are spectacular, and a mirrored image on the variety of observers we now have right here in Norfolk and Suffolk. It was additionally notable that EY70 137 was a very confiding and approachable particular person, which is why it was reported so many occasions. The repeat sightings reveal an amazing deal in regards to the hen’s actions, however after all we don’t know the place it bred. One assumes Iceland, however there’s no proof. That’s why the present pattern to radio-tag birds reveals a lot greater than ringing, although it’s after all vastly dearer.

I photographed the godwit due to the rings, however once I pressed the shutter on the Black-headed Gull (above) I hadn’t even seen that it was ringed. Solely once I downloaded my photographs did I spot the ring, which was clear and straightforward to learn (2BAT). As soon as once more I did my web analysis and managed to contact the one who had ringed the gull. I photographed it at Gorleston, on the Suffolk coast, on 5 September 2020, however I found that hen had been rung, as an grownup, at close by Nice Yarmouth on 16 November 2013, so it was most likely already 9 years previous, and will properly have been older.

The primary sighting of it after being rung was near the city of Utena in north-east Lithuania on 11 July 2015. Although these gulls nest generally within the British Isles, within the autumn nice numbers transfer throughout to Britain from nesting grounds in Finland, Sweden and the Baltic states, so it appears most probably that 2BAT was a gull that had been bred in Lithuania, and that it returned to nest there each spring. It was, nonetheless, loyal to its wintering grounds in Suffolk, for it was seen once more at Gorleston (the place I photographed it) on 6 October 2016, 27 November 2016 and 14 November 2019. Whether or not it has been seen once more I don’t know, however I discovered its historical past fascinating.

Rings are usually not the one means of marking birds, and with quite a few species wing tags are extra usually used. After I photographed the Purple Kite (above) close to my dwelling in Suffolk I hadn’t seen its wing tags. It was solely after I had downloaded my images on my iPad that I seen that the hen was tagged, with a yellow tag 4F in every wing. A fast search on the Web revealed that it had been tagged at Benington in North Hertfordshire in August 2018. 

I despatched my file to the Southern Color Ringing Group, certainly one of whose members had tagged and ringed the kite, and inside an hour I had obtained a reply from the group’s chief, Paul Roper, telling me that this was the primary sighting of one of many group’s tagged kites outdoors Hertfordshire, including that “this was a hen caught in a spring entice in August so doubtlessly a wandering hen that had been bred elsewhere. It was ringed by certainly one of my trainees and he might be very happy it has been seen such a distance away”. It was the primary reported sighting of 4F because it was tagged 7 months and 27 days earlier than, and it had travelled 82km NE.

 Per week after seeing and photographing the kite I used to be in Northern Morocco, watching birds on the Merja Zerga, a sprawling estuary that it is a crucial feeding space for a lot of migrant birds. Right here I noticed and photographed two Audouin’s Gulls, each carrying rings that I might learn from my images (see images above). Audouin’s Gull is a pretty species restricted as a breeding hen to the Mediterranean, however many winter in North Africa. The rings revealed that one of many birds had been ringed as an grownup in Portugal, the opposite as a chick in Spain’s Ebro delta, the place the largest colony of those gulls is to be discovered. 

Tagging and marking birds with rings that may be learn at a distance continues to disclose new information about hen actions and migrations. It appears stunning that kite 4F hadn’t been recorded between being tagged in August and showing in Suffolk in March, so one wonders the place it had spent these months? Within the case of the Audouin’s Gulls my sightings verify the significance of the assorted wetlands and estuaries of North Morocco as wintering grounds. As a result of it has a comparatively small inhabitants, Audouin’s Gull is assessed as Susceptible within the Spanish Purple E-book, which suggests it’s at excessive danger.

My most up-to-date expertise with a Darvic-ringed gull was in Andalucia final month, once I photographed the Lesser Black-backed Gull in my {photograph} (above) on the Playa de Zahora (Zahora seashore, near Cape Trafalgar). It was solely once I first pointed my digital camera at it that I noticed the ring on its leg, whereas it wasn’t till I downloaded the {photograph} that I seen that the unlucky hen was badly entangled with nylon fishing line. As traditional, I checked on its historical past, discovering that it had first been ringed at Marbella, close to Malaga, on the Spanish Mediterranean coast on 5 October 2022. Sixteen days after being ringed it was seen at Rota, on Spain’s Atlantic coast, with the subsequent sighting at Puerto de la caleta de Velez on 4 April 2023. There was one additional sighting in 2023 at Vertedero R. S. U. los Ruices on 3 October. My {photograph} was taken on 4 February, 186km from the ringing website, and 584 days after it was first ringed. By way of a number of Lesser Black-backs nest in Spain, this hen was most probably to have been a winter customer to the world from breeding grounds in Northern Europe. Jose Sanchez Cordero (the Luscinia banding group coordinator) kindly despatched me this info, and he did ask me whether or not it was attainable to catch the hen and untangle it. Sadly, it wasn’t, because the hen was nonetheless flying strongly. Nevertheless, I doubt if it will likely be returning to Northern Europe this spring.