SW gale. Male Pheasant & Firecrest still here, Skylark on the Reserve, new Chaffinch in the compound & a handful of Oyks going south offshore. Hard work.
Off greater interest is the recent batch of ringing recoveries just received. A Redwing ringed here in March 2009 has been found tangled in nets at km101 on the Murmansk-Nikel railway over 2500km NE of us in May 2010. The British ringing scheme has been going for over 100 years but has produced only c.40 recoveries to Russia and most of these south of this. It is suspected that large numbers of Redwings probably breed in Russia but mostly in remote areas with very few humans so the chance of a recovery is low. Also worth a mention a Robin caught here in early October 2010 with a Belgium ring had been ringed at Pepingen the previous March. Its always good to get details from birds abroad but we were gobsmacked to get the Redwing as we ring very few here on spring migration.
