Welsh bird-ringers pass the million mark

Pied Flycatcher (Lee Barber)

The annual report on bird-ringing in Wales is always worth a read to discover how dozens of skilled enthusiasts across Wales have added to the vast databank held by the British Trust for Ornithology since it took over the ringing scheme for Britain & Ireland in 1937. Over 74,000 birds in Wales were caught and ringed in 2023, bringing the total this century to more than 1.3 million. The annual total has trebled since the year 2000, and more than a million have been ringed or reported subsequently since 2013.

Ringing involves attaching a lightweight metal alloy ring to a bird’s leg, either before it leaves the nest or when caught in a carefully-set net or trap. Ringers are only fully licensed after several years of intensive training, most doing it in their spare time. Wardens on Bardsey and Skokholm bird observatories are among the few in Wales who do it as part of their jobs. Metal rings, inscribed with a unique number, may be reported by other ringers who re-catch the individual, but the public can also play a part. I always check the legs of any bird I find dead or washed up and look for coloured rings on live birds, reporting them to www.ring.ac. Someone in The Netherlands found a ring last year that had been attached to a Starling in Brynsiencyn in 1982.

Of the 190 species ringed last year, Blue Tit was, as usual, the species ringed most frequently, the 8275 constituting 11% of the total. The 6522 Pied Flycatchers, 4543 Manx Shearwaters and 3831 Great Tits were the next three most ringed species.

The Chough longevity record was broken by one on the north Anglesey coast that was still part of the breeding population more than 25 years after fledging from a nearby nest. It was colour-ringed by the Cross & Stratford ringing duo, meaning it can be identified in the field by anyone with a telescope without having to catch it. Among other long-lived individuals in North Wales were a 37-year-old Manx Shearwater on Bardsey and a Little Tern at Gronant approaching its 26th birthday.

One of the most interesting movements resulted from a globally-threatened Aquatic Warbler that was ringed in South Wales in 2022 and caught by a ringer on its Polish breeding grounds the following spring, the first such movement. Meanwhile, a ringer in Denbighshire’s Ceiriog Valley caught a Goldfinch that had been ringed in Denmark in 2008, the first movement of that species between the two countries. Resightings in the field included a 10-year-old Finnish-hatched Whimbrel at Morfa Aber and a Dunlin ringed near Beaumaris that was seen in Estonia.

The ringing report will be published as part of the Welsh Bird Report 2023 by the Welsh Ornithological Society, whose annual Conference is in Aberystwyth on 16 November. Details at birdsin.wales