Goldcrest
There have been some interesting retraps or recoveries of the Little Wittenham birds over the years. The term 'Retrap' means the birds are caught and released by ringers elsewhere; the term 'recovery' usually means a bird is found dead and the ring (or its number) is recovered.
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Goldcrest |
One of 'our' goldcrests ringed in the wood on 5th September 1999 unfortunately ended up as a road casualty in Maidstone, Kent, on the 9th October. This bird was only 4 months old, weighed about 6 grams and had already flown 75 miles, probably on its way across the Channel for the winter. A one-year-old blackcap was ringed in the wood and lived for 2 1/2 years, migrating each winter, before it was found dead in Morocco.
A rare case of 'recovery' where the bird was still alive happened with a bird ringed only a few miles from the reserve; it was first ringed one spring, and found in autumn of the same year in a birdcage in Belgium.
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Siskins |
On a happier note, a siskin ringed as a juvenile in October 1997 was subsequently retrapped near Tain, north of Inverness, on 2 occasions in 1998 and one in 1999, so we know that it made the 440-mile journey safely and lived to tell the tale.
Some of our summer visitors make for Africa in the winter, and in common with many birds from the eastern side of England they head for the shortest sea crossing in a south-easterly direction, at Dungeness in Sussex. The Rye Bay ringing group retrapped a blackcap on 17th September 2000 which had been ringed in the wood only 6 days earlier. It had travelled the 200 miles in remarkably quick time.
Swallows from the Manor ( just outside the Reserve) also travel to Africa; one ringed as a nestling in 2003 was retrapped on its way out at Icklesham, near Dungeness, in September 2005. Since swallows usually return to breed near where they were hatched this one had probably produced several youngsters to fly over the Reserve in 2004 and 2005.
Birds from other countries have been found in the reserve; a dunnock from Belgium was retrapped one November only a month after it was first ringed, and a chaffinch first ringed in another part of Belgium was retrapped 18 months later in the wood.
This page last updated 8th February 2006 by E M Gill