It is always
interesting when we re-trap a bird ringed in another country; we are used to
re-trapping birds who may well have flown to the bottom of Africa and back
in-between, but who were originally ringed in the UK with a BTO ring.
On Sunday
morning the 15th October 2017 at Wilstone Reservoir, we caught a Blackcap with
a foreign ring.
She was aged
and sexed as a female juvenile (3) with one original greater covert; wing
length 72mm and weight 19.0, Fat score 1.
The metal ring
on her right leg contained her unique ring number and inscribed RADOLFZELL
GERMANIA. On investigation this led us to understand that she was ringed under
the Bird Ringing Scheme
“Radolfzell” (DER) which is hosted at Vogelwarte Radolfzell in the small village
of Möggingen near the city of Radolfzell in the state of Saarland. Saarland is a forested, south-western
German state bordered by France and Luxembourg. Vogelwarte Radolfzell is a subdivision
of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and issue rings with the
inscription "Radolfzell Germania" for use in Southern Germany, Berlin
and Austria.
Just last week
we received the BTO Ringing Report which gave us her original ringing
history.
She was ringed
on the 25th September 2017 at Beringungsstation Klein's-Garten Biringen,
Saarland, Germany as a Juvenile (3) Female; no wing length but a body weight of
18.4g.
Twenty days
later she had covered a distance of 576km and arrived at the reed beds at
Wilstone. What would be interesting to know would be did she migrate north-westwards
from mid-Europe to winter in Britain (as opposed to flying south to Spain to
sunnier climes), or was she just stopping off for fuel and where did she end
up? As the BTO reports on its website, blackcaps are wintering in the urban areas
of Britain with increasing frequency over the last 60 years. Reasons offered
being milder British winters and garden feeding. The latter has been shown to
be higher in Britain than Germany.
Photos and report by Jenny
