Rings

An interesting one today. Tony Williams was handed a bird ring yesterday and he has passed it on to me. (Pictured here).

I had a look at it using a magnifying glass and noticed the ring was from a ringing scheme at Heligoland in Germany.

The bird in question was a first winter male Blackbird that had unfortunately been killed by a cat! It has presumably flown approx. 700km to get here.

I have sent the relevant information to the ringing scheme and await their reply.

We are also waiting for a reply from a Norwegian ringing scheme as a winter plumaged Black-headed Gull photographed by Alan Dawson at Benson Lock the other week had a coloured leg ring on its right leg and a small metal ring on its left leg. According to Euring the code and colour is used in Norway. We await the results.