Bird-Ringing Recoveries Affecting Suffolk 1959-1974

BIRD-RINGING RECOVERIES AFFECTING SUFFOLK 1959—1974 J . O . BRINKLEY

SUFFOLK is a noted area for bird migration and this paper seeks to provide a broad picture, based on ringing recoveries, of the migratory trends of species which have been ringed in or recovered within the county.

Very few divers or grebes are ringed, but a Dutch-ringed great crested grebe found at Oulton Broad, demonstrates winter immigration by that particular species. A gannet from the Bass Rock colony has been recovered here, and so has a shag ringed at the Farne Islands as a nestling.

T h e grey heron is a strong migrant, and birds ringed as nestlings in Holland have been recovered here, and birds hatched at the heronry at Boyton have dispersed north to Northumberland and west to Monmouthshire. Two Minsmere bred bitterns have been recovered in Norfolk.

T h e Wildfowl Trust duck decoy at Nacton, close to the Orwell estuary, has had some interesting recoveries since 1967. A mallard ringed there was shot in County Down.

A Belgianhatched teal was shot at Icklingham, and several other wintering teal recovered in Suffolk had been ringed in previous winters in the south of France. T h e first ringing recovery in B ritain of one nearctic waterfowl species, blue-winged teal (Anas discors), concerns a first year bird shot at Martlesham Creek.

Suffolk-ringed gadwall have been recovered in Ireland, Holland, France and Spain. Wigeon ringed as full-grown in Holland and Belgium have been recovered here, and birds trapped at Nacton have been recovered in Ireland, Finland, Rumania, Spain and Morocco. There has been an interesting series of recoveries of Nacton-ringed pintail, east to Russia, south-east to Turkey, and south to Senegal. A pintail ringed as a nestling in Finland was shot at Brantham. A shoveler hatched in Latvia was shot here, and an adult bird ringed at Nacton was shot in Galway in the far west of Ireland.

Amongst the diving ducks, a Dutch-bred tufted duck has been recovered here.

A pochard from Denmark was picked up oiled at Lowestoft, and a young Czechoslovak bird was shot nearby.

Several shelduck recoveries concern birds ringed at the late summer moulting grounds of the River Weser estuary, with an interesting multiple recovery of one such bird, recaught when breeding at Blythburgh, and later shot at the Wash. A more unusual example concerns a Danish June-ringed adult found here

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in mid-winter. There appear to be no important recoveries concerning Suffolk of any goose species, and apparently the only published mute swan records concern a Mistley bird found dead inland at Icklingham and one controlled while breeding at Minsmere.

For birds of prey, a Dutch-ringed sparrowhawk has been recovered here. A young marsh harrier ringed at Minsmere and recovered in Mauritania was the third foreign recovery for that species and the furthest south. A Suifolk-ringed kestrel was recovered in France, and a nestling reared in the Orkneys was found here the following December.

There has been an exchange of water-rail recoveries between Suffolk and Germany. Foreign-ringed moorhens found here include two German-hatched birds, and a Danish-ringed bird in the hard winter of 1963. A Boyton-fledged coot was recovered in France, and a Dutch-reared bird was shot here.

Remarkable longevity was shown by an oystercatcher, ringed as a nestling in Holland in 1929, which was shot at Pakefield twentyeight and a half years later. A Finnish-bred lapwing has been recovered here, and a locally-bred bird went south to Morocco.

A possibly Suffolk-bred juvenile ringed plover was shot in Spain, and a Finnish bird marked as a nestling was recovered here. A little ringed plover, ringed as a nestling in Oxfordshire, was 'controlled' (i.e. recaught by another bird-ringer) at Minsmere later the same summer. Danish and Dutch-marked golden plovers have been recovered here.

Ringing has shown that some of our wintering snipe come from Scandinavia. A Suffolk-ringed woodcock was shot in Denmark, and a Dutch-ringed bird was shot at Blythburgh on the day following ringing. A Finnish-reared curlew has been recovered here, and a locally-bred bird was shot in France. A Wash-ringed black-tailed godwit was caught by other ringers at Butley Creek nine years later, and a juvenile Swedish bar-tailed godwit has been shot here.

A green sandpiper ringed here apparently feil foul of 'La Chasse' in France. Suffolk-ringed common sandpipers have been recovered in Spain and Belgium. Several redshank ringed here have been recovered in France, and a winter ringed bird was found in County Durham in midsummer; a Dutch bird was recovered here in the cold 1963 winter. A spotted redshank caught near Orford by ringers had already been ringed in Somerset a month earlier the same autumn.

T h e county cannot claim any long series of wader recoveries comparable to those bordering the Wash, but one of the few British-ringed little stints recovered (the fourth from France),

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had been ringed at Minsmere. A Finnish dunlin ringed as a nestling has been recovered here, and birds have moved to and from Sweden.

Two Suffolk breeding species which are emblems for ornithological societies have significant ringing recoveries. Avocets hatched at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' reserves at Minsmere and Havergate have been recovered in Holland, Portugal and twice in Spain. Unfortunately, the latter three were shot or otherwise killed by the hand of man. A nestling avocet reared in 1963 in a Dutch colony, was discovered in 1974 to be breeding at Havergate, when the ring number could be read by visiting observers. (For the larger species of birds, rings with extra large numbers, and colour rings or marks, can enable some individuals to be traced without waiting for recapture or death to provide a recovery.) For the stone-curlew, the Suffolk Trust for Nature Conservation's mascot, a Suffolk-bred bird has been recovered in France, as have other British birds of this species.

Ringing indicates that some of our wintering great black-backed gulls and herring gulls have been reared in the Great Ainov Islands colonies near the Soviet/Norwegian border. A common gull hatched on the Murmansk coast has also been recovered here.

More black-headed gulls have been recovered in Britain than any other foreign-ringed species, and concerning Suffolk, include Russian, Finnish and Czechoslovak birds. Suffolk recoveries of the kittiwake, include birds ringed as nestlings at the Dunbar and Farne Islands colonies, and a full-grown bird from a Danish colony.

A Norwegian-bred common tern has been recovered in Suffolk.

A county-reared little tern was subsequently found dead at a Lancashire colony, and the first foreign ringed recovery of this tern in Britain was a German adult found dead nearly thirteen years later at Orfordness. German and Dutch-hatched Sandwich terns have been recovered here.

A razorbill, ringed as a nestling at the Calf of Man, and found at Kessingland, poses the question of northerly or southerly coastal movement. Nestling guillemots ringed at the Farne Islands have subsequently been recovered here, as has one from Heligoland.

Although farmers may curse invasions of 'foreign' woodpigeons, there is very little evidence of this from ringing, a Suffolk recovery of one of the few definitely alien birds having been ringed at the Texel lightship off the Dutch coast. A turtle dove caught at Waldringfield in 1960 and 1962 was recovered two years later on in Portugal. Suffolk was one of the first counties to be colonised by the collared dove, but there do not appear to be any early

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records of foreign-ringed birds in the county; a Suffolk bird moved north-west to County Antrim.

A Yorkshire nestling cuckoo was later recovered here, and a Suffolk one found in France; a juvenile ringed on the coast was recovered in Spain. The only long distance recovery of an owl concerning Suffolk was of a Finnish short-eared owl which was recovered at Brandon.

Suffolk recoveries of kingfishers show the autumn dispersal and/or migration of juveniles. A Minsmere-ringed green woodpecker was recovered thirty miles away at Norwich.

The first ever recovery of a British-ringed shorelark concerned a bird moving from Suffolk to Essex in November, 1962. Suffolkringed swallows have been recovered in Tunisia, the Congo and Cape Province amongst other places in Africa; and French and Belgian-ringed birds have been recovered here. T h e first British-ringed house martin to be recovered in Finland was probably a drift migrant when ringed in Suffolk. Ringed sand martins from France, and from the British expedition to Figuig, Algeria in 1963, have been caught here by Suffolk ringers, and their birds have given recoveries in western Europe.

Amongst the crows, a Swedish-bred rook was shot at Chediston.

A Dutch-ringed jackdaw recovered here was one of several foreign-ringed birds of this species in Britain, but few Britishringed birds are known to have made the return journey, one Suffolk-ringed bird being the first to be recovered in Belgium.

T h e tit family do not give many long distance recoveries. A Suffolk-ringed great tit found in France had been ringed in the 'irruption winter' of 1957-58, otherwise the greatest movement concern the recovery here of a bird from Northants. For blue tits, the most notable recovery was the recapture here of a Wiltshire bird. One of the longer journeys for a long-tailed tit concerns a Suffolk bird which moved 70 miles in to Essex.

No clear picture of wren movement emerges but as a Suffolk autumn-ringed bird was recovered in Yorkshire two summers later some migration probably occurs. For what was once an exclusively Suffolk species, the bearded tit, what were once considered to be irruptive movements now appear to be regulär migrations, with multiple recoveries showing the same breeding and wintering areas being used by individual birds in successive years. Suffolk-ringed birds have been recovered west to Devon and in Holland.

Fieldfares ringed in Suffolk have been recovered in France, and more typically for this winter visitor, in Norway. Most Suffolkbred song thrushes are probably resident and most migrants

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foreign hatched, but a Stoke-by-Nayland nestling was subsequently recovered in France. A redwing ringed in Norway as a nestling has been recovered here. To us the ring ouzel is a passage migrant and a Walberswick-ringed bird was recovered in France. Some of our wintering blackbirds come from across the North Sea, and birds ringed in the county have been recovered east to Finland and Estonia.

Suffolk-ringed wheatears have been recovered in Spain. A stonechat ringed at Minsmere one October had moved to Staffordshire by the following March. The whinchat is a summer breeding visitor, and one of our native fledged birds was recovered in Portugal. Redstarts ringed here have been recovered southwest to Iberia, and one autumn migrant was the first Britishringed redstart to be recovered in Norway.

Very few nightingales are ringed or recovered, but one migrant ringed at Dungeness bird observatory was recaught by a ringer near Sudbury. Like the song thrush and the blackbird, native robins are mainly resident, but a July-ringed juvenile went to France. Migrant Suffolk-ringed robins have been recovered south to Spain, and north to Sweden and Finland.

Many Suffolk-ringed Reed warblers have been recovered in Portugal, and one was caught by ringers operating in Senegal.

Sedge warblers from Suffolk have been recovered south to Morocco and Spain.

Blackcaps ringed in the county have been recovered south to Majorca and Algeria. A blackcap ringed in Norway was recovered here four days later, and one from Morocco was caught at Shotley. A Suffolk-ringed garden warbler has been recovered in Spain. Whitethroats ringed here have been recovered south to Portugal, and a bird ringed in France has been found here.

Recoveries in Italy and the Lebanon of lesser whitethroats ringed here show the south-easterly direction of the species' autumn migration.

A willow warbler from Denmark has been recovered here, and birds ringed here have been recovered south to Spain. Chiffchaffs ringed in the county have been recovered in Spain and Morocco.

A goldcrest ringed in Norway has been recovered here, and the first foreign-ringed firecrest to be recovered in Britain was caught by a ringer at Minsmere sixteen days after being ringed in Belgium.

Suffolk-ringed spotted flycatchers have been recovered in Spain, and one September migrant became only the second British-ringed bird of this species to be recovered in Italy. Migrating pied flycatchers have given ringing recoveries in Iberia, and a Dutch-ringed bird has been found here. Dunnock populations

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are not all sedentary, and a bird ringed in Holland has been recovered in the county.

Recoveries of Suffolk-ringed meadow pipits show a southwesterly migration through Iberia and Morocco, and the tree pipit data is similar. Pied wagtails, presumably ringed at autumn roosts, have given recoveries to Spain and Portugal. A grey wagtail from Hampshire has been caught by Suffolk ringers.

Yellow wagtails ringed in the county have been recovered in Portugal and the Netherlands.

A juvenile red-backed shrike ringed at Middleton in Norfolk was later caught by a ringer at Benacre on the Suffolk coast.

Ringing has shown that some of the starlings that visit us in winter come from as far east as Finland and Moscow, and there has been a recovery in the county from the transportation experiments of the 1950s when autumn migrants caught in Holland were released in Switzerland.

T h e hawfinch is an elusive and apparently sedentary bird, and the longest reported movement for this species in Britain was a juvenile ringed at Kesgrave and recovered at Tunstall ten miles away, over six years later. Many Suffolk-ringed greenfinches have been recovered in France and Belgium, and the first Norwegian-ringed bird of this species to be recovered in Britain was in this county. Goldfinches ringed here have also given several recoveries in France and Belgium, and there has been one in Portugal. The numbers of siskins ringed annually have increased in recent years, and birds have moved between the county and the Low Countries and Germany, and a bird ringed in the Orkneys has been recaptured here. Linnet ringing in Suffolk has given some recoveries further south, to Spain, and also in Denmark. A twite ringed at Walberswick was trapped by ringers at Foulness in Essex. Redpolls ringed here have been recovered in France and Belgium.

T h e ringing reports consulted gave no Suffolk records for the crossbill, but a more recent example was a bird ringed at Tangham near Woodbridge and caught by another ringer near Brandon.

A Swedish-ringed chaffinch recovered here shows the origin of some birds in our winter flocks. Bramblings ringed whilst wintering here have been recovered as far east as Finland.

Many yellowhammers do not seem to move far, but one Suffolkringed bird moving to France gave the first foreign recovery for this species. Reed bunting movements also seem erratic, but a bird ringed here in March was recovered in Sweden. In 1962 a snow bunting ringed on the Suffolk coast was shot in Italy, near the mouth of the River Po, only fourteen days after ringing, well south of the normal wintering ränge for this species.

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The two sparrow species are mainly resident, and for this reason the ringing of house sparrows has been discouraged in recent years in Britain. However, there have been recoveries in Suffolk of this species from Kent and Lincolnshire, and Suffolkringed tree sparrows have been recovered at Dungeness and in Yorkshire.

J. O. Brinkley, Felixstowe, Sujfolk.