We always enjoy receiving an email from the BTO with details of one of our birds that has been recovered elsewhere. We are most certainly always happy to read that the bird was captured alive and well by another ringer rather than the sad but too frequent news that it was “freshly dead” and “killed by cat“.
The latest email shows where one of the juvenile Blackbirds, ringed here in South Uist with number LC66596, had moved to. The records show that the bird was ringed by us on the 9th June 2012 at 04:50 (ah! don’t you just miss those long summer days – i’m writing this while listening to the horizontal rain lashing against the window with hardly any respite in sight for at least the next week). Sorry, i’m getting sidetracked… The Blackbird headed south and was recovered 125 days later on the 12th October 2012 by another ringer, Mark, in Breibhig in Barra. A distance of 25km.
View Blackbird Recovery LC66596 in a larger map
Very interesting recovery from Barra, I am pretty sure I was present when this bird was caught by MO (or at least he mentioned it to me soon afterwards). Just further proof that birds are using the Hebridean island chain to migrate southwards!
Be great to hear news that one of our colour-ringed spuggies has turned up there. MO also recovered one of our Greenfinches in Barra in October 2011.