THE GREAT CORMORANT IN LA SERENA RESERVOIR. 2011

An earlier post of this blog presented the information to hand on the breeding of the Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) in La Serena Reservoir. New figures have recently been published in Ardeola, so we hereby update that earlier information.

The Ardeola text ran as follows:
"Count of the breeding population in La Serena Reservoir in 2011 with a total of 341 breeding pairs shared out in five colonies: the biggest lies in the province of Badajoz with 313 pairs; in the same province there are two more breeding clusters with 11 and 3 nesting pairs; one 13-nest colony was found in the Córdoba part and one isolated nest in the Ciudad Real part". This therefore makes a total of 341 total pairs, 327 in Badajoz, 13 in Córdoba and one in Ciudad Real (Xurxo Piñeiro)."

Source:
Piñeiro, X. 2011. Cormorán grande Phalacrocórax carbo (pag. 487). In, Molina, B., Prieta, J., Lorenzo, J. A. and López-Jurado, C. Noticiario Ornitológico. Ardeola 58(2):481-516.

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Another Black Redstart

Photos Cole Liggins

Nice morning out and about decided to go and see if the Black Redstart was still showing at Ramsey Harbour

Brian and his Son Cole turned up so we started to look for the Redstart. It was by the Mezeron lorry  trailers to start with, so i left Brian to take a load of shots after an hour i decided to put my new Moudry spring trap down with a load of meal worms in a small tub. 10 mins later another Black Redstart ringed. 

Went home for a cup of tea and Brian noticed a Blackcap on my feeders nice end to the day

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Busy few days

Out and about with Kev the last few days catching Mallards, Mute Swans, Moorhens, and Herring Gull.

Great few days looking at a few new sites and starting to ring again at the reedbed site.

2 Reed Bunting ringed there today with a few Blue Tits.

Moorhen

Reed Bunting

Juv Mute Swans being ringed 

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SPANISH IMPERIAL EAGLE. POPULATION IN 2011.

Here you have the very latest figures on the population of the Spanish Imperial Eagle (Aquila adalberti) in Spain and Extremadura, published by the Spanish Environment Ministry for 2011. The situation is very upbeat for yet another year, with 39 more pairs than the previous year. This represents a 14% increase in a single year. From 2006 to 2011 the population has grown by no fewer than 102 pairs, pride of place going to Castilla-La Mancha, which has almost doubled its figures in this period. Extremadura, on the other hand, is only treading water, with one pair more than the previous year. Numbers have been holding steady in Extremadura for the last six years so the situation cannot exactly be called bad, but it is now lagging behind the considerable increases being recorded elsewhere. Witness the fact that only one of the 102 new pairs recorded since 2006 is nesting in Extremadura.

See more Imperial Eagle posts.

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Winter India Part 4: River, Building, Birding

Before we left the bus depot, I happened to glance out the window and spot an Egyptian Vulture circling above us. The bus journey to Haridwar was on a public bus, (read long and painful), but I did have a window seat, and somehow managed to see Bronze-winged Jacana, Asian Openbill, White-breasted Waterhen and Sarus Crane. Arriving in Haridwar (the most holy place in India), we went to check out the Ganges. A large flock of Pallas’s Gulls wheeled ahead and a pair of Ruddy Shelducks sat on a small rocky island in the middle, along with an Indian Pond Heron. While walking along the Ganges later that night to watch the ceremonies, and Indian Grey Hornbill fed in a fruiting tree, and a Pied Kingfisher flew past.

Another overnight bus to Agra (thankfully not a public bus) saw us arriving earlier than predicted… at 4:30 in the morning. With 3 hours sleep under our belt, a tour bus that we had booked picked us up and whisked us off to Fatehpur Sikri, a world heritage listed ghost town. While it was cool, my hopes were high for the second part of the day. Even though I was only allowed two hours, visiting Bharatpur, Keoladeo National Park, was worth every second. I have seen this listed as the best place to go birding in the whole world, and I could see why, especially since when I was there was a drought. In 2 hours (with a rented bike), I managed to power around and see hundreds of birds, with about 40 species including lifers such as Greylag and Bar-headed Geese, Lesser Whistling Duck, Indian Spot-billed Duck, Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveller, Common Teal, Grey-headed Canary-flycatcher, Rufous-throated Flycatcher, Grey Heron, Eurasian Spoonbill, Painted Stork (more than 300 nesting birds), Indian Roller, Little Grebe, and many, many more that were unfortunately too far away to identify, particularly waders and ducks.

The following day (our last full day in India) saw us queuing at 6:00 in the morning to get access to the Taj Mahal (no visit to India would be complete without it). We eventually got through, and had an amazing time. I even managed a lifer, going down on the list as seen at the Taj Mahal – a female Asian Koel. Agra Fort was next on the agenda, where I managed to pick out a Booted Eagle from the hundreds of Black Kites. We got picked up that afternoon to be transported to Delhi, but I didn’t go down without a fight, and bagged a final lifer – a White Wagtail feeding on the road at some toll gates we pulled up at!

Wow. It was a fantastic trip. I really cannot put into words how awesome it really was. This report mainly deals with the birds, but India was just so much more. Food, culture, architecture, history, fun and games with my friends, unforgettable experiences. But yes, the birds were very cool too ;)

Overall, 160 species (a few still being confirmed from photos), bringing my life list up to around 770, and memories to last a lifetime :)

 Rose-ringed Parakeet

 Egyptian Vulture

 Indian Roller

 Painted Storks

 Keoladeo National Park

Birding at the Taj, because you're a hardcore twitcher

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Winter India Part 3: Himalayan Foothills

Arriving at our campsite on the Kosi River, I immediately set my sights on scanning the rocky river bed with my binoculars. Why? To try and spot an elusive Ibisbill. Unfortunately, the elusive Ibisbill remained elusive for the whole trip, although, like the Cheer Pheasant, I never really thought I’d spot one. One thing I did see while scanning was a large white bird flying past – a Common Merganser, quite a rare bird in India as I understand. Later, heading down to the river with our teacher and my friend, I walked onto a bridge and saw a flash of red on a rock face about 15 metres away. “It’s a bloody WALLCREEPER” were the words that popped into my head (though I didn’t say that out-loud, unless everyone else would think I was crazy). Instead, I said “I really need to go over there and look at this really cool bird”, which I did. And boy, are Wallcreepers cool birds!!! This was another I hadn’t really expected to see, but oh well!

After I lost the Wallcreeper, I spent the rest of the afternoon mostly on the river, and ticked off Brown Dipper, Crested Kingfisher, Common Kingfisher, Crested Treeswift, Eurasian Crag Martin and White-browed Wagtail. The next day was all spent relaxing, and again, I spent quite a bit of my time at the river, as did many other people, with a bit of swimming, skipping stones, etc. I added Nepal House Martin, Grey Wagtail, and got more views of Wallcreeper and Brown Dipper. As I headed back up to the campsite, a flash of orange alerted me to what was probably a Blue-capped Rock Thrush, though after an hour of scrambling around in the bushes, I couldn’t resight it. As consolation however, I finally found a pair of Great Tits (a phrase I have been wanting to say for a long time…), a party of Grey-breasted Prinias, and a Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpecker was very polite and sat only a metre from me while it pecked away at a tree for 5 minutes.

The next morning, we were whisked away by jeeps to the town of Ramnagar, or RAMNAGARRRRR as we preferred to call it. This is the gateway to Corbett National Park, where we would spend the next day. Ramnagar had some really good food, and showers, so we had a great time and went out for a substantial dinner. We were picked up at 7:00 the next morning for our safari. One of our guides was quite a birder, so I made sure I got in the jeep with him!

As we drove into the park, we spotted many animals, including Spotted, Sambar and Barking Deer, a Jackal, and a lot of Jungle Babblers. As we were in a jeep, I couldn’t really ask to stop for birds, but as KK (our guide’s nickname) knew I was a birder, he often pointed out the really interesting stuff to me. Before we arrived at a spot to have breakfast he broke suddenly for a woodpecker (not sure which one, I missed it), but what I did see was a Common Green Magpie fly up from the ground into a low tree. Then it disappeared… a very unsubstantial view of such a cool bird. We continued on, and when we got out of the jeep, everything was made better. KK says urgently, “come here, very good bird”. I walk over, asking what it is, to which he replies “Collared Falconet”, and I almost lose my sense of self control and almost have a panic attack when I can’t find it. Then I do, and have awesome views of this very very cool raptor. Even if I saw no other birds for the rest of the trip, I would have been happy with this bird.

On the river behind the breakfast café, I spotted a pair of River Lapwings, and a Black-winged Cuckoo-shrike feeding in a tree. We continued on towards our accommodation for the night, stopping for Tawny Fish Owl, Pallas’s Fish Eagle, Red Junglefowl, a huge flock of Pin-tailed Green Pigeons, and a Gharial (endangered crocodile). The middle of the day was spent resting, and getting our bananas taken by monkeys, before we headed out at 3:00 to attempt to find a tigress and her cubs which had been hanging around. A few Indian Peafowl on the way out was very cool (to see them in their natural habitat and all), but when the deer started giving alarm calls, the tension grew. We stopped and spread out, waiting for at least 30 minutes. An elephant came out of the bushes with people on it, who had just seen the tiger, and said that the cubs were less than 30 metres away under a tree. We waited. Then another jeep pulled up. They waited. And another 2. And then more. Eventually there were 9 jeeps waiting for a tiger to just walk out onto the road. We gave up and drove off after an hour. A Changeable Hawk Eagle preened in a tree, and a Woolly-necked Stork fed near a couple of Hog Deer.

The light was fading and we headed back to the tiger spot. Nothing had happened, and nothing else happened for 30 minutes. Then some alarm calls sounded from a kilometre down the road. Another jeep was already there, and they stood up and looked through there binoculars. There was a tense moment of silence, and then every single jeep (10 by this stage) gunned their engines and raced down the road to the other jeep. Almost every single one got bogged, but almost everyone saw the tiger stalking a small herd of Barking Deer. She stuck her head out of the long grass a few times, then disappeared.

The following morning, we left and headed back to Ramnagar. Not many new birds along the way, but a Jungle Owlet next to the road and some Red-whiskered Bulbuls were quite cool. We collected our bags from the hotel and set off on a very crowded public bus to Haridwar.

 WALLCREEPER!

 MORE WALLCREEPER!

 White-capped Water Redstart

 Kosi River

 Common Kingfisher

 Plumbeous Water Redstart

 Barking Deer

 Streak-throated Woodpecker

 India Peafowl

 Waiting for tigers to walk towards us...

Getting bogged looking at tiger

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Winter India Part 2: The Lower Himalayas

After a very very long bus trip, we arrived in Nainital. As we got off the bus, it started to snow. This would be fine, except we spent about 2 hours looking for somewhere to stay which was open. Over the next day and a half, I found many of the more common Himalayan birds including Bar-tailed Treecreeper, Brown-fronted Woodpecker, Grey-hooded Warbler, Rufous Sibia, Plumbeous and White-capped Water Redstart, Blue Whistling Thrush, Dark-sided Flycatcher, Red-billed Blue Magpie and Blue-fronted Redstart.

On the third day, our guide, Diwan, picked us up from Nainital and we hiked to Mountain Quail Camp, Pangot (one of the best birding areas in northern India). Unfortunately for me, the snow meant that a lot of birds refused to show themselves, but I was still able to goggle at Eurasian and Black-headed Jays, Mountain Bulbuls, Striated, White-throated and Crested Laughingthrush, Spotted Forktail (one of my main target birds), Maroon Oriole, Yellow-breasted Greenfinch, Russet Sparrow and Altai Accentor.

After a rest day in Pangot, we headed out early in the morning for the start of our trek down to Ramnagar. As we descended into a valley, the snow disappeared, and the birds came out of nowhere! Rufous-bellied Woodpecker, Himalayan Woodpecker, Black-lored Tit, Black-throated Bushtit, and a hoard of unidentified warblers. I only ID’d one the whole trip, and I wasn’t allowed to slow down on the hike to look at these ones, or I might have risked being thrown off a cliff by the non-birders ;) After a quick tea break, we continued onwards, and I managed to spot the number one bird I was looking for – the Lammergeier. They truly are impressive birds. A bit further along, I spotted some pheasant tracks on the ground. I promptly remarked that if anyone spotted one to tell me. Straight after I said that, one flushed from the side of the track a few metres further on. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good look at it, and hence it has gone unidentified. That night we camped in the snow.

The following morning found us walking past Vinayak, a famed location in India for finding the elusive Cheer Pheasant. Unfortunately, this normally involves spending hours scanning grassy slopes, and I had to content myself with scanning for a few seconds every time I got the chance to stop! Needless to say, I dipped on the pheasant. Himalayan Griffon Vultures put on a show (possibly the only point in the trip that everyone was in awe of a bird), and Slaty-headed Parakeets flew over on occasion. A possible Hill Partridge kept me on my toes, but identifying the White-tailed Nuthatch turned out to be the trickiest part. Great Barbets were screeching all the time, and a Chestnut Thrush mixed in with a flock of Black Bulbuls was definitely the highlight of the day. We missed a leopard by 5 minutes (the porters ahead of us saw it), but we had to content ourselves with fresh footprints. Just before we got to the camp, it snowed heavily, so we camped in the snow again – but with a much nicer view this time.

I heard birds calling as I lay in my sleeping bag, so I got up very early (much to the annoyance of the others in my tent) and headed off. Firstly, I was rewarded with great views of a pair of Yellow-throated Martens (mammals, not birds). Also, Grey-winged and White-collared Blackbirds put on a show, including a few unidentified passerines. To avoid the -22 degree temperatures another group had experienced, we headed downhill rather than up to the 2700m peak. We camped on a ridgeline from which we had a clear view of the Himalayas, and I managed ot find a male Grey Bushchat, Blue-capped Redstart and Black Drongo.

Our last full day of walking was downhill again, through a few villages, and with some cool birds such as Grey Treepie and Long-tailed Minivet. We arrived at our campsite next to the Kosi River early in the afternoon.

 Mountain Bulbul

 Rufous Sibia

 Black-headed Jay

 Where the Lammergeier was

 Campground #2

 Himalayas

 Grey Bushchat

Himalayan Dusk

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Winter India Part 1: Jaipur, Rajasthan

When the chance to go on a school trip to India first presented itself, I was hesitant to get on board. A whole holidays to spend looking at buildings and breathing in pollution? No thanks. After the information evening, I got home and looked up “birds of India”, to my surprise, finding that it was in fact extremely awesome for birds. As the planning progressed throughout 2010, and the itinerary became more solid, the trip began to take shape. As well as visiting some very cool places, and getting a feel for a completely different culture, we also happened to be travelling along the major birding route of northern India. I had my field guide, it was full of notes on identification in my terrible handwriting, and I was ready. Note that this report is mostly about the birds, but I will stray into other things we did if I feel like it!

On the 27^th of December, we said farewell to Australia, and our group boarded the flight. Wit ha stopover in Bangkok, we didn’t arrive until 11:37pm. We said farewell to the other team, and 14 of us (12 students, a maths teacher, and our leader), headed off for our first night in Delhi.

The next day, we drove to Jaipur. I spent a lot of the 4 hour drive trying to ID as much as I could through a window as the bus was doing 80km’s. House Crow, Common Myna, Bank Myna, White-throated Kingfisher,  Eurasian Collared Dove, Black-winged Stilt and Red-vented Bulbul being the main birds seen. Arriving in Jaipur we found a nice hotel and luckily, they had enough room for us all. The rest of the day was spent looking around, shopping, and playing cards.

An early wake up saw us heading to the Hawa Mahal, a beautiful palace in the middle of the city, and the observatory, full of instruments designed to measure the heavens from hundreds of years ago, all on a massive scale. As well as the common Northern Palm Squirrel, Rose-ringed Parakeets were common, and a pair of Brown Rock Chats made up for the annoyance of the childrens’ kites flying all over the city, which I kept thinking were real kites…

Following our time in Jaipur, we headed to Vatsalya Udayan, a children’s village for orphans 40kms to the north. We were to spend the next week here, volunteering and playing with the kids. New Year’s Eve was full of Bollywood dancing (I’m terrible at it), and daily chores involved painting walls, fixing up the nursery, giving piggyback rides and being beaten in sports.

Some great birds were around the grounds, including Red-wattled Lapwing, Asian Pied and Brahminy Starling, Grey Francolin, Ashy Prinia, Rufous Treepie, Southern Grey Shrike, Greater Coucal, White-eared Bulbul, Indian Silverbill, Black Redstart, Indian Robin, Pied Bushchat, Large Grey Babbler, and a Eurasian Hoopoe, a long way from where it’s meant to be, in Broome.

The morning after New Year’s, we headed off on a hike with the kids. We were assured a “quick hike up a hill and back”. The hill turned out to be a mountain, and the quick hike turned out to be 6 hours. A lot of fun though! Also, the Eurasian Wryneck I saw next to the path was definitely one of the best birds of the trip. Also seen were Plum-headed Parakeets, Common Tailorbird, Blue Rock Thrush, Yellow-footed Green Pigeon and Greater Coucal.

This is getting a bit long now, so I’ll cut it short. We finished up in Vatsalya, then headed back to Jaipur for another two days, with more shopping and visiting some of the other places such as Amber Fort and the City Palace. The next day we got picked up in the afternoon and headed off to stage two of the trip, Nainital. Just before we left Jaipur, I finally spotted the bird I had been looking for for the last week – a Rosy Starling. More like a few thousand of them to be precise, roosting in trees next to the road. I’m surprised I’d missed them until then!

 Hosue Crow

 Northern Palm Squirrel

 Brown Rock Chat

 Black Redstart

 White-eared Bulbul

 Brahminy Starling

 Asian Pied Starling

 Eurasian Hoopoe

Bank Myna

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Birding Along Wagtailess Way

While Josh was away in India, I made the most of the manageable birding interest around Sydney. Unfortunately it was a weekend of double dipping for me and no, not the 'edible' kind.

I spent some of Saturday morning in central Sydney at Centennial Park in search of some recently reported Little Button-Quail, but after 2 hours of traipsing around in long grass with constant drizzle all I had turned up was several Brown Quail. It was quite nice to get good views of the quail and in such an urbanised location, but it was a bit of a wasted effort. I did get the quail and Australasian Figbird on the year list though.

List here: http://www.eremaea.com/Lists.aspx?List=112212

Today I managed to get the family up early enough (meaning definitely not early enough) and head north to Newcastle for the day. It was an arranged family gathering at my cousin's place at Coal Point on the edge of Lake Macquarie, but I also got a kind offer from fellow forum (http://www.feathersandphotos.com.au/forum/forum.php) member, Rod Warnock, for a half-day out at Ash Island and Stockton. We were looking specifically for the recently reported Eastern Yellow Wagtail, but again, failed to find it.

Ash Island was first and we were greeted by a flock of 30+ Cattle Egrets flying over the bridge in nice breeding plumage. We managed to see all the egrets on the island, with good numbers of Eastern Great and Little, but also a single Intermediate Egret. We met up with some members of the Hunter Bird Observers Club at Wagtail Way (AKA Wagtailess Way) and tagged along with them for a short while before making our way to Stockton Sandspit. Some of the better birds on the island were White-winged Black Tern (first for me in NSW), good numbers of White-fronted Chat, Black-winged Stilt, Swamp Harrier, Australasian Pipit, Tawny Grassbird and White-breasted Woodswallow.

As we crossed the bridge at Stockton we could see some good numbers of birds down on the sandspit and it didn't disappoint when we got down there. From the hide area we could see Bar-tailed Godwit, Black-tailed Godwit, Pacific Golden Plover, Red-necked Avocet and, once down on the embankment, lesser numbers of Red-capped Plover, Red-necked Stint, Curlew Sandpiper and Red Knot. There were also 3 Little Tern on the sand flat, a Caspian and Gull-billed Tern on the saltmarsh. Over at the oyster racks there were a lot less birds than usual because the tide was out and we only got onto a few Grey-tailed Tattler.

It was a successful half-day overall even if I didn't see my target. Also, sorry for not posting any photos, but I should be back up in the area around March so I'll make an effort to include some shots then.

You can see the lists of the birds I recorded today here:
Ash Island: http://www.eremaea.com/Lists.aspx?List=112687
Stockton: http://www.eremaea.com/Lists.aspx?List=112689

Thanks for reading my first post on this blog and I hope you enjoy more of what's to come!

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Waders get underway for 2012

Met up with Kev this evening for our first dazzle of the year. Very quite only 4 birds seen and few more heard

1 Sanderling Ringed.

its a start and another species for the year list another species is Moorhen with 3 Ringed this week.

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THE SPOONBILL IN EXTREMADURA. 2011

The Extremadura breeding and wintering Spoonbill survey (Platalea leucorodia) continued in 2011. See other Spoonbill posts in this blog.

During the breeding season all Extremadura's heron colonies were visited as part of the national breeding heron survey. Nests occupied by Spoonbills were found in 7 of the heron colonies, adding up to a total of 73 pairs. These are the highest figures recorded to date. The colonies were the following:

- Montijo Reservoir (Badajoz). 25 pairs. Biggest colony ever recorded in Extremadura.
- Valle del Tiétar I (Cáceres). 22 pairs.
- Valle del Tiétar II (Cáceres). 12 pairs (8 certain and up to 15 possible). New site a few kilometres from the former one on private land. Access denied. All the nests are in a big Cork Oak; the size of the nests and the state of the colony suggest that the colony has been occupied for some years.
- Alqueva I Reservoir (Badajoz). 9 pairs.
- Alqueva Reservoir II (Badajoz). 1 pair.
- Valle del Alagón (Cáceres). 3 pairs with nest, no signs of breeding.
- El Borbollón Reservoir (Cáceres). 1 pair of adults in one nest and one juvenile on the only visit made. New site.

Three visits were made to the Valle del Tiétar I colony to monitor breeding success. The 22 detected pairs all began breeding. In 15 nests it was possible to estimate the final number of fledglings: 41. Extrapolated to the whole colony this would give a figure of about 60 fledglings. This represents a fledgling rate of 2.93 chicks per successful nest and an estimated productivity and breeding success of 2.73 chicks per pair. Both parameters are well up on 2010 (1.94 and 1.43 respectively).

As regards wintering birds, in December we took part in the GRUSEC-brokered national Spoonbill count. Several sites were visited in Extremadura, with a total of 28 Spoonbills in six of them:
- Lagunas de La Albuera (Badajoz), 11 birds.
- Los Canchales Reservoir (Badajoz), 2 birds.
- Charcas de Los Arenales (Cáceres), 7 birds.
- Charca de El Ancho (Cáceres), 6 birds.
- Laguna de Galisteo (Cáceres), 1 bird.
- Valdefuentes Gravel Pit, Galisteo (Cáceres), 1 bird.

Collaborators.
Spring count: Emilio Costillo, Javier Prieta, Sergio Mayordomo, Jesús Montero, César Clemente and Javier Mahillo. Breeding monitoring in the Valle del Tiétar: Javier Prieta.
Winter Count: Juan Carlos Paniagua, Antonio Núñez, Jesús Solana, Vanesa de Alba, José Guerra, Rafael Parra, Antonio Cebrián, Sergio Mayordomo, Carlos Fernández, Elvira del Viejo, José Luis Bautista, Pablo Herrador, César Clemente, Javier Mahíllo and Javier Prieta.

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Twite Movement

A couple of weeks ago i got an email from Ken Hindmarch from the 01229 group of ringers about one of our Isle of Man Twite.

The bird with colour rings WHITE over BLUE ORANGE on its left leg was seen on the 27 October 2011 and 3 times in November 2011 at Askam- in-Furness near the Pier.

This bird was ringed at The Point of Ayre site along with another 50 in the winter of 2010/2011 and is the first record of one of our colour ringed Twite being seen off island..... or it was untill Kev got a Control back from the BTO last night

Twite L807928 was colour ringed on the 19 March 2011 at the Point Of Ayre and controlled at Machrihanish Bird Obs on the 02 September 2011

Duration of 167 Days  Distance 145KM

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