On 25 September 2022, a colour ringed ring ouzel was photographed at a headland near Santander, northern Spain, by Guillermo Lazaro. This bird had been ringed as a chick on 17 May from a brood of 5 (ring number LL21463) in Glen Clunie by Innes Sim and Alys Perry, as part of a project aimed at finding out more about their migration journeys to and from their winter quarters by fitting adults with GPS tags.
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| Ringed as pullus in Glen Clunie May 2022, sighted in Santander Northern Spain September 2022 |
It was the smallest of the 5 chicks, but not a runt,
and all chicks fledged around 21 May. Both adults were unringed initially, but
both were caught and colour ringed, and the male fitted with a tag. The same
pair had a second nest around 300m away and reared a brood of 3, all of which
fledged around 2 July. Both adults were retrapped and the female fitted with a
tag. Two previous sightings of chicks from Glen Clunie, both in 2013, were
on 15 and 27 October in Isles of Scilly and Portland, Dorset, respectively. And
data from 2 tagged birds in 2018 showed that they left Glen Clunie on 2 and 5
October. So, this bird seems to have left the UK unusually early.
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| Ringed in Glen Clunie in July 2013, sighted at Portland, Dorset October 2013 |
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| Ringed in Glen Clunie as a chick in June 2013, sighted on the Scilly Isles October 2013 |
Twenty adult ring ouzels were
fitted with GPS tags in Glen Clunie in 2022. These tags were programmed to take
a fix once per day between 1 September 2022 and 30 April 2023. Each fix should
be accurate to around 10m, but the bird has to be retrapped in order to access
the data. We obtained high quality data from 2 tagged birds which were
retrapped in 2019, so fingers crossed that we can catch any returning adults in
2023.
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