This post could also be entitled 'clutching at straws'
This is from the colour ringing bird site: - see Stewart, the ruskies do ring geese, see note 1:
01690 - Red-breasted Goose - Branta ruficollis
Rings (on leg) with code (3 letters).
White ring with black code (A01-A13) (on right tarsus) and metal ring (on left tarsus).
Bird Ringing Centre of Russia, att. Sergei Kharitonov, 117312, Moscow, Russia.
e-mail: serpkh@rol.ru
note 1: used colours for coded rings are yellow and black.
note 2: this project concerns 200 birds ringed at the Taymyr Delta, Pura River during 1996 by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and the International Artic Expedition IEE (Russian Academy of Science).
note 3 : white rings are put during summer 2007 at the Agapa River, Taimyr Peninsula,
1996! Well I suppose it was an adult, but 12 before it gets lost. Two others are on the south coast with rings so who can tell eh...
ReplyDeleteI have to admire your determination !!
ReplyDeleteAs I said in my recent e-mail, if the overwhelming balance of evidence doesn't work (ie mid april, with honkin greylags, bearing a big yellow ring), then clutching at straws and total denial are always good options I guess !!
8o)
I put a bit of info on that bird forum thing recently.....
"For info..... In the last (2001) voluntary wildfowl census there were a reported 608 Red-breasted geese in collections (a lot of collectors would not bother telling the census what they have so the actual number will be greater than this.) These 608 reared 175 chicks in captivity in that one year, and it is likely that this is the norm...."
I think the point I was trying to make is that there is a reasonable chance that this bird is of the fence hopping cage dodger variety !
Of course not being a county lister, and having seen a few 1st winter birds in east anglia with wintering brents I can afford to be a very annoying smug git !
Sorry.... I'll get my coat.. ;)