Druridge Diary: The story of ALL870

I'll come onto the story of ALL870 in a bit. JF and I were ringing at Druridge this morning, setting the nets up from 0530. The first bird we saw on arriving was a barn owl hunting the dune backs and the first bird we heard was a gropper reeling - both year ticks (there were at least 5 groppers reeling at Druridge this morning).

On the first net round we extracted a willow warbler, nothing unusual about that. But this particular bird (ALL870) was no stranger to Janet..it has been to Druridge before:

22nd May 2004 - ringed as an adult male at Druridge

4th June 2005 retrapped at Druridge

18th June 2006 retrapped at Druridge

18th May 2008 retrapped at Druridge

26th April 2009 retrapped at Druridge

ALL870

So, this tiny little bird weighing only 9.2 grammes, has been to sub-Saharan Africa and back at least six times. I've always been fascinated by migration, but to think that this little bird has done this at least six times and has been caught in the same little strip of bushes in five of the last six years is truly mind-blowing!

We caught another willow warbler today ringed as an adult by Janet in June 2006.

We caught 18 birds in the nets this morning, 10 new ones and seven retraps and one control, a nice male sparrowhawk, which we have no photo's of cos some idiot trainee let it go (me!).

We caught this blackbird, which had an odd shaped bill. It wasn't suffering any harm from it as he was a little fatty, with a long wing (139mm) for blackbird, probably making him a bird from the continent, as our blackbirds wings are shorter than this.

Ringing totals