Wasp ringed Oystercatchers (1 Viewer)

[Lee C]

Hi

Had a wasp ringed Oystercatcher at Dawlish Warren today that kinda threw me.

Don't believe it was one used during the 90's on the Exe, so wanted to post something to enquire where Orange wasp ringed have been used elsewhere in the UK?

Was a battered orange ring that had worn badly and a great extent of it was now looking black, although the read looked like blank over thin over blank. I assume cos of the wear its probably an old ring, dating back at least a decade.Got a partial read of the metal ring (last three digits).

Anybody out there know any sites that used Wasp rings on Oyks other than at the Exe?

Again hope somebody out there can shed some light on this for me.

Cheers

Lee

 

[Nutcracker]

"Wasp rings"?? Never heard of them, are they made with real wasps?

FWIW, Oystercatchers can live to be 40 years old, so a 1990s ringed bird could easily still be around.

 

[Lee C]

Hi Nutcracker

Wasp rings are I guess much similar in size to a darvic ring, but not coded but with bands on them, much akin to that of a wasp abdomen. Black bands can either be thick, thin or blank and with combinations on the top, middle and bottom of the ring. Not sure if still used today with the advent of Darvics but I know they were used back in the 90's.

I do a lot of Oystercatcher ring reads at Dawlish Warren, so have a lot of knowledge on fidelity and longevity for this species, having found about a dozen birds that are over 24years old and reads on almost 100 different individuals.

The wasp ring I found at the weekend was much darker orange than on the birds I normally see, and with only a partial read of the metal ring I am not able at present to ascertain if its an Exe ringed bird, hence my posting to find out if other schemes used this ringing procedure, probable back in the 90's.

Hope this helps, would post an image of a Wasp ring, but none currently stored on my PC.

Lee

 

[Lee C]

Just for those interested, here is a picture of a WASP ring. Its not the bird in which I am basing my query, but shows a pale ring, with a thick band over thin over thin.

Lee

 

[honeym]

Perhaps it's something similar to this scheme:
http://www.myscience.eu/oystercatcher/report.html
The colour combination doesn't match but perhaps they may know of other similar schemes
Martin

 

[BlueJayLover]

Never seen one, but that is a great pic and beautiful bird