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Ringed Blue Tit Whalsay (1 Viewer)

Farnboro John

Farnboro John

Well-known member
One of the stranger delights of the Shetland Autumn this year was an influx of Blue Tits with a few Great Tits. On Whalsay this saw me give the most cursory attention you could imagine to a once-mythical Red-flanked Bluetail so that I could run off for the Shetland-tick Blue Tits across the road....

One I photographed bore a ring, on which I have deciphered "2644" below which are the letters "ANGE" and below those "KORN" - presumably all three lines of alphanumerics are incomplete but perhaps together they are unique?

Who rings Blue Tits? In what part of Europe might the parts of words make sense?

I can upload the photo later, haven't got to that batch yet to process them.

John
 
I had a Croatian ringed bird on my feeder a couple of winters ago and have had Great Tits of mine recovered in Bavaria and the Czech Republic. In general adult males stay on my feeders in winter, while females and first year birds migrate south. The Croatian bird I had was probably ringed as a first yesr bird down south, then stayed to winter following years.
 
Clive Watson said:
Could it have been ringed on Shetland? Don't they ring on Unst?
Click to expand...

Thanks all for comments so far. Every day a school day....

What do the BTO write/engrave/stamp on their rings apart from the number (and for that matter, other countries)? I feel the first puzzle to be solved is to establish ring origin, only after that is there any point wondering about the number.

John

Edit: If BTO have that information on their website it's not easily or intuitively found. At least it should be in FAQs: where else is a member of the public going to look? Anybody got a Blue Tit sized BTO ring handy?
 
Last edited:
Pix. Interesting tail pattern too - very bold bars presumably reflecting diet deficiency at some stage(s)?

Hope this inspires someone. I may of course have misinterpreted the lettering - good luck!

John
 

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I think it is a Norwegian bird. Their rings have STAVANGER MUSEUM, NORWAY, or abbreviations of. Your ANGE would fit this. Are you sure the KORN is not NORW?
 
Jos Stratford said:
I think it is a Norwegian bird. Their rings have STAVANGER MUSEUM, NORWAY, or abbreviations of. Your ANGE would fit this. Are you sure the KORN is not NORW?
Click to expand...

Hi Jos,

No, I'm not sure, and thank you for what seems like an excellent suggestion.

Now all I need to know is where to follow the sighting up? EURING?

Cheers

John
 
You will be missing at least two characters from the ring number so they might not be able to come up with anything useful. But Euring is the place, via the BTO website easiest.
 
The current BTO 'A' rings (for Blue Tits etc) have 3 letters and four numbers: my current batch are AZJ4001 etc.
But if the Norwegian scheme gets this they may just be able to put the four numbers to the other digits/letters that complete the full I/d. I would hope so as this would also provide dates of ringing etc.
 
Agree the last line is OR and NORW fits well.

Does the scheme allow for sending in of photos? - presumably it should be possible to tell from the photo whether the 4 numbers (if of 6) are the first 4, middle 4 or last 4, if the die is standard design, which may help.
 
Late to the party in this thread. Agree with all the comments on it being a Norwegian ring. Some extra info (not needed in this case but may be useful in future) - The number being above the "address", when ring is correct way up (as in this case) also indicates it is not a British ring. Ours are:

British Museum
London SW7
*ring number*

Whereas a lot of European schemes are

*Ring number*
Address etc

Great record John. Hope they can pin it down to at least one of a few birds. Only three previous ringed birds from Norway recorded in the UK:

https://app.bto.org/ring/countyrec/resultsall/rec14620all.htm

(hope the link works when you all click on it)
 
Latest from Felles Birdringing:

"We do not have any data yet that matches 2644, so it has probably been ringed quite recently.

There has been a massive migration of Blue Tits in SW Norway for the past couple of weeks. On October the 12th we ringed 570 Blue Tits at our bird observatory Revtangen https://revtangen.no/revtangen-blog . And on the following day we counted 5000 Blue Tits migrating through the area!! Fortunately we did not have any nets open on that day J

I’ll let you know when we receive any data that matches your bird!"

So we need to wait for the ringers to submit their reports. I can well believe it was a massive movement because Blue Tits were in a lot of places on Shetland - the day after I photographed the ringed one, Tringbirder and I found one at Sullom and three at North Collafirth (plus a Great Tit in a different garden there) and somebody else had eleven in the community woodland at Brae. I think there was a bunch at Kergord too.

But it seems I've definitely seen a Norwegian Blue! 3:)

John
 
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