If you care to refer back to the blog of 25 October, you'll see that I named the only juvenile to be ringed during these early attempts on Strangford Lough "The Lone Ranger", as it was the only bird caught that day. U3WR (U right leg, 3 left leg, W hite right legring colour, R ed left legring colour), as it was ringed, was first sighted again on 28 November, but as it wasn't recorded as a juvenile, and hadn't been seen again at this heavily recorded site, it was agreed with the observer that we wouldn't blog, just in case it was a mis-read.
Now, tonight, I have received this photo:
Courtesy of Alain Livory and Roselyne Coulomb, who admit that it is not their best-ever photograph (yet you can see the red ring 3!), of what is the only WR juvenile (hence the white edging to the feathers) around just now, I can reveal that the "Lone Ranger" is currently located at the southern end of the range, at Regnéville, in Normandy, France!! - how cool is that!!
This ties in with our previous experience that, whilst these inter-tidal catches on the east side of Strangford Lough are particularly difficult, they normally yield very interesting results.
And tonight I have received a record, of another of those eight birds caught in late October, away from Ireland, which I will report on further once I get the credits established. Watch this space!!
Just been making out yet another "Overall Summary" to issue to recent observers, and I notice that there have now been 3,173 re-sightings of 1,013 individuals read at Strangford Lough so far this winter!! Whilst I know there are other significant numbers of records yet to be submitted to us from there, I think the 1,000+ in particular of individuals is worth a glass-up celebration!!
The ratio of only approximately 3 rings needing to be read for each new individual (which could be seen as a measure of both effort, total numbers of birds, and throughput for sites managing good coverage of significant numbers of birds), is a feature for Strangford Lough, and again illustrates the need for a concentration of effort there during the staging season. By comparison, from last winter's results, the ratios for the "main effort" sites (>200 resightings) were (first figure is number of records):
Dublin Bay: 6057 ratio: - 9.79
Strangford Lough: 1665 ratio: - 2.17
Baldoyle Bay: 976 ratio: - 5.55
Dundrum Bay: 777 ratio: - 6.17
Normandy: 383 ratio: - 23.94
Malahide Estuary: 272 ratio: 2.67
Just in case it is of interest to the mathematicians amongst us!!
I guess (reluctantly, as I'm one of those who benefit from the birds being on my doorstep at Strangford Lough) that the change from here to there has now happened.
First evidence is from a text, yesterday, from Kerry Mackie that he, Alex Portig, Hugh Thurgate and Seamus Magouran, have completed their last regular specific brent count for the season at the North end of the Lough, and only found 3,000 geese, the normal over-wintering complement. Well done, those guys, for their efforts in these regular autumn counts!
I have also been getting swamped (but PLEASE keep them coming!!) particularly with records from, County Dublin, which is a major over-wintering site, and where many of the birds have been ringed. Here, the birds have historically first been regularly recorded coming out on land at the Baldoyle Bay site of the public park opposite the Texaco station at Portmarnock, and this seems to have happened again this winter.
Swedish observer, Christer Persson, who spends most of the winter months in Dublin, and is a VERY significant contributor to the database, is back "on the case", has let me know birds are already coming out on to the parks there, and has sent me the photograph below of the geese already coming out on grass, in this case at Ardscoile Ris.
This was also the experience of Pat Watson and myself, on a run down the East coast from Carlingford Lough on 02 December, when we found [600] at Lugangreen, Dundalk Bay, Co. Louth, alternating between the Bay and winter cereal fields to the rear of the Iveco repair centre.
Christer Persson and Pat Watson have also been recording high numbers of our recently ringed RB Canadian birds at Rogerstown Estuary, a feature which mirrors the last catch in Canada in the same area in 2007.This helps confirm previous research, that groups of birds tend to use the same cross-flyway (wintering, staging and breeding) sites.
