The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Just got news back on a colour-ringed Sanderling observed at Donna Nook on 4/6/.

'Thank you very much for your report of colour-ringed sanderlings that you observed and photographed. I have good news, the bird on the picture can possibly be only one bird, because the other ring on the right tarsus can only be another yellow, because the other combinations have never been used. The ring on the tibia, which you understandably report as white is actually faded blue (!). All those old blue rings have faded into blue and get reported as white or grey.
It means hat this bird has been ringed in Mauritania and is really old for a sanderling! Amazing also that we only observed it in 2006, while we have returned to Mauritania each winter since 2002!
You can find the details of this bird attached. For two reasons I do not think that the bird on 7 May was the same as the photographed bird on 4 June (1) this combination of rings, with yellow over white on the right tarsus, has never been used and (2) these birds that winter in Mauritania usually migrate northwards only after 20 May until 10 June and never stay longer than a few days in one area.
best wishes,
Jeroen

Colourcode: YWYY Name Ringer: Klaus Günther 2nd Ringer: Bernard Spaans
Ringnumber: H286610 Date Catch: 10/12/2002 Catching Place: Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
Sightings of this bird:
Date(d/m/y) Place Observer 2nd Observer 3rd Observer
07/12/2006 Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin Jan van Dijk
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
08/12/2006 Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin Bob Loos
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
09/12/2006 Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin Jeroen Reneerkens Edward Koomson
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
10/12/2006 Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin Jeroen Reneerkens
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
10/12/2006 Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin Bob Loos
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
12/12/2006 Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin Jeroen Reneerkens
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
15/12/2006 Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin Bob Loos
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
20/12/2006 Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin Jan van Dijk
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
21/12/2006 Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin Bob Loos
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
25/12/2006 Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin Jeroen Reneerkens
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
25/12/2006 Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin Jeroen Reneerkens
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
27/12/2006 Iwik village, Banc d' Arguin Jeroen Reneerkens
Mauritania 19.52.40 N 16.18.11 W
04/06/2012 Donna Nook, Lincolnshire James Siddle
United Kingdom 53.28.36 N 00.09.08 E


Photographs of this bird can be seen here:
http://donnanookbirding.blogspot.co.uk/

James

Interesting James - and very nice pictures too.
Were they taken with your latest bridge camera?

Roy

Hi Roy

Yes all taken with the Nikon

James

I always think things like this are mega interesting and I'm surprised few seem to have commented on it. Well done anyway.

Yes i find all ring data interesting,
Ed Mackrill and i observed 4 colour ringed sandwhich terns in Walvis Bay Nambia in dec 1979
all 4 were ringed in the Farne islands , the records were very interesting to the
ringers as well as ourselves, although it took some months to track them down
when done by posting letters and awaiting replies.
regards John.

Few people realise what a remarkable long distant migrant Sanderling is. Apologies for re-posting this from 2010.
A Sanderling with colour ring combination:

Right leg: White Flag/Metal
Left Leg: Yellow/Red/Yellow

Was recorded at Gib Point on 12th June 2010 by John Nicholson. Ringed at Alert, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada on Sept 3rd 1997 as a juvenile. That makes this bird 13 years old whereas the oldest known to date is 17.
Excellent record John.

I am very pleased to see some positive comments about ringing on this Forum.

There were also two colour-ringed Sanderling at Donna Nook on the 7th May (different birds to the June sighting). Unfortunately I was unable to fully note the ring combinations. On the recent high tides at Donna Nook all the Sanderling now appear to have moved through. With three birds noted this spring at Donna Nook quite a few colour-ringed birds must move through the county and it will be interesting to note any future records.

James

Reminds me of that yellow ringed Cleethorpes/Canada turnstone (was it Canada or Alaska?) that kept coming back each winter. Anyone seen it this year?

Sanderling are the last of the waders to build up in significant numbers here on spring passage, typically the last week of May or into early June sees the spring max. This year the Gib spring max was 1700 on 6th June. They can be back in similar numbers well before the end of July !

Kev

Stuart - you should have said 'positive comments about colour ringing'. If these birds only carried metal rings all of the information contained in these forum posts would be unavailable. Bring on geolocators I say!

I totally agree Ed. Colour ringing and geolocators have provided us with far more valuable information than I could have dreamt of when I started ringing over 30 years ago. However, there is still a lot of valuable information to be gleaned from metal rings on smaller passerines. I hope I'm not quite redundant yet!