The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Chris Baker, who lives in Grasby, forwarded me a picture of a ringed Goldfinch that was visiting his garden feeder during early June 2009. From what I could see I felt fairly sure that it was a British ringed bird and sent the picture and relevant information off to the BTO - I am a BTO member.
Below is the response from Thetford.
I will put a picture in the 'common birds' album.

Roy
***********************************************************************
Dear Roy,

Thanks very much for sending in the picture of the goldfinch: we're fairly sure that it's one of ours, ringed on 1st March 2005 (and recaptured on 23rd March 2005) as a first year female (i.e. hatched in 2004). We caught it at Great Tey, near Coggeshall in Essex, at an experimental winter feeding site for farmland birds and colour-ringed it with a white/red bicoloured ring above the metal on the left leg and two green rings on the right.
Despite intensive observation and ringing during the next two winters, we never saw the bird again,
but this isn't surprising because they are very mobile and probably use different wintering areas in
different years. Interestingly, another bird ringed at the same site on the same day also went to
Lincolnshire (Gosberton), being caught by ringer in April 2005, so perhaps this reflects the
movements of a particular Lincs-breeding group....

Thanks again to you and your neighbour for this record - it really is very useful: the project aimed
to find out where our local wintering birds go to breed and you have told us exactly that! Please
send any other sightings of this or any other colour-ringed bird to us as well....it's all
interesting stuff and pieces of the jigsaw telling us what birds are doing.

Best wishes,

Gavin

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dr Gavin M. Siriwardena
Head of Land-Use Research
British Trust for Ornithology
The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk IP24 2PU, UK

An interesting record, Roy. In 2008 I ringed over 300 Goldfinches either at Market Rasen or Kirmond le Mire. At the latter site I controlled two in February, one ringed at Great Yarmouth and the other near Thetford. There would appear to be some north/south movement along the east coast which is confirmed by visible migration. It again shows the value of colour ringing birds.

Roy,

It was me who caught the colour-ringed bird from Essex in 2004 at Gosberton Fen Farm. Left leg = white-red over metal and Right leg = pink over white. I have also had birds to from Spurn, Northumberland, Suffolk and Essex. Interestingly, years ago many Britsish Goldfinches went into France and Spain for the winter. Now they don't seen to migrate that far - perhaps due to milder winters and/or people feeding niger seed.

Alan

The bird found at Grasby was five years old, is this not some achievement for a small passerine?
I thought that most only lived for two or three years.

Roy

You are right that most don't live much more than 2-3 years. The longevity record for a British ringed Goldfinch is 8 year 8 months. See www.bto.org/ringing/ringinfo/longevity.htm for a comprehensive list of British ringed birds.

Thanks to both Stuart and Alan for comments.

Roy