Thursday 26 January 2017

River Thames, Windsor - 19th January 2017

We spent a couple of hours reading Darvic rings and, with only four or five birds now fitted with plastic markers, more often trying to read the entire metal ring on swans hauled out of the river, harassing passersby for food. Some birds are so precocious that recording rings is nigh impossible as the birds insist on getting close enough to tug at sleeves and other clothing - just in case they had not been noticed.

We recorded one Canada Goose ring, 24 swans and more gratifying than that got the missing digit on a Black-headed Gull with an Arnhem ring. That's three attempts in total and a number of images from different angles - Darvic rings are so much easier!

The 24 swans including W10100 that seemed completely out of sequence to all the other birds - at least it was photographed so no possibility of it being a reading error.

 W10100 - tab out, which is better turned over.