Swan darvics and metal rings - Windsor and Truss's Island - 22nd October 2017

Another very windy day so we headed to the Thames at Windsor to record darvic codes and any metal rings that we could see. There are fewer birds with colour rings now, very few from the Edward Grey Institute - black print on a white background and some of these with a rather poor print quality as some codes are becoming extremely difficult to read. We saw K2U, S2H, S2Z and V3O - the last would have been impossible were we not already familiar with that colour ring. There were a further 6 orange darvic swans ringed by MR and a blue ring T029 fitted by TW in or around Winchester. Added to that another 11 metal Swan rings and a Canada Goose already made the effort worthwhile. We then found that the Polish ringed Black-headed Gull with darvic TLLN was back again.

TLLN - back for a second winter

Moving on to Trusser's Island there were 33 colour rings from MR's project, one EGI bird and 3 birds that came out on to the boat slip allowing for metal rings to be read. Three Canada Geese metal rings were also noted.

So, quite a good return for a few hours out on a windy day. Chris decided to enter these records using DEMON, the new BTO recording programme that we're trialling before its complete release. These were the first records that we've actually entered and the ease of entry and immediate response of when ringed were impressive. We look forward to going live with Colne Valley Ringing Group recording in January.

Two of the metal ring codes recorded. Both birds carry just one metal ring so are candidates for MR's colour ring scheme, should they demonstrate the same bold behaviour when he next goes to catch and darvic mark birds.

Windsor
Totals: 0 (24)

Mute Swan - 0 (11 darvics, 11 metal rings)
Canada Goose - 0 (1 metal)
Black-headed Gull - 0 (1 darvic)

Trusser's Island, Staines - 0 (40)

Mute Swan - 0 (34 darvic, 3 metal)
Canada Goose - 0 (3 metal)