Rung Lesser Redpoll

Back in March, Good Friday the 25^th at 10.50am to be exact I was in the garden trying to get e few close up photos of 3 pairs of Siskin that were busy feeding when a lone Lesser Redpoll dropped in also. My post on this here >> Siskins & Redpolls

Now it is not unusual, well for me anyway lately; to see these two species feeding in my back garden at the same time. But this time I saw the Lesser Redpoll had been rung so I decided to try to get some pics of the bird this time trying to focus on the details on the ring to get this information off to the BTO for their records.

Two of the better photos of the lovely little bird that managed to get on the day are below.

I worked on the photos and sent the BTO 4 in total, 3 being close ups (1 pic below) of the actual ring to see if the could get enough information on the birds ringing history.

In the 4 different photos I sent the BTO 1 letter and 4 numbers could just be made out. Here’s the information I got back from the BTO.

On March 31^st I received an email from Lee from the BTO recoveries team saying….

Dear Steve,

Thank you for letting us know about this bird, for this sized bird I am expecting 7 digits but can only make out 5. This means there is about 1000 possible birds but only 4 of these are Lesser Redpoll. These were all ringed on the same day, so it looks like we can process your report. 

On 15 April I got the full info on the bird and it makes interesting reading and proof to me it is always good to get these rung birds, either alive or sadly sometimes dead like the Barn Owl I found a couple of years back.

Dear Steve,

Thank you for taking the time to report to us details of a bird ring you found. Information about this bird and its movements is given below.

Ringing Scheme: London Ring Number: D8326__$123 Species of bird: Lesser Redpoll (Carduelis cabaret)

Rung by: Tees Ringing Group 

Age Rung: 1st year, sex unknown on 15-Nov-2014

Ringing Location: Saltholme, near Teesmouth, Stockton-on-Tees 

The Lesser Redpoll  was found 496 days after it was ringed, 192km (119miles) from the ringing site, direction SSE.

Fascinating stuff really to think that these little things travel as much as they do!

I did manage a nice photo of the bird with the ring hidden by a branch when it perched before it departed – you may have seen this image in a previous post of mine on here.

The bird has been back a few times since I took these photos but as we are now in mid-April it will be soon time for it to move on with the other 9 Redpolls I have had in the garden – I wonder when it will be seen and recorded next?