UEARG ringing report 2022
Stephen Vickers
01 January 2023
This year was a tale of two halves; a stellar effort at our Suffolk farmland site (led by one of our groups trainers James Cracknell and his ringers in the area) bolstered numbers and diversity, but a combination of factors (such as departing group members and me finishing my PhD) caused a sizable drop-off in our efforts in the Norwich area. UEARG goes back much further, but a look at totals over the last few years shows this year ended up pretty good for us:
2022 saw us collect 10443 records of 6691 unique individuals consisting of 5666 birds ringed, 3812 retraps/controls, and 958 sightings.
It was a pretty diverse year with a total of 70 species recorded (68 of which were ringed), but it was down on our best. Two species were firsts for our group this year – Grey Partridge and Teal (Little Egret would also have been, but was not on UEARG rings). We have now ringed 99 species since 2015.
Unsurprisingly, Blue Tits romp home and take the top spot as our most ringed species once again with ease.
| Species | New | Other | Retraps | Sightings | Total | Total_2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blue Tit | 1463 | 1 | 1349 | 0 | 2813 | 1929 |
| Great Tit | 527 | 0 | 577 | 0 | 1104 | 749 |
| Yellowhammer | 615 | 0 | 332 | 0 | 947 | 26 |
| Greenfinch | 623 | 0 | 232 | 0 | 855 | 618 |
| Goldfinch | 435 | 0 | 204 | 0 | 639 | 490 |
| Mute Swan | 27 | 0 | 4 | 581 | 612 | 1148 |
| Dunnock | 219 | 1 | 322 | 0 | 542 | 252 |
| Blackbird | 240 | 1 | 190 | 7 | 438 | 277 |
| Chaffinch | 310 | 0 | 84 | 0 | 394 | 105 |
| Robin | 162 | 1 | 212 | 0 | 375 | 221 |
| Black-headed Gull | 69 | 0 | 2 | 225 | 296 | 153 |
| Long-tailed Tit | 126 | 0 | 112 | 0 | 238 | 185 |
| Blackcap | 122 | 0 | 24 | 0 | 146 | 94 |
| House Sparrow | 115 | 0 | 30 | 0 | 145 | 174 |
| Wren | 65 | 1 | 49 | 0 | 115 | 86 |
| Brambling | 76 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 83 | 46 |
| Chiffchaff | 61 | 0 | 14 | 1 | 76 | 70 |
| Greylag Goose | 9 | 0 | 0 | 55 | 64 | 31 |
| Reed Bunting | 30 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 42 | 38 |
| Woodpigeon | 13 | 0 | 2 | 24 | 39 | 30 |
| Skylark | 31 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 37 | 9 |
| Starling | 29 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 33 |
| Goldcrest | 24 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 28 | 32 |
| Mallard | 4 | 0 | 0 | 24 | 28 | 43 |
| Redwing | 25 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 5 |
| Barnacle Goose | 5 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 25 | 23 |
| Coal Tit | 13 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 24 | 18 |
| Whitethroat | 20 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 21 | 25 |
| Jack Snipe | 16 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 20 | 28 |
| Great Spotted Woodpecker | 13 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 20 | 18 |
| Woodcock | 19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 | 2 |
| Swallow | 18 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 19 | 5 |
| Lesser Whitethroat | 11 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 15 | 8 |
| Linnet | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 1 |
| Reed Warbler | 11 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 12 | 110 |
| Sedge Warbler | 10 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 11 | 39 |
| Barn Owl | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 7 |
| Collared Dove | 2 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 10 | 9 |
| House Martin | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 4 |
| Kestrel | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 |
| Bullfinch | 6 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 14 |
| Song Thrush | 3 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 8 | 6 |
| Canada Goose | 4 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 3 |
| Stock Dove | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 3 |
| Coot | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 6 | 0 |
| Common Gull | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 4 |
| Grey Partridge | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| Treecreeper | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 7 |
| Jay | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 18 |
| Pied/White Wagtail | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| Kingfisher | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 5 |
| Sparrowhawk | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 2 |
| Marsh Tit | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 7 |
| Willow Warbler | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 16 |
| Herring Gull | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| Mandarin Duck | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
| Rook | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Swift | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 67 |
| Fieldfare | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Firecrest | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Grasshopper Warbler | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Lesser Black-backed Gull | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 |
| Little Grebe | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Meadow Pipit | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 |
| Moorhen | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Siskin | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 14 |
| Snipe | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 |
| Teal | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Water Rail | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Egyptian Goose | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Total: | 5666 | 7 | 3812 | 958 | 10443 | 7340 |
Ringing sites
This year we had records from about 54 sites, but the vast majority of records come from Brewery Farm and a handful of other sites. Brewery Farm is (no surprise) farmland, Charter Wood & UEA Campus are primarily feeder sites with nestboxes, Broadland Country Park is a nestbox scheme, and Whitlingham is one of our sites where we hand catch waterbirds. Unfortunately due to a combination of factors we were not able to undertake our usual ringing efforts this year at two of our best sites - Cantley Beet Factory and Waxham. We hope to be back there in 2023.
Colour Ringing Projects
The group continued with 4 colour-ringing projects this year to improve on the scientific outputs of our work (Mute Swan, Jay, Barnacle Goose, and Black-headed Gull), and joined a further 3 – Greylag Goose, Coot, Moorhen. The most prolific of these projects continues to be the Norwich Swan Project, which has seen us colour ring another 27 Mute Swans across Norwich and generate 581 sightings this year. We have also had great success with Black-headed Gulls this year with 69 colour-ringed, and recoveries as far away as Russia! Please keep an eye out for any colour-ringed birds and report sightings, however menial you think they may be!
Swan sightings can be reported at: https://stephenvickers.shinyapps.io/swansubapp/
Black-headed Gull, Barnacle Goose, Greylag Goose, Moorhen, & Coot sightings can be reported at: https://waterbirdcolourmarking.shinyapps.io/sightings/
2022 Swan movements:
2022 Black-headed Gull movements:
Controls and Recoveries
Data will continue to come in over the next months, but in total we have had just 4 controls/recoveries this year so far (excluding sightings of our colour-ringed birds).
Highlights
We continued our efforts dazzling with a thermal imager in and around Norwich (and the guys over at Brewery Farm also did some there).
We monitored more nest boxes than ever this year (about 140), including the newly established 64 nest box scheme at Broadland Country Park.
Little Egret trapped at Brewery Farm was a nice surprise and the first ringed for Suffolk as far as I’m aware!
Almost 1000 Yellowhammer captures (615 of which were new) at Brewery Farm was a cracking effort and will be a sizable chunk of the annual ringing total for Suffolk if recent years are anything to go by.
A great year for Finch ringing for us, especially at Brewery Farm.
A couple of broods of Kestrels are always a highlight. This included one brood we did in east-Norfolk as part of work to assess Kestrel impacts on the local Little Terns.
A new species for our group – Grey Partridge. We caught a few of these whilst dazzling on farmland just outside of Norwich.
Teal was another new species for our group, surprisingly. We caught this one whilst targeting snipe with mist nets within Norwich.
Many thanks to all UEARG members that helped out this year, with particular thanks to our group leader Professor Iain Barr. Here’s hoping for a great year of ringing in 2023!
