Under Rydon Hill

Welcome to this blog about my time away from the tedium of domestic management. Once called "Tits and Things", now sub-titled "Life in Quantoxia", there's plenty of bird ringing (90%), some odd bits of general birding, some local steam trains, some personal bits and occasional 'away days' in other parts of Britain. Rydon Hill overlooks the lower valley of the Doniford Stream, where most of these activities take place.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

The deserter

Robin X105504


Recently, I received a report of one of "my" Robins going AWOL and, unfortunately, ending up dead,  miles from home. Why it should have deserted us, we will never know.

This was the 11th bird that I ringed after moving into our new house here in West Somerset. It was a 2CY bird in January 2011 and was later deemed to be a male by both measurement and examination of genitalia. I retrapped it many times, in fact 22 times, and it was definitely present in every month (except maybe April and November 2011). The last time it was re-captured was on 2nd March 2012 when it weighed in at 21.0 gms. Temperatures were low and there had been an air frost overnight.

The bird was recovered, freshly dead, on 24th April 2012, some 94 km to the north-east in the Forest of Dean, at the eastern end of the village of Ruardean. Having spent the previous two winters and a whole summer with us here, why should it suddenly decide to abscond and cross the Bristol Channel the following spring? 

Answers on a post card, please, ....
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2 comments:

  1. Phil SladeJuly 1, 2012 at 6:19 PM

    It was trying to get to Lancashire via the M5 and M6 but gave up when it saw the traffic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJuly 1, 2012 at 9:48 PM

    Probably on its way back from spending Easter in Blackpool?

    ReplyDelete

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