Ring in the New Year!

Happy New Year everyone, but still some time to reflect on 2018 from a bird watching point of view. I'm a sucker for statistics so here's a few:

During 2018, I saw 206 species (plus 4 sub-species) throughout Scotland. And, closer to home, I recorded 82 species at my favourite Glasgow site, Hogganfield Park LNR.

My City of Glasgow life list increased by three - Glaucous Gull, Jay and Shelduck - and now stands at 147 - and this just shows what can be found in the City if you look hard enough.

I also started to take a keen interest in 'ringed' birds and with the improvements of recent years to binoculars and cameras it is now easier to 'read' these rings than ever before.

It is also easier to report your sighting via the links on this web page https://app.bto.org/euring/lang/pages/rings.jsp  and you can sometimes get a response by return!

Hence the title 'Ring in the New Year' but first a few from last year in Glasgow featuring conventional metal rings and also colour coded rings.

Mute Swans are possibly the easiest species to find, read and photograph a ring:

Seen Knightswood Park 23/11/18 - Ringed Irvine 21/1/15 (2nd year)

Seen Knightswood Park 23/11/18 - Ringed Rothesay 21/8/12 (as cygnet)

Seen Knightswood Park 29/10/18 - Ringed Puddledub Pond, Fife 1/9/12 (as cygnet)

Gulls are also popular with ringers and I've found a few Black-headed Gulls in the City sporting rings;

Seen Hogganfield Park LNR 27/12/18 - Ringed as a chick Elvanfoot 24/6/14

Seen Knightswood Park 23/11/18 - Ringed 16/1/17 (2nd calendar year), Hilversum, Netherlands 

Seen Hogganfield Park 6/11/18 - Ringed 18/6/18 (pullus), Geitholmen, Norway

These are just a few of my sightings from 2018 and they show that birds are not stationary but they move around and in some cases make exceptional journeys!

Perhaps you might get hooked on this as part of your general birding.

In any case have a Happy Birding New Year!