Well, I got some interesting feedback on yesterday’s Chough!! You may have noticed from yesterday’s posting that it was a ringed bird. I sent off the details to adriennestratford@btinternet.com and recieved the following information from Adrienne this morning.
My goodness – I’m totally blown away.
This bird (Rt: Lime/BTO Lt: Green/Blue “9U”) is a young female, ringed as chick this year, by Tony Cross, on the North coast of Anglesey!!! This is a distance of 219 km, which is almost double the previous maximum we have recorded – it’s only 100 km from Anglesey to the Isle of Man, where a handful of “our” birds have been recorded. She couldn’t have travelled further within Wales if she’d tried. But no prior history I’m afraid – she was ringed on 9th June, seen fledged with her 3 siblings on 2nd July – I wish we knew all the locations she’d passed through en route… and why!
The colour-ringing is all part of a long-running study of choughs in mid + North Wales by Tony Cross + myself, with life histories recorded for many of these birds, shedding light on their movements, social + nesting behaviour, longevity etc. Our young birds often travel quite widely in their first few years, but of 5,000 chicks ringed over 25 years in mid + North Wales, and with 30,000 individual sightings, only nine of these birds have been recorded further than 100 km from their nest of origin. So yours is an amazing record – we’ve never had a Glamorgan record before, even from Ceredigion – the southernmost county of our project area, and only a few records in Pembs and one in Carmarthenshire.
So this was a record bird then!! Great to have got an image of it. Thanks to Mike Cram for posting the initial sighting. Absolutely amazing that out of 30,000 sightings, this is the one that has got furtherest. Made my year!!!
I have been scouring all the internet sites to find the original sighting details. Mike Cram posted it on the 14th Nov but I seem to remember another post saying there were 2 ringed Choughs seen. If so the other may be an important bird to record. I am keen to get back down to Porthcawl to get some better shots (ie in better light) but the forecast for the weeked look dire – and it is a bit of treck for me down there. It would be good if some of the locals could look out to see if there are any other ringed Choughs about. If you see anything let Adrienne know.
Images at
http://andyburnsphotography.zenfolio.com/raptors/h1a57e502#h1a57e502
Glamorgan Bird Club 
What an exciting find, and bird! I recall seeing some chough photos from Cliff Whitehead in recent months but not sure where exactly he took them or if any were ringed. Might be worth asking him though.
Strinda Davies reported 2 Chough a few days before Emma and I went to check them out.
Hello Andy, great work on getting an image and reporting it. A record bird indeed!
Adrienne and Tony have recently been acknowledged for their Welsh Chough Project with a Marsh Award, http://www.bto.org/news-events/news/2016-11/bto-award-winners.
They treated the recent Welsh Ornithological Society conference to tales of their extraordinary work over the last 25 years, and are headlining at next month’s BTO conference too.
Tony often writes news of recoveries on his Ruffled Feathers blog, http://midwalesringers.blogspot.co.uk/.
Regards
Wayne
Annie, thanks for the niece comments.
Mike, were there two ringed birds? I think Adrienne will be very interested to hear about the 2nd one. Certainly be worth spending time looking for the 2nd one. Looks a bit windy for the next 3 days. I’ll certainly be down for another look once the wind dies down.
Just to summarise some earlier messages Andy:- Emma and I had five Chough on Thu 15/11/16. They split into an unringed pair and three others. The three were more rangy and flighty and when I did catch up with them in wind and with time pressure against us to leave, Emma was too far away with camera and I could only see one green ring on the right leg of one bird before they flew off again, which as it turns out I believe is the bird you managed to photograph. Since then I’ve been there three times covering the whole common and Rest Bay and only ever picked up an unringed pair. I’ll be there a couple of times in next few days hopefully, so will keep my eyes peeled. It certainly would be interesting for a few of us to spread out along the coast and synchronise to see how many we’ve got! Not as easy as it sounds! Regards, Mike.
Andy there were 8 Choughs at Lock’s Common at 11:30 today. In all 3 were ringed the Blue/green U9, one with a single white ring and the other orange over pale green unable to make out any figures. Seems a popular place this year.
Paul, Can you email Adrienne (adriennestratford@btinternet.com) with the details as she probably will have more questions! Was there another colour ring on the other leg of the orange over pale green bird – and which leg was it on.
I found it impossible to see the number on ‘my’ chough using a very good pair of bino’s with the wind strength making it difficult to hold them still enough and even then it may have taken a scope to work them out. The 500mm lens is as good as a scope so the images showed the numbering no problem – but without a good camera, it is always going to be difficult unless you get close.