Twite Information & Request for Sighting Reports

From this autumn onwards a new colour system will be used for Twite captured at Heysham Harbour that will uniquely identify individual birds.

The combination for this winter will be:  Right Leg below tarsal joint – Pale Blue over BTO Metal,  Left Leg below tarsal joint – White with dark engraved number between 1 and 99.  (The Pale Blue ring is the SITE colour for Heysham).

 

Sightings of colours only will be attributable to Site and Season, but individuals will be identifiable too if the numbers can be read (by telescope, digital camera etc).

 

Twite are a tricky species to check for colour rings with their short legs often concealed.  For any sightings of coastal Lancashire flocks, please try and concentrate on a quick check of ringed/unringed ratios and then the colour rings, with emphasis on the single colour rings. 

There may also still be birds with a metal ring on the right leg and two colour rings on the left, one a single colour, the other a two-colour striped. These will be birds ringed in previous seasons under the original scheme.

There may be plenty of Twite with Pale Blue site rings around between Knott End and Heysham, but also birds wearing other site colours e.g. YELLOW that is the site colour for birds ringed at Askam in Furness.

All records are important so please send any sightings to Alan (see contacts in right sidebar).

 

Thanks very much.                                                                                                   ajd