What an amazing month for our ringing team! Thirty-one sessions were held at eight different sites which yielded a fabulous 1301 birds of which 1163 were newly ringed and 137 were re-traps, with two UK controls and one foreign control.
Our team ran two public demonstrations on 16th & 17th at RSPB’s ‘Bempton goes wild’ weekend, a very well attended event with lots of eager members of the public seeing birds up close and learning why we ring birds and what is done with the data we record.
The two sessions at Bempton saw 308 birds caught of which 260 were new and 48 were re-traps, highlights caught included a juvenile Grey Partridge, which was in a covey of eight flushed by the escaped juvenile Saker that had been in the area since 27th June, two Yellow Wagtails, a Pied Flycatcher and 118 Tree sparrows (93 newly ringed).
Two ringing recoveries from the Bempton event were a Tree Sparrow originally ringed at Spurn on 11th October 2024 and a Sedge Warbler from Marston Sewage Works, Lincolnshire on 26th July 2023.
Our CES season concluded with the final two sessions giving us 42 new birds and 18 re-traps, a summary of the season will be released here soon.
Eight sessions were held at Thornwick Roost mainly targeting hirundines and wagtails; we re-caught a Swallow that had been ringed at RSPB Bempton the previous day.
Five sessions at South Landing were very productive, with 356 new birds, 41 re-traps and a foreign control – a French ringed Sedge Warbler for which we eagerly await details.
Other highlights from these sessions included 2 Grasshopper Warblers, 2 Tree Pipit, 3 House Martin and a Pied Flycatcher. We also had details of one of our birds being caught elsewhere – a breeding female Sedge Warbler ringed at the roost on the 1st July 2025 was caught at Westdown Plantation, Wiltshire on 17th August 2025, a distance of 345km SSW, it was weighed as 5 grams lighter than when ringed.
Newly ringed highlights from the month overall included:
144 Swallow
130 Whitethroat
63 Chiffchaff
49 Sand Martin
45 Willow Warbler
41 Blackcap
20 Lesser Whitethroat
14 Sedge Warbler
13 Reed Warbler
5 Yellow Wagtail
2 Pied Wagtail
2 Pied Flycatcher
2 Grasshopper Warbler
2 Tree Pipit
