Friday 30 June 2017

Ringed Siskin

With regards to the ringed Siskin post by Sue and Terry Reeves. Unfortunately it is impossible to identify the source of the ring on this bird. Siskins take a size A ring which is a letter followed by six numbers. Ringers are allocated rings in packets of 100 and this is done on an ad hoc basis. In this case we can see a "Y" and a "3", so there should be 300,000 rings with this prefix and they could be scattered all over the UK. The "NH" and the "LON" come from the top line - NH Museum and the second line - London SW7, s we know it's definitely a British ringed bird. You need all of the 7 digits to get a 100% positive match.
I have ringed 158 Siskin in my Bont garden since the 8th February. Amongst these I have also had four "Controls", these are birds ringed by someone else. I am awaiting news of three but the first was ringed in Essex, 170 miles away.
Siskin are well travelled and produce some excellent data through ringing recovery. Please persevere and hopefully in the future you may be able to get images of the whole number, maybe even one of mine.