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Bird Ringing for Science and Conservation
Outstanding individuals
Ringing birds individually allows us to follow
even the most exceptional personal fates.
The oldest wild bird ever recorded could be a Manx
Shearwater captured on a little island off north Wales. The venerable
bird was first captured and ringed by ornithologists in May 1957,
when it was fullgrown, hence between four and six years old. It
had been caught in 1961, 1978 and 2002, when a warden of the Bardsey
Island Bird Observatory caught the seabird again. The shearwater‘s
possible age of 52 years could make it the record holder. Until
now, the world‘s oldest ringed bird was a US albatross estimated
to be over 50.
One of the longest journeys ever recorded is from
a Common Tern ringed on 27 June 2003 as a nestling in Hälsingland
in central Sweden and found dead on 1 December 2003 on Stewart Island
in New Zealand. If we assume a normal route from Sweden to South
Africa and then to New Zealand, the tern might have covered 25,000
kilometres. Measured as straight line distances, the tern’s
journey is “only” 17,508 km.
The rate of migration is quite different from that
attained in flights for short distances. The fastest journey is
from a ringed European Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica that flew in
27 days from Umhlange, Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa, to Whitley
Bay, United Kingdom.
A Black-headed Gull was ringed as a fledgling on
29 June 1996 in Hämeenkyrö county, Pirkanmaa, Finland.
The metal ring was sighted with a telescope on the 3 and 7 January
2000 in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. The bird was back again to its wintering
quarters in Texas on 30 November 2000.
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The old Manx Shearwater must
have
flown at least eight million kilometres
during its long life. |
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Common Terns migrate between
the two hemispheres and, by this, experience both northern summer
and austral summer. |
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