An Extraordinary Recovery - Rob Skeates

As a BTO ringer of many years standings, the WMBC area has proved not to be the best area of the country for foreign ringing recoveries and/or controls. (The most interesting for me was an Estonian Black-headed Gull controlled in Sutton Park).

However, this all changed when a conjunction of fortuitous factors coincided (not least, obtaining a Polish ringing licence) which allowed my wife and I to set up a small lacustrine ringing site situated in Pomerania, N.W. Poland.

Almost immediately, foreign controls and recoveries started to come and to date we have had over 150, involving 24 countries. These include Sylvia warblers to England, Israel and Libya. Most involved birds caught by ringing colleagues all over Europe, with a few sent in by the general public (one involved a photographer taking numerous digital pictures of a male Penduline Tit at its nest and then sequencing the full ring number so that it could be reported!)

However my recovery of a lifetime came about during last year’s autumn migration period. Some 760 Reed Warblers were caught (and carefully identified from over 100 Marsh Warblers trapped over the same period.) Interestingly 99% were first year birds, the adults leave soon after breeding. On 12th September 2022 a Reed Warbler was netted and rung (Pol K9X7841). Fifty days later, at a fresh water lake just south of Lisbon in Portugal, a local fisherman caught a Black (Large Mouthed) Bass of 1.6Kg. (This species has been introduced from the USA).

On gutting the fish, to his amazement, he discovered a freshly ingested bird in its stomach: K9X7841. This species of bass is well known for being a voracious feeder. Whether the bird was taken alive at the water’s edge or it died and dropped into the water we will never know.

I approached the BTO and they were not aware of such a recovery happening before. So this extraordinary story had an international sequence: Polish Warbler, English Ringer, American fish and a Portuguese fisherman and who knows, it may be unique!

Rob Skeates