Colour ringing project

 

 Colour ringing project  - Rock Pipits

 Hilbre has a small population of breeding Rock Pipits but we have long suspected this is supplemented by passage birds from Scandinavia during the spring and autumn. We have previously controlled a Norwegian darvic marked Rock Pipit. We have long suspected that some of our passage birds are of the Scandinavian race ‘littoralis’. To help us more easily identify individual birds (and hopefully make them more easily identifiable by birders in the field) we have registered and got approval for a colour marking project where Rock Pipits will be fitted with a blue darvic ring, as well as a standard BTO metal ring) with a unique combination of three letters.

The aims of the project are to:

• Study adult survival rates and site fidelity of the resident population.
• Monitor the breeding population due to increased visitor footfall to the island.
• Dispersal of fledged young of the resident population.
• Find out if our population shows site fidelity.
• Determine origin of spring and autumn migrants and what proportion of these over winter on Hilbre and what proportion use the island as a staging post.
• Whether there is any interchange between birds that winter on the mainland with those on Hilbre.
  

We catch Rock Pipits in potter and spring traps and expect to be able to catch and ring around 20 birds per year. 

There have been sightings of left leg ringed Rock Pipits on the mainland. Hilbre ringers always ring on the left leg so these are probably Hilbre birds. Using individual darvic rings will help us identify these birds.