Swedish ringed Pine Grosbeak

I have previously this winter managed to read rings on two Pine Grosbeaks (a 100% success rate) in Oslo this winter and both turned out to have been ringed in Finland, see here and here.

Yesterday, I found another ringed bird and managed good enough pictures to see it was from Sweden and read the whole ring number. I have submitted the details and await a response - judging by how shiny the ring was I am assuming it was ringed this winter rather than on the breeding grounds but it will interesting never-the-less to know where it has come from . The response from the Swedish ringing centre took less than half a day and shows the bird was ringed (one of 15 that day according to artportalen.se) on 25.10.2019 at Hammarö Bird Observatory at the northern end of the enormous Lake Vänern). Huge numbers (day totals in excess of 1000) were seen migrating south around Lake Vänern at the end of October and these birds will have re-orientated since them and some clearly have then headed north east.

I reckoned the bird to be an adult female due to rounded tail feathers but it will be interesting to see what the ringers recorded (I was wrong the ringers aged it as a first winter female). The bird was part of a flock of 7 birds of which 5 were red adult males and I judged the other bird to be a 1st winter male so very interesting that there was only one female and two youngsters but no adult females.

That Pine Grosbeaks are so confiding and such a popular subject for photographers has certainly resulted in a number of rings being read in southern Scandinavia this year and has increased the retrap/control rate infinitely as I think the chances of a bird being randomly retrapped in a net are as close to zero as it gets. A few birds have also been ringed in Norway, some by chance and others intentionally targeted and trapped. A picture of a bird was recently posted in Facebook from close to Oslo with a ring. I don’t think that the photographer had noticed the ring but had fortunately taken enough photos of good enough quality that the ring could be read. It turned out it had been ringed nearly two weeks previously in the same spot. Now, you would have thought that as ringing is all about collecting “useful” information that the ringer would have publicly recorded the ringing either on the local ringing group’s website, on the national bird records site or on Facebook because if photographers are kindly asked to keep a look out for these ringed birds and take photos then the chances of a control increases exponentially. Just look for example at the publicity the guys who colour rings Waxwings in Aberdeen make to ensure that people look for and report “their” birds. Now, I don’t know who the ringer is (due to them not having publicly reported the ringing) so will not draw any conclusions except to say that this type of thing is what makes me question the real motivation behind ringing. If the real motivation for trapping, man-handling and permanently blinging the Grosbeak was really to gain useful information then surely you would spend a further 5 minutes to make the photographers aware and ask for their help (there aren’t many who are like me and notice the ring and then think how helpful I could be by spending the (rather long) time to document it properly…).

the ringed bird eating spruce buds. Tail feathers look fairly rounded to me but the ringers aged it as a 1st winter female

and eating rowan berries 

and the ring succesfully deciphered

this bird was ringed whilst heading south earlier in the autumn and has clearly re-orientated and moved north west to Oslo at some point

I still can't get the back lit pictures to live up to my expectations when I press the shutter

this wasn't so bad but the photo is far too cluttered

this was the other non adult male in the flock of 7 (in addition to the ringed bird) and the pointed tail feathers and red feathering on the face mean I am confident this is a 1st winter male

perhaps the photo I am most happy with

the birds spent quite a bit of time feeding hidden in spruce trees but frequently returned to the rowan berries