First set of data return from our trip

The wonders of a fully electronic Ringing Scheme are revealed as we are getting back data on some of our birds when I only submitted our information a couple of days ago.

2451071
26.07.2012 Duncansby Head, Highland
13.08.2015 ENR
1113 days 75km 263deg

2696269
01.08.2014 Sumburgh Head, Shetland
11.08.2015 ENR
375 days 226km 231deg

2671836
02.08.2014 Rhuba Nan Sasan, Loch Ewe, Highland
10.08.2015 ENR
373 days 110km 47deg

2696395
08.08.2014 Sumburgh Head, Shetland
13.08.2015 ENR
370 days 226km 231deg

2533385 and 2533386
08.08.2014 Birsay, Orkney
10-11.08.2015 ENR
367-368 days 88km 226deg

2622212
24.08.2014 Faraid Head, Highland
12.08.2015 ENR
353 days 27km 103deg

2707306
25.08.2014 Fair Isle, Shetland
13.08.2015 ENR
353 days 190km 235deg

2531253
27.08.2014 Strathy Point, Highland
13.08.2015 ENR
351 days 18km 258deg

2351390
25.07.2015 Tronach Head, Near Portgordon, Moray
10.08.2015 ENR
16 days, 128km 318deg

We then had some retraps - birds originally ringed on Nan Ron and then recaptured again at a later date.

2614999
04.7.2011 - 12.08.2015
And then eight birds all ringed earlier in 2015 which we subsequently recaught a month later.

From the BTO Twitter account. Spot ours?

Jen'sphoto contribution at:

nan_ron_2015_share

2015 Part One

The final figures from our 2015 visit. More on the stay later.

New birds 1166, Controls (all UK) 21.
Retraps, not including any of our own from this visit, 71.
The retraps break down into:
1997 x1 - eighteen years old (some way off from the oldest 31y11m9d; 1962-1994)
One each from the years - 2001, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, two from 2012, eight from 2014 and 20 from an earlier visit this year.

2015 begins, and there is still seven weeks to go

It is several weeks before we make our annual visit to Nan Ron but already some recoveries are starting to come in.
All of the following birds were caught over the period 12-14 June by Hugh Insley on Priest Island. Hugh visits this early as he concentrates on catching breeding birds (no tape lure) so we can assume that these birds are part of the breeding colony on Priest.

2608509   31.07.2006. 2230hrs. 3240days 97km 227deg
2659263   02.08.2011. 0200hrs. 1410days
2681175   23.07.2012. 0230hrs. 1055days
2681196   24.07.2012. 2320hrs. 1054days
2700442   31.07.2014. 2330hrs. 317days
2700625   01.08.2014. 0054hrs. 317days

Data crunching begins.

Having acquired the consent of all ringing groups and individuals that have ringed Storm Petrels on Nan Ron over the years, the BTO have released all the data in the central database to me. Primarily this consists of two sets of records - all the new birds and all of the recoveries. We have not considered retraps as from the early years they wont have been reported and from recent years we dont know whether all have been submitted or not, so we are keeping to the knowns.

A quick and ready analysis of the new birds ringed by year, which totals 28,653 (to the end of 2014), is shown below. It can be clearly seen that capture and ringing activity increased 50fold in the years following 1999. Since then ringing totals have averaged c1700/year.

2015 season

This year we are going slightly later than we normally would to work around a full moon - we will thus be going at the beginning of August rather than the end of July. To date the team consists of 13 - some regulars, some returners and some Nan Ron virgins.
Not long now.....