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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.....

Norwegian controls

The three Norwegian controls from 2014 have just been received.

8E29782
Ringed:
Adult 24 Aug 2013 Flem, Sakshammeren, Haram, More og Romsdal
Controlled:
Adult 27 Jul 2014 ENR
337 days, 736 km 232deg

ED00253
Ringed:
Adult 24 Aug 2013 Hamnaholmen, Hellandsvagane, Sansoya, More og Romsdal
Controlled:
Adult 31 Jul 2014 ENR
341 days, 674 km 233deg

8E29909
Ringed:
Adult 25 Aug 2013  Flem, Sakshammeren, Haram, More og Romsdal
Cotrolled:
Adult 30 Jul 2014 ENR
339 days, 736 km 232deg

Tail end Charlies

Two birds notified recently, one of a bird (2700081) caught on Nan Ron on the 29th July 2014 and recaptured 27 days later 27km down the coast at Faraid Head, and another (2682142) originally caught on Nan Ron on 29th Jul 2013 and caught at the same ringing session at Faraid Head as the former bird this time 392days had elapsed between captures. Thanks to TC for catching our birds!