Teifi - Warblers in the Winter sun....

Likely migrant warblers, not our local breeders !
A new Chiffchaff, and a couple more Sedge Warbler recoveries to think about...

A Chiff with Helgoland ring, that we caught in April 2014. We are still waiting to hear when and where this was ringed but news this week of one that we ringed 8th August 2014 that was caught in south west France at Etang-de-Moisan, Messanges, 74 days later on the 21st October.

Where did these Chiffs come from ??

I guess the first part of their migration is like our Sedge Warblers, a movement south-east first to cross the Channel ?

These recoveries show us how our Sedge Warblers progress, we know West Africa is the destination.

The recoveries that we have suggest our birds do leave via the south-east rather than the south-west, interesting as we are so far west ourselves.

The movements of our Reed Warblers is not as obvious.

We have great retrap data on site fidelity and longevity, but we don't hear much about our Reed Warbler stopover on their migration.

Reed Warbler movements

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19/05/2013 Teifi Marsh Ceredigion:

Retrap 19/06/2014 Little Crosthwaite: (Cumbria) 301km NNE 1 yr 31days

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25/08/2013 Teifi Marsh Ceredigion:

Retrap 27/09/2013 Gautegiz-Arteaga, Vizcaya:, Spain, 980km S 33 days

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16/08/2014 Teifi Marsh Ceredigion:

Retrap 14/09/2014 Icklesham: (East Sussex) 390km ESE 29 days

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05/05/2010 Holyland: (Pembrokeshire)

Retrap 02/05/2013 Teifi Marsh Ceredigion 48km NNE 2 yrs 362 days

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12/08/2011 Teifi Marsh Ceredigion

Retrap 20/07/2014 Oxwich marsh: (Swansea) 65km SSE 2 yrs 342days

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30/07/2012 Teifi Marsh Ceredigion) (Ceredigion)

Retrap 11/07/2013 Bude Marshes Nature Reserve (Cornwall) 139km S 346 days

This makes the study of our Teifi marsh so fascinating and valuable.
Our CES and RAS projects provide useful data on our breeding birds, but it is our recoveries and controls that tell us how valuable we are as an important feeding stopover site for migrants.