Choughs mixing it up

Heard from an excited Adrienne Stratford last night that on a routine roost monitoring visit she had had a count of at least 40 Choughs at one of the mid-Wales roosts and she'd managed to identify 30 of them from their colour rings!  The survival rate of this year's chicks hasn't been brilliant overall in Wales so it was particularly good news that, of the ringed birds, there were at least 12 of this year's cohort along with 5 from 2011, 2 from 2010, 2 from 2009, 2 from 2007, 2 from 2006, 2 from 2005, 1 from 2004, 1 from 2002 and the oldest of the bunch was a male ringed in 1998. The young birds included a brood of three all still together 51 kms from where they were reared and another 3 from a brood of 4 that were 26 kms from their nest site, which as it turns out, is the mean distance travelled from natal site of this whole bunch. Eleven of them were ringed in Ceredigion and one in Meirionydd.

At least one of these was still alive and kicking as of yesterday, well two actually, including me!

Pleasingly, no fewer than 15 of the 30 birds had been reared in our specially designed nest-boxes.
Most amazing of all though, was the fact that, although 6 birds had originated from a single site near Aberystwyth (from 5 different years) the 24 other colour-ringed birds had originated from 17 different nest sites, some inland, some coastal - a great big Chough melting pot! That's what we need!