No pain, no gain!

Had an interesting head's up from Lee Barber the other day of an impending recovery of one of our Dolgellau Hawfinches. The bird, a 1st-winter female, was ringed on 13th April 2013 at our main feeding site and was resighted on the 19th, 21st, 24th and 27th April 2013 (obviously paired to the same male on all occasions) by Trevor and Chris at the feeder in their garden.

Sadly the ring was found in a Tawny Owl pellet in a nest box this February. Initial confusion over the species and the metal ring number was resolved because the yellow ring (E40) was also present!  A sad end to a cracking bird.

Oh, forgot to say - the nest box was in a wood in Naresto, Arendal, Norway! Just over 1,000 kms from where she was originally caught and only the fourth overseas recovery of a British-ringed Hawfinch (there have previously been single records to Norway, Sweden and Germany)

This recovery raises a couple of interesting questions. We have previously caught a Norwegian ringed Hawfinch at this site so we have known for some time that a proportion of these birds are continental migrants.  The 27th April seems very late for a bird to be leaving though and, as it was so obviously paired whilst it was here, do they migrate as a pair? Guess it was asking too much for E41 to be present in the same nest box!