What a Twite!

One of the 8 Twite ringed at Ynyslas on 26th November 2018 - the first ever in Ceredigion

On 26th November 2018, at one of our regular ringing sites next to Ynyslas NNR, I caught my first ever Twite in over 35 years ringing there. In fact I caught my first ever 8 Twite! One of our then trainees, Ed O'Connor, had found the small flock, the largest seen in Ceredigion for a good many years, a week or two earlier. At my request he had pre-baited the site for a few days whilst we waited for some calmer weather for netting. On the off chance I had asked Kelvin Jones if he would mind sending me a few of his North Wales Twite colour-ring combinations in case we were successful. In a stroke of sheer fortune Kelvin was down in Mid Wales from his more usual North Wales haunts that very evening and I arranged to meet him on his way home to pick some up - hardly expecting they would actually be needed. The following morning we set a couple of 40ft single shelf mist-nets amongst the weed seeds and waited. A few Reed Buntings, Linnets and Chaffinches later Ed saw the small flock fly in off the saltmarsh and land immediately in front of the nets right by the sound lure. A casual saunter towards the nets was all that was needed to push the whole flock straight into the single shelf.

This morning, in what is the best lock-down lightener I had for a good few weeks, I received an email from Kelvin to say that one of them had just been photographed on the Isle of Skye, 575 km NNW! What an amazing result and a clear example of the added benefits of colour-rings.