A Peterborough-based nightingale ringed near Bainton has been re-trapped in France on its way to its African wintering home. This is only the tenth ever nightingale ringed anywhere in the UK and recovered abroad in 100 years of bird ringing!
Nightingales are one of the best known birds – everyone has heard of them, but few have heard them.
In Peterborough we are lucky to have several sites that support flourishing populations of this symbolic bird of summer evenings. This bird was ringed as an adult female at Bainton on land managed by the Langdyke Countryside Trust on 5 June 2008 by Chris Hughes as part of the British Trust for Ornithology’s Constant Effort Sites scheme. It was caught by French ringers south of La Rochelle on the south-west coast of France. The distance flown was 745km but she still had a long way to go to sub-Saharan Africa for the winter.
Amazingly we still have no information about where in Africa nightingales spend the winter. Chris Hughes said, ‘A lot of the important information we get from bird ringing relates to annual changes in productivity and survival but movements like this add real excitement for the trained volunteers who give so much to their hobby. It’s only a matter of time until some lucky ringer receives news that his or her Nightingale is the first to have been found in Africa. Until then, all we can do is guess where they go - and worry about the ever-declining numbers that arrive back in England each spring.’
Richard Astle of the Langdyke Countryside Trust, which runs four nature reserves around the villages, said, ‘Many of our African migrants - such as Nightingales, Cuckoos and Spotted Flycatchers - appear to be in real trouble nationally. Nightingales seem to be doing well around Peterborough, but we have seen a real reduction in the numbers of cuckoos in our area recently.’
The British Trust for Ornithology, which runs all ringing activity in the UK, has recently launched an appeal to find out what is happening to our migrant birds in Africa, the ‘Out of Africa’ appeal. More details can be found on their website http://www.bto.org/appeals/out_of_africa_appeal.htm
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