Duck Rings And Wing Bands.

[marsh man]

Through force of habit, every duck and goose I have had over the years I always check the legs to see if there are any rings on and also have a look on the wings for any sign of a band.

 

Up until a few ago there wasn't a season where I wouldn't get at least one and some years I have had 3 or 4 then all of a sudden it came to a full stop , in fact the last two birds that carried a ring was a Woodcock and a couple of years ago I shot a Wood Pigeon .

 

Most of the early Mallard had W A G B I rings on and the later ones were B A S C . Teal were mainly from the continent and Scandinavia , two Teal rings were from Museum Zool in Holland and another one is from Finland , I know my brother once got a Cormorant ( cant remember if he shot it or found it ) with three rings on it legs , one was coiled plastic and the other two were metal , if I remember rightly he sent the details away and it was rung in Russia twice, and the plastic one determined the sex.

 

One return form I have got have got a family connection attached to it , my brother in law was a member of the R S P B and was not that interested in my passion for wild fowling which didn't bother me one bit , he was happier seeing the legs rung than there necks , well I say every one to there own , anyhow the details on this return are the Teal I shot in Norfolk was rung in Suffolk and the persons name on the bottom who put the ring on was no other than my brother in law.

 

So have any of you harden fowlers , or maybe some of our newer members had any recent fowl that had rings or even in the past come to that ?

 

[fse10]

No never had one but only been fowling the last three seasons. I have shot quite a few cormorants on licence & every time i pick a downed bird my eyes go strait to the legs with a look of hope but no joy yet .

[JDog]

An interesting post Marshman.

 

I have shot two birds with rings on, one a Woodcock shot in the Borders and ringed in Russia, the other a Mallard shot on the Pennines and ringed on the Cumbrian coast.

[grahamch]

Shot a radio tagged gadwall years ago at Loch leven with an arial on its back. Looked like a radio controlled duck! Found out was released the day before on leven

[6.5x55SE]

 

One of a few Greenland Whitefront i shot with Neck Band and legs rings. I've over the years shot Barnacle ( Islay with licence) Canada Icelandic Greylag feral Greylag European Whitefront Brent ( with licence) and a lot of Pink's with Neck Band and leg rings.

I can't think of a legal species of Duck I've not shot with a leg ring also shot Snipe Woodcock Redshank and Curlew with leg rings

[scolopax]

Not many, a Mallard on the Ribble ringed seven years previously at Martin Mere and a teal on the Humber, rung that same winter 20 km away on the Derwent Ings. Seen a few others that others had shot but not noticed, a coot, a snipe, and 2 wigeon.

 

A lot of the time it depends if there is a ringing group active near to where you shoot. A pal shoots a handfull of rung duck every year, but every one has been rung just a km or two away.

Edited December 17, 2016 by scolopax

[6.5x55SE]

How's this for Spooky John

This morning at local River half light single duck comes out of Fog one shot the result is.

Edited December 17, 2016 by 6.5x55SE

[anser2]

I have shot very few ringed ducks, but have put the rings on thousands of them of all the UK species and one or two rare ones like the first American wigeon to be ringed in the UK.. I have however shot a couple of dozen ringed waders, mainly on the Wash. The first ringed bird I shot was a snipe on Haddiscoe marsh back in the 1960s, it was rung in Poland. During the 1970s had a selection of ringed redshank, bar tailed Godwits and curlew from the Wash ( the Wash Wader Ringing group was very active in those days ). There was one day when i shot a couple of curlew only to find the WWRG was catching and ringing waders out od sight , but only a few hundred yards away from where I was shooting across the River Ouse. My first ringed ducks too came from the Wash, a handful of mallard ringed by Kings Lynn WA with WAGBI rings and a pintail drake ringed , if I remember right by Spalding WA.. My only ringed canada goose came from the N Norfolk Coast close to where it had been ringed and a dozen greylag ringed over several years with BTO rings that I myself had rung a few miles away , but the local flock had got out of hand a decade later and had to be culled ( in season ) to reduce crop damage. Despite the many pinks I have shot over the years I have never shot a ringed one. My dog once caught a winged teal with a BTO ring on the Wash. I kept the bird in my coat pocket alive all day as I wanted it for my waterfowl collection , but when I sat down to have a coffee on the sea wall it managed to escape and fly off looking as though it was unharmed. There was a coot a friend shot with a Dutch leg and neck ring. The neck ring was black with hash tag like marks on it , so how the hell anyone was supposed to read the ring in the field god only knows.

 

On the duck I have ringed I have had recoveries from all over Europe from Italy to Finland far out into Siberia and down to Asiatic Russia only a few miles from the Afgan border. Some I retrapped year after year in the same traps in te River Wensum Valley, Norfolk. Others were never seen again. Perhaps most interesting were two cock teal caught on the same day in October that were both shot 30 miles apart on the same day in Finland in August some 6 years later and two goldeneye ringed a few days apart in January in Norfolk who were shot the following year in January, one in Holland , but the other in Northern Sweden. Why did it stay in the following winter so far north? And then there was a family of Bewicks swans that managed to find their way into the duck trap only to prompt a letter from the WWT asking what i was doing ringing "their" wild swans . Had one or two interesting recoveries from song birds. A goldcrest ring from an owl pellet and a blackbird killed by a golf ball in Yorkshire! Then there was a yellowhammer that was taken by a sparrowhawk seconds after I released it and a woodpecker that few into a window an hour after being ringed.

 

I no longer ring , but even now years later i am still getting returns from some of the ducks I have ringed like a few months ago a tufted duck was retraped and released 20 years after being ringed.

Edited December 17, 2016 by anser2

[moongeese]

I am a ringer with BASC duck rings, and have always taken an interest in finding rings on birds, in fact my mates and I always have a laugh when out at the geese to checking if any are married, and I check each bird as retreived by the dog. Most of my rings are from Pinkfoot Geese, but have had them on Mallard, Teal, nipe, Cormorants, and a number from dead swans that hit the power lines here a lot, when I see a carcase under the wires, I always check it out, in fact I will check out any dead bird I come across in the countryside, or washed up on the foreshore . Every ring is reported, and I have a file which is full of Bird Recovery Information.

The photograph shows most of my collection, but I do have a box with Pinkfoot neckbands which I could not lay my hands on for tonight's picture

 

Bill.

[marsh man]

6.5x55SE........ I recon I talked that one up for you Boyd , you might be like our local buses , you wait ages , then two come along together , so don't be surprized if you see another one on the next web footed bird that end up in your bag .

 

Anser2 .. I cannot remember shooting many wading birds with rings on , but like you and another member was saying , it might well depend on the main ringing area . Mallard were released in numbers every year on the local marshes, and some years with me having the only Barley fields on the marsh and one or two marshes that flooded with the first lot of heavy rain I am afraid not to many Mallard that were released got to live to old age and in those far off days my motto was if I don't shoot them well someone else will so with me being hungry for duck shooting at the time I am sorry to say quite a few of them ending up hanging on a hook in my shed .

 

Moongeese ..... That is quite a collection of wild fowl rings , I also found one or two Swans that hit the electric cables with the odd ring on, plus the odd one now and again on Sea Gulls that got washed up around the estuary.

 

We have got a small population of Cranes that carry rings with large numbers on, so presumably the bird watchers can identify them without having to catch them , and NO I haven't got one .......... Yet

[moongeese]

Finding a ring on a woodcock is the holly grail now !.

[m greeny]

Only had a couple myself with one being a drake pintail ringed at marton mere and also a mallard that was released by my own club 6 years before I shot it.

Edited December 17, 2016 by m greeny

[motty]

All interesting stuff!

[marsh man]

Finding a ring on a woodcock is the holly grail now !.

I was lucky enough to get one about three years ago ( the only one ever ) when we were shooting Woodcock in January on the Norfolk / Suffolk border .

 

I sent all the details back and while waiting for the returns I was trying to guess where in the world it had its ring placed on his / her leg , we were always led to believe they came over here around the time of the full moon in November from northern Europe so that was the most likely area I was thinking of ,

 

After a few weeks wait , the letter was dropped through my letter box and now I could finally see if my prediction was right , as it turned out I couldn't have been any further out if I had tried , unlike Mr JDogs one that was rung in Russia , mine was rung nine miles from where it was shot near Lowertoft , where it had travelled in the year or so from ringing is something we will never know.

[Donkey]

The last ones I had were two mallard shot in the slowly area about 8 years ago

[Big Al]

I've shot 2. The first was a teal ringed by the British Museum a year to the day before I shot it. I shot it on Lough Neagh and it was ringed on Strangford. The second was a mallard ringed by BASC.It was released by a wildfowling club on Strangford and I shot it on the Strangford foreshore. Both rings are now on my dog whistle lanyard.

Edited December 18, 2016 by Big Al

[Salop Matt]

I've not shot many duck but hope to one day take a duck with a metal ring I can keep for memory sake!

Some of you have a good collection by the looks of it !

[marsh man]

I've not shot many duck but hope to one day take a duck with a metal ring I can keep for memory sake!

Some of you have a good collection by the looks of it !

There is never no telling when you will get a duck with a ring on salop sniper , it could be like Boyd who answered this post one night and got a ringed Widgeon the next morning , or in answer2 case , who I know have shot his fair share of fowl in his time and probably more than the majority of us , yet he was saying have shot very few ringed duck and never had a ringed Pinkfoot..

 

So we will all keep our fingers crossed that your wait is nearly over and when the time do come you will give a report on the event so we can all share in your good fortune . GOOD LUCK

[Penelope]

A good thread John. Must try harder for that Crane.

[SuperGoose75]

Marshman and Moongeese' That is some serious Bling you both have. If you both threaded up your call lanyard's with them you would put some of them Yank's you see in the dvd's to shame. Didnt Old Kenzie have quite an interesting collection he liked to show off.?

 

I've shot a lot more ducks than I have geese but only have a been lucky with one goose being ringed.

 

I also check any dead Swans or other birds and last year I came across one with its paddles cut off so someone had found it before me and took the jewellery.

[scolopax]

Non wildfowl related I have found rings on a black headed gull (powerline), a starling (back garden airgun kill) and a Barn Owl (RTA). Also I shot a magpie with a very worn but unmarked metal leg ring. Unfortunately these were years ago when I was in my youth and I never submitted the details. The gull had as far as I can remember and Estonian ring and the starling a Finnish ring.

Edited December 20, 2016 by scolopax

[Bell]

Found plenty of Barn owls with rings, also a **** up on Arran and a long tailed tit and mute swan........good stuff.

[bjlfishing]

My dad shot ateal in the 70s I found a coot with five plastic coloured ring and a metal one last year on one flight we shot five greylag two of which were ring and this season my brother shot a Canada that was rung

[marsh man]

I suppose the most rings I came across were off feral Pigeons in the late 60s or early 70s when the game dealers got a export licence to sell pigeons abroad , we had some Pea fields that were on the edge of the town that seem to attract every tame pigeon in the area and to say there were 100s might have been a under statement , in those care free days cartridges were £40 a 1000 , which worked out 5p each and the dealers were paying 10 to 12p for small Pigeons which feral were taken as small pigeons then and they were happy to take as many as you could get hold of , me and my brother had what we thought at the time were powerful air rifles , namely a B S A Airsporter and a Webley Mark 3 and to pass the time away in the hide if a tame one landed we would poke the airgun through the net and a well placed shot would result in another 10p laying there . nearly every one had either a rubber ring , a metal one or both , these were cut off put in the dustbin and dumped , now , with what they are paying for non ferris metal even those rings might have been worth a few bob

 

Now I would like to thank the above guys who replied to the thread and to wish all the P W members everywhere a very MERRY CHRISTMAS , plenty of sport and fresh air , and above all enjoy it and stay safe .

[SuperGoose75]

 

 

Now I would like to thank the above guys who replied to the thread and to wish all the P W members everywhere a very MERRY CHRISTMAS , plenty of sport and fresh air , and above all enjoy it and stay safe .

And the very same to Yourself Marsh Man. You are one of the Best posters on this sight and it is always a pleasure reading your posts. Merry Christamas Sir