Hilbre Rock Pipit colour ringing project

Two years ago we decided to register a Rock Pipit colour ringing scheme for Rock Pipits on Hilbre. The main objectives of the project was to try and determine where our breeding Rock Pipits disappeared to in the winter, where the juveniles dispersed to and map the breeding territories of birds nesting on Hilbre & Middle Eye. In a good year Rock Pipits can have three broods of young and the islands can only support 4-6 breeding pairs. As with all passerines lots of young birds don't survive their first winter and older birds obviously die and we knew that there must be some new recruitment into the breeding population and colour ringing provides an ideal opportunity for us to study the small Hilbre population. 

Colour ringing means we can identify individual birds without having to recapture them. It also allows non-ringers to assist in identifying individuals. We also knew we get passage Scandinavian  'littoralis'  race birds as we'd 'controlled a Norwegian colour ringed bird on the 10th October 2016 so we were also hoping to catch and ring some of these birds. See here for information on that bird.

Once we'd got agreement from the BTO for  a colour marking scheme with the defined colour combination of blue darvic with three whiter letters on the right leg and a red colour ring above the metal on the left leg it was a case of waiting until we could get the colour rings made.  We consulted with the lead on a similar project in Scotland so we could ensure our rings were of the same size to ensure we could get approval and ordered the rings from AvianID in Cornwall. We eventually got the rings a few months later and started the project in June 2023.

We'd previously caught Rock Pipits using Potter traps baited with mealworms and, occasionally, caught them in our heligoland traps. It soon became apparent that spring traps would be more succesfull and a concerted effort was made to catch Rock Pipits. Between 2004 and 2023 Hilbre ringed 50 new Rock Pipits. Since the colour ringing project started in June 2023 we've caught and colour ringed 32 birds and have generated nearly 200 sightings both from Hilbre Observatory members and members of the public.

What has become apparent is that many of our Rock Pipits winter on the mainland with a whole host of sightings between Hoylake & Meols. One bird was even photographed on Hilbre and then photographed the next day at Meols before returning to Hilbre the following day before spending most of the winter on the mainland. Most of these movements have been between 5-7 km in a straight line.

We've also shown number of young birds returning to breed on Hilbre in subsequent years after fledging. of the 32 birds colour ringed only 6 were subsequently not seen again and these were all juvenile birds. The fate of these birds is open to speculation but a tantalising clue came in March this year. A juvenile was colour ringed with darvic CBF on the 9th of August 2024 and subsequently recaptured on 19th August on Hilbre. It wasn't seen again to I was tagged in a photograph on "X" taken at Bispham Prom near Blackpool  where Dave had photographed it! A movement of 85 km in a straight line.

Intriguingly we'd also had a report and a photo of a colour ringed bird at Egremont on the Mersey. This is 14.5 km in a straight line but unfortunately the code couldn't be read on the darvic

Hopefully the project will continue to give good results and, who knows, we may even get one of our birds seen even further afield than Blackpool.