Spain for Xmas anyone?

As many of you know myself and Tony have been putting a lot of effort over the past few years to try and understand where all of our wintering (and breeding) Golden Plovers are disappearing to. We've been concentrating on the wintering population around the mid Wales/Shropshire border. Originally we were ringing them with just BTO rings, but after very few re traps in following years, we took it one step further and each bird that is now trapped and ringed, has it's own individual colour ring (making it identifiable in the field without having to be re captured by a ringer).

 

 

Since starting this project back in January, we have already had 5 reports of our colour ringed birds inc: one at a breeding site in North Wales and another in a flock of 1500 birds in Holland!

 

This winter we have been given 2 Satellite tags (see http://midwalesringers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/sat-nav-on-a44.html), to try and further our understandings of the birds. We weren't however prepared for what we were about to find out! After myself and Tony had be commenting on how few Golden Plovers there are around this year, we had and email saying the 'Ceri', our satellite tagged Golden Plover from the Ceri Ridgeway had decided to fly south and was now wintering near Madrid.

 

 

Where will she turn up next?