Icelandic cool... A White Wagtail recovery !!

We catch a variable number of White Wagtails each Spring on their way north.
April 10th 2014 was a typical early Spring evening ringing on the marsh, with 1 Sand Martin, 3 Swallows 3 Pied Wagtails and ....20 White Wagtails ringed.

This photo from April 2011 showing Pied and White Wagtails.

We often find it hard to believe that White outnumber Pied significantly, so what good news it was to receive details today of a recovery of one of those White Wagtails. A great reward for our efforts to find out where our west coast White Wagtails are going. D761240 was found at Enni,Vidvikursveit in the north of Iceland 76 days and 1731 km after being ringed. A pity that the recovery is of a bird found dead though ...

This was a posting we made on 14th April this year...four days after the ringing of  D761240..
 "Wagtails poured on to the commercial reed - cut this evening. Over 100 arrived and a sample caught showed 25 / 26 to be White Wagtails. Out of 82 birds caught since 10th April - 79 White and only 3 Pied Wagtails. Early in the month, when the roosts were smaller, only 8 / 23 were White Wagtails."

 Details of other recent recoveries in tomorrow's blog..
...though a note on our activities today,
98 new birds ringed on part of the CES site, and 70 of these just two species.
44 Chiffchaff and 26 Blackcaps ....