Linnets, a Swan, and some French people

Our Linnet RAS project started up again at the beginning of April. Having re-trapped only 4 of our breeding birds from 2016 at the site since mid-October, it was very gratifying to suddenly get 11 of them in a catch of 35 earlier this week. Where have they been?  Where have the ones we've been catching all winter gone now?  We desperately need other Welsh ringers to make an effort to catch more Linnets to help us find out.  That's 747 of them ringed in a little under a full year, with no controls found here, or recoveries reported from elsewhere.

Yesterday afternoon while putting up some nets on our scrubby site beside the river Teifi, we noticed a single Mute Swan fly in and settle on the river. We also noticed that it was carrying a blue plastic ring with white numbers on it, so we knew it wasn't one of our resident pair (who just have normal numbered metal rings).

Today, while we (well, Wendy mostly) were doing a ringing demo for some attentive French students on a field trip, the swan was still there, but as he (we decided it was a he) spent all his time facing into the current and with the ring being on his left leg, it was nearly always out of sight.  Eventually however he swam over closer to where we were ringing, offering tantalising glimpses...

 

... before waving his leg in the air while preening - but the numbers on the ring still couldn't be seen...

 

This went on for what seemed like ages, but eventually, thank goodness, he let himself be identified, so hopefully we'll soon find out where he's come from.

It's hard to imagine a more idyllic venue for doing a ringing demo, although it was a bit on the nippy side for a while -