Bearded Tit bails out of Scotland

The Bearded Tit is a very handsome bird and their call can excite many a birder when it's heard 'pinging' across the reedbed. As a Schedule 1 species, Bearded Tits are one of 88 species specially protected in the breeding season. Between 800-1,000 Bearded Tits are ringed every year in Britain by qualified bird ringers. Being fairly sedentary they make a good study species, particularly for the Retrapping Adults for Survival scheme (of which there are currently three active projects), but they can be frustrating as groups of Bearded Tits are occasionally prone to flying straight up into the air and disappearing into the distance.

Male Bearded Tit. Photo by Graham Catley

The map below shows some of the movements of Bearded Tits that have been recorded within our Ringing Scheme. As you can see, the majority of movements are from their stronghold in East Anglia to the near continent.


Colour of location: Ringed in Britain and Ireland, Found Here; Ringed Here, Found in Britain and Ireland

We have just heard from our colleagues in the Norwegian Ringing Scheme that one of their ringers has recently (16 Oct 2018) caught a Bearded Tit wearing a BTO ring! This is only the second recorded movement of a BTO-ringed Bearded Tit to Norway.

This bird was ringed as a juvenile by the Tay Ringing Group on 24 June 2018 at one of their regular sites and reported from Norway less than four months later. It is likely this bird would have been travelling in the opposite direction to the thousands of other species that would have been leaving Scandinavia on their way to spend the winter with us.

The map below shows the ringing and finding locations of some of the Bearded Tits ringed by the Tay Ringing Group; the bird reported from Norway was the Group's longest-distance movements to date for this species. The red pins show the ringing location and the blue pins the finding location.

For more information of the movements of Bearded Tits and some interesting recoveries, check out the BTO Online Ringing & Nest Recording Report.

Tay Bearded Tits on the move: can you help?

In the UK, the largest single population of Bearded Tits, also sometimes known as Bearded Reedlings, occupy the Tay reedbeds, in eastern Scotland. Over the 2014 breeding season, Tay Ringing Group have been working hard to monitor this important population, ringing an incredible 635 birds - and now these birds are on the move...

The Tay reedbed runs for 15km along the estuary, the largest continuous reedbed in the UK

Around this time last year, Iain Malzer conducted a radio-tracking study of these elusive birds, following them around the reedbed. He was intrigued when he found that none of them moved out of the Tay area during what is assumed to be a traditionally dispersive period. However, this year the picture is quite different. When the population reaches the huge numbers we’ve seen on the Tay this year, ‘Beardies’ sometimes undergo irruptive movements, flying in small flocks in all directions. By understanding the extent and drivers of these movements, we can observe how connected these birds are at a population level, how they remain stable genetically and how they colonise and occupy new areas of reedbed.

Photo (c) Amy Lewis

Typically though, this year Iain didn’t have any trackers on the birds, and so is now asking for help in finding these dispersing birds. As previous Demog Blog posts have suggested, the birds can turn up in the smallest patches of reed, so we are checking everywhere for sightings of colour-ringed birds. Already we’ve had reports from the Isle of May, Aberdeenshire and Loch Leven, but birds can move much further: the longest recovery within the UK was a 390km movement between Suffolk and Devon, and other records have even shown birds moving abroad. This is our chance to record the first long-distance movements from the Tay population.

Many of the birds ringed on the Tay have unique colour-ring combinations, allowing us to identify exactly who they are. Birds may have three colour-rings in any combination of red, orange, green, yellow, light blue, dark blue, white, grey and black. Reports of any sightings, colour-ringed or not, at your local reedbed will be an essential contribution to the understanding of the movement systems of these peculiar birds and their wider conservation.

One of the colour-ringed birds (a female) from the Tay reedbed

To report a sighting drop Iain an email or get in touch with us here at Demog Blog.

So if you're out over the autumn and winter, listen out for the unique ‘pinging’ of Beardies (have a listen on xeno-canto here) and let’s leave no reedbed unchecked.

More on wandering Bearded Tits

Just over a year ago 'Demog Blog' reported on the bizarre occurrence of two ringed Bearded Tits seen in a tiny reedbed in Hyde Park, London (here). This was pretty unusual anyway, both birds having been ringed together at Rye Meads a couple of months previously, but the story now has an extra twist.

The two Bearded Tits in Hyde Park (Chris Hinton)

We have just heard that one of these birds, L511928, has turned up again, this time in southeast Norfolk! It was recaught at Belton Marshes in August 2013, a brackish reedbed site where plenty of Bearded Tits breed. As we noted back in the original post, Rye Meads don't catch many Bearded Tits, and coincidentally the prior to these birds being ringed, the last one caught (in February 2011) was a bird originally ringed at Haddiscoe Island, Norfolk, just a couple of kilometres from Belton Marshes!

The map below shows the locations of Rye Meads (blue) and the two sites L511928 visited (orange).

Inner London's first Beardies

We recently received details via Des McKenzie of two ringed Bearded Tits currently residing in a bus-stop-sized reedbed in Hyde Park, London. These birds (both females) are actually the first records for the inner London area so caused quite a stir when they first appeared. Full details of their convoluted arrival are on Dominic Mitchell's blog and some images of the ring can be found on the Wanstead Birder blog.

Being such a draw in the capital ensured that these birds were well-photographed (the above from Chris Hinton) and after a bit of detective work (and jigsaw-puzzling), Andy Moon managed to piece together the full ring numbers. Bearded Tits often seem to travel in small groups, so it was perhaps not surprising that these birds had been ringed together, and with consecutive ring numbers.

L511927 and L511928 were originally ringed on 10th November 2012, 32km north of Hyde Park at Rye Meads, Hoddesdon. They were caught along with a single male, but weren't seen again after release, but there was a report of two females from Amwell on 14th November. Prior to that the last Bearded Tits ringed at Rye Meads was in 2002, although a ringed male was recaught there in February 2011, having been originally ringed at Haddiscoe Island, Norfolk.

Thanks to Des McKenzie for piecing the numbers together, Chris Hinton for the photo and Chris Dee (Rye Meads Ringing Group) for the ringing details.