Working so closely with the Welsh Kite Trust it is inevitable that MWRG focuses heavily on the study of birds of prey  - particularly falcons as they seem to be fairing less favourably than their fork-tailed cousins. The group have installed and monitor well over 50 Kestrel nest boxes with some success and an indication that the safer nest sites are resulting in increased nest success and greater productivity. Every year we colour-ring a sample of local Peregrine, Kestrel and Hobby nests and have been working on Merlins too although the state of this species in Mid-Wales is so dire now th ..read more

Yesterday Adrienne Stratford, Jack Slattery and I replaced or installed a couple of new Chough nest-boxes in North Ceredigion. The first site, between Borth and Aberystwyth, which was used successfully in 2022 (rearing a brood of 4 chicks) was considerably the worse for wear with the top completely collapsed in. Not surprising though as I originally installed this with Mick Green back in the early 1990s! If it lasts anywhere near as long as the first one it certainly won't be me replacing it next time! Unfortunately the local Peregrines have expensive tastes. No starlings or pigeons for the ..read more

I have just received the original ringing details of the Danish-ringed Nightjar that I controlled in North Wales. It was ringed as a juvenile on 21st August 2021 at Glæde, Thisted, Viborg, Denmark. Given the age at ringing and the date of ringing there is still some uncertainty about the provenance of this individual. In many species of bird juveniles often make exploratory movements away from their natal area before heading south on migration. This bird could have been a bird reared in Denmark that has subsequently nested in Wales or perhaps more likely it could also have been a Bri ..read more

When I was a newly qualified 'C' ringer living in Shropshire in 1980  I dreamed of catching a Nightjar. One night, at a local forestry plantation near Pontesbury I even, unexpectedly, had one flying around the nets we had set for general warbler netting. Despite placing a white birdbag in the bottom shelf of every net and even tying moths into the mesh we didn't catch it and it was clearly just passing through as it was never seen again. It was however a very notable sighting for Shropshire at the time. Fast forward 42 years and part of my work is now on Nightjar surveying for wind farm d ..read more

Well we might have ill-advisedly severed our close connections to Europe but our Curlews seem not to have done the same. Three recent sightings have highlighted, once again, the vital need for cross-border conservation initiatives when dealing with species such as the Curlew. It is well-known that our breeding population is supplemented each winter by large numbers of birds seeking refuge from colder climes in Scandinavia, Poland, Germany, Russia and elsewhere in Northern Europe. It is less well known that, whilst most just move to southern Britain or Ireland for the winter, some of our breedi ..read more

Since the formation of the Mid Wales Ringing Group (and the start of the Dunlin colour-ringing project) in 2016 we have individually colour-marked over 6,000 Dunlin. The colour-marking has massively improved the recovery rate of our marked Dunlin and so far we have had over 450 sightings from a wide geographical area. Two recent sightings though have greatly extended the boundary of the area that Ynyslas Dunlin are know to either come from or go to. Olivier Gilg recently informed us of the sighting of LP0, a Dunlin ringed by Paul and Silvia on 23rd August 2020, seen on territory in NE Greenlan ..read more

  Thanks to the IT skills of Stephen Vickers we now have an automated colour-ring reporter app. If you click the link on the top right of the website you will see the above screen and there you can input your sightings of any of our colour-ringed birds. The app will then generate an immediate output detailing the ringing information and any subsequent re-sightings. I hope you like this exciting new development and that this may encourage a few more birders to submit their colour-ring sightings directly (in return for instant gratification ..read more

                                                        Photo by Alex Jamieson An email popped into my inbox today with details of a sighting of a young Kestrel, ringed earlier this year in one of Red Liford's nest boxes near Lledrod in Ceredigion. Given the location and the distance of the sighting I was a bit sceptical that the report was correct but, if it was, wanted to post someth ..read more

For the past few years I have been working for Curlew Country on the Shropshire/Powys border trying to help maintain the small, remnant, lowland Curlew population there. In the initial years our attention was spent trying to collect information on what exactly were the problems and how we might alleviate them. Quite rapidly it became apparent that the problems were major and that drastic action was needed. In 2017 we pioneered Curlew headstarting, taking eggs from nests with low probability of success, and rearing chicks in captivity to the point of fledge and then releasing into suitable na ..read more

Over the last 20 odd years records of Hobby in summer have increased in Ceredigion. Tregaron Bog and Borth Bog have been favoured sites as the birds hunt the plentiful supplies of dragonflies. More random sightings in farmland have hinted at breeding birds becoming established and breeding was confirmed for the first time in the county just a few years ago.  A couple of days back, I was contacted by a friend and ex 'C' ringer of mine to say he had a pair of Hobby nesting not far from his house and did I have a schedule 1 licence to ring them? Well, fortunately, I do, so yesterday, having ..read more