I always encourage birders to report colour ringed birds to those who run the ringing programs involved. It is only by receiving reports that ringers can build up a bank of knowledge which can then potentially be used for bird conservation strategy formation. That is not to say that every report of a ringed bird or even every ringing program has a direct benefit to bird conservation but the formation of conservation policy or opposition to developments that might be detrimental to birds can only be as good as the data behind them, so that the more bird watchers report any sightings they have of colour ringed birds, the more accurate the data. Along with this, it adds a certain point of interest to a day’s birding and can liven up a quiet day, it certainly added to a really bird-filled day I had at Dungeness in Kent, SE England at the end of December 2020. After checking my photographs from the day I noticed a colour ring on the leg of a Great Cormorant and although it took quite some time to receive information after submitting the sighting, what I learned about the bird was interesting.

I arrived at Dungeness on a day when a small storm was approaching from the south and this seemed to push large numbers of birds right up to the beach giving me great views of Guillemot, Gannet, Red-throated Diver and a wide variety of gulls. Although Cormorants are common birds that don’t usually draw a lot of attention from birders, there were huge numbers of them fishing offshore, around 1200-1500 birds and as they flew past they gave me a nice subject for photography.

When I got home and examined my photos, I discovered that this bird had a red colour ring with a code printed in white on it.

Most of the colour rings I have recorded have had longer alph-numeric codes so it was a little surprising to read this one as simply “UB” but it made it easy for me to find the right contact on European Colour Bird Ring website as part of a Dutch ringing program.

The information I received was that this bird was ringed as a chick on 17th July 2020 in The Netherlands at De Kreupel, an offshore island created as a nature reserve using dredging slurry. This individual has also been reported from Havergate Island on 26th November 2020 in Suffolk, Eastern England.

Over the last few years I have had information from many colour-ringed birds, mostly gulls, that I have photographed and it is striking how many of them seem to get recorded in The Netherlands and SE England and nowhere else. It would seem that as far as birds are concerned these areas of the two countries is all part of the same place, the same wider area of habitat.

This is the second colour ringed Great Cormorant I have photographed over the last 6 months; you can read about the other one here – Great Cormorant Colour Ring.