Annually, we await the comings and goings of stonechats at certain times of the year. These trigger bursts of activity on our part, as part of the colour-ringing project we have at the Great Fen.

As the stonechats come and go at the Great Fen, rather than being resident, one of the most interesting questions we have is where do they go? We always expected that some of the birds we ringed would be see again (resighted), somewhere to the northwest. This is based is based on current understanding of the species, but also on what we learnt from a visitor to Cambridge three years ago (as you can read here).

Earlier this year, I was emailed by Iain Livingstone, the secretary of the Clyde Ringing Group. He had been sent a photograph of a colour-ringed stonechat and asked if it was one of those ringed at the Great Fen. Excitement grew, was it one of ours and, if so, where was it photographed?

The bird was indeed a female that I had ringed in the Great Fen, at Middle Farm, one November morning last year. She was given the multi-coloured ring yellow/blue/yellow on year left leg (above a numbered metal ring), and blue/white/blue on her right leg. In terms of the Great Fen stonechats, we have a ring combination allocated to us by the BTO, of a colour ring above a metal ring on the left leg, and a colour ring on the bird's right leg. Colours include solid and multi-coloured rings, such as those this female was given.

Two other stonechats were ringed at Middle Farm that day. One was a male, that was with this female; typically the birds are in pairs at the Great Fen during the winter. There was also another male ringed, but that was over 700m away on a different part of the farm.

Middle Farm is a site we are restoring, like New Decoy Farm and Speechly's Farm, and it is benefiting from the support of the Peatland Progress project. It is also one of the most productive sites for ringing stonechats.

So where had our female stonechat been spotted? How far had she travelled? She was photographed by Scott Wotherspoon about as far away as you could possibly travel in mainland Great Britain, by Loch Shin in Sutherland, Scotland, around 700km to the northwest!

I was able to respond with the information of where and when we had ringed the female stonechat, completing the story of her journey. Scott said "I'm really chuffed at finding this ringed bird and, as Iain knows, I love ring reading; it's very satisfying when the ringers get back in touch with the ringing information."

You can learn more about what colour ringing projects are running on this website. Starting a project like this is fascinating, not just due to what we learn about the ecology of the species concerned but also, as you can see, it allows us to build and strengthen links between fellow birders, photographers, bird ringers, and conservation organisations.

So now it's September, the stonechats are on their travels again. Our breeding birds at the Great Fen are leaving, and new birds are appearing. Our staff and volunteers are out and about, reporting back if any birds are spotted, and we have started ringing the new arrivals already.

You can report ringed birds on this website, be it in this country or on your European travels. If you are visiting the Great Fen please keep a lookout and report back to me when you see a stonechat, if it is colour-ringed or not, or any other species with rings or tags.

Henry Stanier (Great Fen Monitoring & Research Officer)