Tuesday 23 November 2010

Escaped EUROPEAN SERIN on Shetland


A male EUROPEAN SERIN had been present on the Out Skerries on Shetland for some weeks but on a recent visit, David Gifford obtained some excellent images of it and it became apparent that the bird was bearing a violet metal ring. Some further detective work by Richard Broughton, utilising the information that could be gleaned from the ring, found that it was a bird from Belgium (BOF = Belgische Ornithologische Federatie), 09B being 2009 and B the ring size. 233 is probably the breeder's number. 038 will be the ring sequence).

Once again, this episode shows just how vigilant we all need to be, An unknown percentage of our 'vagrants' may well actually be escaped birds.