What was thought to be a 2CY male Israeli-ringed (Tel Aviv University Y60214) Lesser Whitethroat was caught during the Middleton Nature Reserve CES this morning. It was 'loosely' associating with some independent but recently fledged juveniles and, as also suggested by the date, is a local breeding bird
Provisional information relayed to eilatbirding.blogspot.com suggest that it was ringed at Eilat on 10/3/09 - this was a surprise given the seemingly brand new ring, muddy iris and tail feather features. Thanks to Pete Kinsella for alerting me to this site & posting
Richard has informed that this is the 7th Israel-ringed bird to be found in the British Isles with 9 British-ringed birds found in Israel. These are all caught during spring passage in Israel which is a more easterly route than the autumn passage. Ringing recoveries suggest that autumn passage involves a stop-over in north Italy before a more direct route to the presumed Kenyan (and surrounding countries?) wintering area (per Migration Atlas)
Rather overshadowed by this, but perhaps equally unlikely, was the fact that the first Swallow capture of the year on the nearby Heysham NR CES was also a (British) 'control' (contrast with one 'control' out of 1000+ in last autumn's roost ringing!)
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