Project summary
Just started
Birds colour-marked
Just started
Sightings received
Winter 2022/23
Years project started
Colour-marks used
Background
The Severn Estuary is an important site for Curlew, with around 2-3,000 wintering birds present. Previous studies have caught and colour-ringed birds to better discover their arrival and departure dates on the estuary, understand the survival of individuals and to give clues as to where these birds may breed. Catches took place between 2010 and 2013.
As a long-lived species, several birds from this original study still survive and are seen by ring-readers on the Severn Estuary, but numbers of colour-marked birds have fallen, some birds have lost rings leaving incomplete combinations, and the wintering populations as a whole continues to decline.
This new study aims to build on the work done over a decade ago and update our current knowledge for the species.
Waterbird Colour-marking Group 