How about this for an amazing story!

This little chap experiences the feeling of  deja vu! 

I have recently read about an amazing coincidence involving this little bird above!

Colin McShane writes:

"Over the last 8 years I have been leading an Autumn ringing trip to the Parque Ambientale, in Vilamoura, Portugal with support from Vitor Encarnacao who heads up the Portuguese Ringing Scheme. Our trips have been successful on several levels and many British ringers have joined us over the years to expand their experience.

We have also controlled a number of birds from northern Europe, including Reed Warblers from Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden, and Bluethroats from France. On 06 October 2014 during this year’s trip, I extracted a male Blackcap from one of our standard mist nets and was very pleased, although not too surprised, to find that it was carrying a BTO ring. Back at the processing station, Dave Clifton (who has been an ever-present fixture on these trips) was doing his stint as the scribe. Having announced to the group what I had extracted, I began to process the bird - first reading out the ring number several times for accuracy.

Dave went quiet. He quickly got onto the phone to his wife, who checked in his ringing book back home. Hey Presto!! The bird was indeed one (of only two Blackcaps ringed at the site) he had ringed at Duckley Plantation, on the north shore of Blithfield Reservoir, Staffordshire on 11th September 2014 - only a few weeks before we had left for Portugal!!

Unfortunately Dave wasn’t able to buy a Lottery ticket on that day, but it must be a given that he was pretty certain of a big win with that kind of luck". 

How incredible is that!

I have done a bit of checking and there are about 1.2 million pairs of Blackcap here during the summer, which will of course raise a number of broods, raising the overall population significantly. It must be said that not all Blackcap leave our shores to over-winter elsewhere, some 3,000 elect to spend the winter in southern England. But nevertheless a remarkable story.

So another little gem of migratory information gleaned, plus one very chuffed bird ringer. Lets see if he can re-trap it back in Staffordshire next summer!!!