Wing Tagging Marsh Harriers  Circus Aeruginosus in Norfolk

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The project co-ordinated by the North West Norfolk Ringing Group is a cooperative one involving East Norfolk Ringing Group and individual Norfolk ringers including Paul Noakes, Allan Hale and Ray Gribble. It has been funded by donations raised at the Wild about the Wensum events, hosted by the Pensthorpe Conservation Trust.

Any Norfolk ringer with access to Marsh Harrier nest sites can join this county wide project. The project is not just confined to Norfolk however and in 2013 Simon Evans from Suffolk also joined in this collaboration and in 2015 Tony Martin at Dunkirk near Ely in Cambridgeshire also joined the project.

The project was started in 2011 with the objective of finding out more about how or if juvenile Marsh Harriers disperse from their natal area. It is now in it's 12th year and some interesting and in some cases unexpected results have already been obtained. It also provided an ideal opportunity to further promote the toe span method which can determine the sex of nestlings which NWNRG had pioneered in the UK.

In 2011 the tags had an individual identifying combination of two letters or one letter and one number in White. From 2012 a combination of two letters or one letter and one number in Black on a lime green tag were used. In 2018 after all the lime green codes had been used, orange tags with Black numbers or letters were used.

If you see a wing tagged Marsh Harrier please report your finding to the project co-ordinator

Objectives

Wing Tags

Sex of nestlings

Toe span method

Results

 
Resightings



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