Ever wondered where all the Kestrels are when you are trying to find one for your New Year’s Day Bird list? Surprisingly a good number of our British breeding birds move south for winter. We have just been notified of a bird that I ringed as a chick in June 2015 in North Anglesey, that was recaught by ringers at Vitoria-Gasteiz, Aberasturi, Spain on 16th October 2016. Whilst there have been 181 British-ringed Kestrels found in France this is only the 21st to be recovered in Spain. There have even been 4 recovered in Morocco. If a sizeable proportion of our breeding birds are moving south into France and Spain for the winter then the wide scale use of rodenticide poison to control vole plagues in these countries could be one of the reasons we are seeing a decline in our breeding population.
Happily this bird was released alive and well – we will be keeping a keen eye open for it to see if it returns next spring.