New Web App to Record Your Wader Resightings

The Dublin Bay Birds Project Team has developed a Web App to capture your colour ring wader resightings.

With the Dublin Bay Birds Project now well into its fourth year of monitoring we have learned quite a bit about our avian subjects, on what to expect from them and where to expect them to show up! With 525  waders (incl Oystercatchers, Bar-tailed Godwits, Redshanks and Curlew) now colour-ringed as part of this project spring is an exciting time as we await word that they have been spotted somewhere far from Dublin, maybe even somewhere exotic like Iceland!

Oystercatcher "DJ" Orkney, Scotland 2013 Colin Corse

This spring has been no different and already we have international records of seven Oystercatchers who have been making their way northwards to breed in remote parts of Iceland and Scotland for example. Of the 525 waders colour ringed, 380 are Oystercatchers and we have built up a large database of resighting information.

This spring with the help of fellow conservationists in Scotland and Iceland we have had multiple reports of our birds at locations on the Isle of Tiree, the most westerly island of the Inner Hebrides from John Bowler of the RSPB. Johns colleague Morgan Vaughan has sent word of one of our birds "II" from Oransay a small island south of Colonsay in the Scottish Inner Hebrides also! And the record for the furthest north and west has to go to Guðmundur Órn Benediktsson who reported "XT" in Leirhófn, NE Iceland. 

Recent International Oystercatcher resighting records

With spring firmly established on the Dublin coast we see less and less waterbirds each day as they continue to depart for their breeding grounds. Resighting records allow us to track their movements, establish what sites are important stopovers and finally identify where they choose to mate and raise young. All these answers are essential if we have any hope of protecting these important sites and in-turn protect wader species into the future. 

Colour Ring Resightings Web App record viewer

Colour Ring Resightings Web App entry form

We are interested in hearing about all resightings of our project colour ringed birds, be it from Dublin, another Irish county or internationally. If you encounter what you think might be a Dublin Bay Birds Project colour ringed wader, we'd love to hear from you. To make the submitting and viewing of records easy we have developed a web app which you can access here: Report a Colour Ringed Bird . All the information on our colour ring scheme and instructions for the easy to use app are there.

Looking forward to seeing your records and thanks in advance!