Submit your Wigeon resightings

An important part of Project Penelope is based on resightings of individuals ringed with either a metal ring or a combination of metal and colour rings.

Should you photograph, shoot or in any other way encounter one or more ringed individuals, we would very much appreciate hearing from you.

What to look for

Several thousand Wigeon will be ringed in the UK, Denmark and Finland during the years 2021-24. All birds will be ringed with a metal ring from the relevant national ringing scheme (UK/FI/DK), and most will also be ringed with a colour ring.

Colour-marks used in Project Penelope include blue leg rings with two yellow characters and green leg rings with two white characters. Some of the rings have a vertical bar between the characters, and it is important to note this when submitting a resighting. You can read more about the colour-rings here.

How to submit a resighting

Birds ringed with metal rings only should be reported to your national ringing scheme or through the Euring website.

Resightings of colour-ringed individuals can be submitted through Project Penelope's reporting site, by sending an e-mail to Heather Warrender at BASC or through your national reporting scheme.

GPS tracking devices

A number of birds will be carrying GPS tracking devices on their backs. We can follow these birds as they move around, and devices should not be removed unless the bird is dead or injured. In such cases, we would very much appreciate it, if you would return the tracking device to us. A contact e-mail address can be found on each device.

The UK project team are focusing on catching and ringing Wigeon. A few birds have also been colour-ringed in Iceland during the summer.

42 GPS-tags have been deployed in Finland by our project partners at University of Turku and University of Helsinki.