Monday, 4th June 2012

Offshore
6 Gannets, 4 Common Scoter and 3 Sandwich Tern.

Visible Migration
3 Swallow NE and 1 House Martin NE.

Ringing
4 Sedge Warblers, 2 Dunnock, Reed Bunting, 6 Reed Warblers, Great Tit, Blackcap, Goldfinch, Wren, Song Thrush, 4 Greenfinch, 2 Lesser Whitethroat (including a recently fledged bird), Blackbird and 13 pulli Willow Warblers.

 Reed Warbler

Others
128 Sanderling, 21 Dunlin and 2 Turnstone.

The leg flagged Sanderling that Ian sighted yesterday was amazingly another bird from Mauritania. Just to remind you where Mauritania is, see the Google Earth image below.

 This bird was ringed in Mauritania on 02/12/2008 and has been recorded wintering there in every winter since. Unlike the bird we reported about on 1st June, this bird has been observed outside Mauritania in addition to Fleetwood Bird Observatory. It was observed in Somerset on 06/08/2009 and Tyninghame Bay, Scotland on 05/06/2010. An incredible series of sightings of this bird occurred in 2009 as follows:

- 08/05/2009 - Banc d'Arguin, Mauritania
- 06/08/2009 - Berrow, Somerset, England

So, between 8th May and 6th August this female Sanderling had travelled from Africa to Greenland/Iceland, nested on the Tundra and was recorded heading back south through the UK. Increible! 

A record shot of the bird in question can be found below.