Birds of a feather...

...and a rather smelly feather at that! But do they really stick together?

We've just received various reports of our ringed birds from BTO, detailing when/where they've been found subsequently. For a House Sparrow and Blue Tit ringed at the Stithians feeding station this wasn't too far, being found just along the road; the former found dead and the latter killed hitting a window.

But we did also receive news of two of our Storm Petrels recaught on Skokholm Island. Both had been ringed at Hot Point, Lizard, on 11th July 2013, being recaught on Skokholm on 24th and 30th July 2014 (see details on the Skokholm Island blog). Interestingly, last year ringers on Skokholm also recaught two other Stormies ringed on 11th July, so there musty have been something special about that night. Looking back, we ringed 78 birds that night, which is the second most we've ever caught in any one night at Hot Point, beaten only by 80 birds on 7th-8th July 2013 (blogged here). So maybe there was just something special about that week...

The map below shows Hot Point, Lizard, in yellow and all of the sites where we've exchanged Storm Petrels in red, with Skokholm highlighted in orange. The bias towards the English Channel and southern Irish Sea is perhaps not surprising, but it's a bit surprising we don't draw in more passage birds heading to colonies further north.