Gunwalloe Swallow in Spain

We tend to ring a lot of Swallows at the roost at Gunwalloe, but the 'return' on these birds is rather small, with very few ever being found or recaught again. In fact, of the 2,007 Swallows ringed in the reedbed, four have been recaught in the reedbed within the same autumn, five have been caught a year after ringing and two have been recaught two years after ringing. Just one has been found dead (in Helston a year after ringing) and we've had two longer-distance movements.

One of these was a bird we ringed in August last year that then headed north, being recaught in Devon 26 days later! A rather more conventional movement has only just come to us via BTO, which was a bird ringed in July 2014 that was then recaught on southward passage in September in Guadalajara, central Spain. This is over 1,000km from Gunwalloe, but this bird obviously had a lot further still to go!