Lots of Cornwall's seabirds are very connected to our Celtic neighbours, with our gulls, Kittiwakes and Storm Petrels regularly commuting across the Celtic Sea and English Channel. We share a lot of colour-ringed Kittiwakes with the two important breeding sites at Pointe du Raz and Pointe du Van on the Brittany peninsula (a few French birds shown below) and several of our supposedly-urban gulls have been seen on French estuaries and ports.
We had news from BTO British Trust for Ornithology this morning that two of our Storm Petrels ringed in July 2020 at Gwennap Head, Porthgwarra were recaught at Banneg in the Molène archipelago the next night. Banneq is the largest Storm Petrel colony in France, with as many as 1,000 breeding pairs. At 187km, this is probably only a short trip for a Stormie, but it still always amazes me what these tiny birds get up to!
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