Lost Greenland White-front reunited with family

White-fronted Goose isn't the commonest bird in Cornwall, so Alan James was happy enough to find and photograph one on 1st November at Marazion Marsh. This was no ordinary bird though as it was carrying an orange neck collar and also a data logger.

Having spotted this we quickly emailed Tony Fox who was almost certainly responsible in some way for this bird. Thanks to Tony for the very quick response, which is summarised here.

Orange V3Y was a Greenland White-fronted Goose ringed at a place called Hvanneyri in west Iceland on 23rd September 2017 and was fitted with a GPS logging device and solar cell. Whilst at Hvanneyri it associated with CDZ (a juvenile male), another adult female fitted with a GPS logger and an unringed adult (probably male) that evaded capture. This small social group moved to a farm called Leirulækjarsel in Mýrar on 25th September where they remained until they departed.

The team don't have online access to live tracking data from V3Y, but the other GPS-tagged bird left Leirulækjarsel at around midday on 28th October en route to its wintering grounds in southern Ireland. What happened next is pretty amazing, because it made southern Ireland safely on its way south no problems, passing over Co Waterford at 4:30am on 29th October but seemed to not realise it was so close to Wexford! It continued southwards for some reason, eventually doing a tour of the Channel Islands and Brest in Brittany before turning back north, reaching Tacumshin in Co Wexford at 5:30am on 30th October. It rested only briefly before continuing north to Wexford Slobs, arriving at 7:20am the same day.

The GPS track of one (or all?) of the social group, all in under two days!

Without its own tracking data, the best guess is that V3Y followed a similar route for the majority of the journey, but got separated from the flock before turning up at Marazion Marsh on 1st November. But the story does have a happy ending, as John Wilson (who started the tracking project of Greenland White-fronted Geese back in 1983, resighted the whole social group (CDZ, V3Y, the GPS-logged bird and the unringed adult) at Wexford North Slob on 8th November. So despite an impromptu stop-off in Cornwall, V3Y found her way home eventually and rejoined her family!

**UPDATE** Thanks to Reuben Veal for adding to the story, as the bird he reported from St Gothian Sands on 5th November was V3Y, adding extra detail to this fascinating story!

Many thanks to Alan for allowing us to use his photo and to Tony for the rapid reply and very comprehensive history of this social group.

Belgian-ringed Water Rail resurfaces

Way back in September 2012, group ringers covering the autumn migration period at Marazion Marsh caught a Water Rail wearing a ring from the Belgian ringing scheme. This was quite exciting, as whilst Water Rails are known winter migrants into the UK, we really don't catch enough to know much about their movements. But it was only this week that we finally got the original ringing details back from the Belgian scheme, showing the bird had been ringed 52 days previously at Mechelen in northern Belgium. This is the sixth foreign-ringed Water Rail to be found in Cornwall, with others (all found dead) coming from Germany (four) and The Netherlands (two).

Others reports that came in this week included confirmation of the sad demise of one of our colour-ringed Peregrines. This had been ringed as a chick near Porthtowan in May 2014, but was found with a badly injured wing near Cornwood, Devon, back in March 2015. Unfortunately its injuries were too sever for it to be rehabilitated, so it had to be euthanased two days after being admitted to the vets.

Slightly cheerier news also came in confirmation of the ringing details of several rings and colour rings read recently. Some of these were well-known local birds, but it's always nice to receive the records back. This time, we had received details of a Dutch Curlew, a Great Black-backed Gull from Guernsey, two Mediterranean Gulls from France and Black-headed Gulls from Poland (two) and Belgium.

Dusky Swallow, odd Reed Bunting and more big gulls

The weather has been kind the last few days, and the forecast is looking good for the next few days, so we've been busy taking advantage to get mist nets up. A quick couple of mornings last week at Marazion caught over 120 birds, including this very smart Cuckoo.

In preparation for our latest CES visit this morning, we put up nets last night and managed to catch 25 Swallows in the process. There's always one rusty bird in these catches that makes a change, but I don't think I've seen one quite this dusky before.

Excuse the poor photo, but it was late...

The actual CES itself this morning was half-decent for a change. The average catch on Visit 10 is just 35 birds, so our total of 57 this morning was very respectable. Unsurprisingly most were Reed and Sedge Warblers, although 11 Blue Tits were a bit unwelcome! One more unusual bird was a very dark-headed Reed Bunting. Despite having a rather black head, it didn't have any real white collar, and the presence of an obvious brood patch confirmed this was a female. It was actually a retrap, first ringed as a juvenile in July last year. Whilst you do sometimes see female birds taking on male characteristics the older they get (female Blackbirds turning black for example), this bird was probably just very worn, with the dark feather bases showing through on the head.

Very dark (or worn) first-summer female Reed Bunting

Talking of wear, also check out the comparison here between a fresh juvenile Reed Warbler and a worn adult. The one will have had its flight feathers for a month, the other for perhaps five or six months.

The last few days have also seen a good gathering of big gulls at Lizard Point, and we've managed to read a whole host of colour rings, including birds from Norway, NE Scotland, France and local SW birds.

Black 42M (top left) from Normandy, France, and Yellow T:013 (bottom right) from NE Scotland

White L:BS3 (top left) from Looe Island, Cornwall, and Green K03 (bottom right) from Normandy, France

Thanks to Dave Jones for the reedbed photos and Terry Thirlaway for the gull photos.