Saturday 19 January 2013

The Flying Scootsman returns….

Colour ringed Coot GR25480 will always go down in the history of the NW Coot project for being the first and only (up to now) bird to be sighted in Scotland. This bird was ringed at Crompton Lodges in Greater Manchester in December 2010 as an adult male, where he also wintered in 2011, however in February 12 this bird was photographed by Robert Mackay at Straiton in Mid Lothian (260kmN). In December 2012 we re-sighted this bird back at it’s original ringing location of Crompton Lodges and today we managed to catch him to confirm it was GR25480!

001 ‘GR25480 photographed in Scotland during February 2012’

Scootsman ‘GR25480 today at Crompton Lodges’

Does make you wonder where this bird has been in time between being seen in Scotland and returning to Greater Manchester! Norway? Iceland? Sweden? Finland? or Scotland!?

So today Ciaran & I have been out catching (just like the good old days!) and we were rewarded with 10 Coot, 20 Black-headed gulls and a single Tufted duck all hand caught and colour ringed (except the Tufted duck!)

bhg

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