Given that 500 have been ringed there this autumn and several of our birds have been seen there over the last few years, it was no surprise to find one of their birds under the whoosh net at Heysham north harbour wall on 24th October. Given the good arrival weather (and poor subsequent forecast), it was decided to also catch Twite on 25th October and this produced just the one retrap from the previous day.........the Machrihanish bird! It or another was then seen at nearby Walney two-three days later and there have been no further signs of any Machrihanish birds at Heysham by 2nd November, but quite a bit of turnover with e.g. 6/10 in the gale this morning (2nd) being unringed. Based on previous years, the next weather window should see a big arrival and hopefully there will be a suitable morning later this week, unfortunately coinciding with potentially large numbers of early-morning anglers (it only needs one to have a dog.....)
Details: Ringed at 3M at Machrihanish on 27/8, retrapped there on 21/9 and caught at Heysham on 24 & 25/10
The Machrihanish birds have green/white colour rings on BOTH legs. Therefore please take careful note of any birds you see with colour rings on both legs - they may either, for example, be from the Mull of Kintyre or birds ringed as pulli at Pennine sites
It does seem from our experience this autumn that having someone wandering around the mound/sandworks considerably 'speeds up' the process of getting the birds around the feeder and under the net
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