Rapid swallow movement

Last night was our first visit to the maize field of the autumn. Swallow roosts in the North West are normally made up of a lot of new juvenile birds and relatively little else (Typically we get one control per 750 juveniles). As a result a ringed juvenile swallow early in the session was a welcome surprise. The ring looked very new, almost as if it had been put on a few minutes before. One of the team thought it sounded familiar and a similar ring number to ones used at Heysham earlier in the day. It turns out that the swallow had been ringed at Heysham Nature Reserve at 14:15 and caught near Hornby at 19:30. A movement of about 20km East North East in 5 hours. Not the longest of movements for a swallow however one of the fastest. Richard