A nice story about Red-necked Phalarope. Who knows from where our birds originate from!
-----Original Message----- From: Bird Bander's Forum [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lyndon Kearsley Not seen any news on this amazing migration item on the list and since this bird used the eastern seaboard flyway presume of interest in the US. The bird breeds in N Scotland and was tracked using a rump mounted geolocator over the whole migrztion. Found to have wintered on the coast of Equador / Peru presumably at sea. Photo of webbed feet below. Pasted text below: Neat video and map here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25661650 see also: http://www.rarebirdalert.co.uk/v2/Content/Tiny_tag_unlocks_secret_to_record-breaking_migration_of_Red-necked_Phalaropes.aspx?s_id=753701389 and: http://www.birdwatch.co.uk/channel/newsitem.asp?cate=__15087 Distribution: [image: Inline images 1] "A tracking device, which weighs less than a paperclip, has helped scientists uncover one of the world's great bird migrations. It revealed that a Scottish Red-necked Phalarope migrated thousands of miles west across the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, a journey never recorded for any other European breeding bird. In 2012, the RSPB, working in collaboration with the Swiss Ornithological Institute and Dave Okill of the Shetland Ringing Group, fitted individual geolocators to ten phalaropes nesting on Fetlar (Shetland), in the hope of learning where they spend the winter. After successfully recapturing one of the tagged birds when it returned to Fetlar last spring, experts discovered it had made an epic 16,000-mile round trip during its annual migration?-?flying from Shetland across the Atlantic, south down the eastern seaboard of the US, across the Caribbean, and Mexico, ending up off the coast of Peru. After wintering in the Pacific, it returned to Fetlar, following a similar route. Before this, many experts had assumed that Scottish breeding phalaropes joined the Scandinavian population at their wintering grounds, thought to be in the Arabian Sea. Yet the destination of this bird was the Pacific Ocean. Red-necked Phalarope is one of the UK's rarest breeding birds. It is now only found in Shetland and the Western Isles, and numbers fluctuate between just 15 and 50 nesting males. Scotland marks the southern limit of its breeding range, with the species far more abundant further north where it occupies wetlands around the northern hemisphere." [image: Inline images 2] -- Lyndon -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
