From Norway with love (and to Norway...)

We received details back of two excellent recoveries involving Norway this last week - one to and one from...

One was the arrival of only our fifth foreign-ringed Marsh Warbler, which was caught at Cape Clear Bird Observatory, southwest Ireland, on 25 September (photographed below). It had originally been ringed in Rogaland, on the southwest coast of Norway, on 3 September - a hefty 1,269km from Cape Clear! Our other foreign-ringed Marsh Warblers have come from Norway (recaught at Fair Isle Bird Observatory in May 2007 and also a Suffolk bird we blogged in June), Denmark (found dead on Orkney in June 1979) and Belgium (recaught in Hertfordshire in June 1994). It is odd how all these movements are mid-summer ones, with only this recent one breaking the pattern...


The second was an excellent bit of photography by Haavard Eggen from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research. His amazing flight shots of a Guillemot (below) allowed us to easily read the bird's ring number (X95104). It was photographed on the tiny island of Hernyken in northwest Norway (at 67 degrees north) on 21 July and had been originally ringed as a chick at Sumburgh Head, Shetland, in July 1999.


This movement isn't quite as exceptional as the Marsh Warbler though, with 1,161 BTO-ringed Guillemots previously found in Norway...

Thanks to Tycho Anker-Nilssen for sending on the Guillemot photos and to Michael O'Donnell for his Marsh Warbler photo.