Blaumeise the Blue Tit visits the UK

You never know what you might find in your own garden, as demonstrated by Mr Skehens from Gloucestershire who found a Blue Tit in his garden that had recently died. Nothing ground breaking there, due to their short life span and sedentary nature, but this ring had the magic words "Helgoland Germania" inscribed on it!

We have somewhere in the region of 22,800 reports of Blue Tit either found dead or moving more than 5km, but only 170 of these have moved more than 100km. This bird had travelled a massive 737km across the sea but unfortunately this bird is not the record holder. This remains as a Norweigan Blue Tit that was caught in Suffolk by Landguard Ringing Group (782km).


The red pointer is the German Blue Tit, while the Blue pointer is the Norweign Blue Tit.
View Blue Tit in a larger map

Thanks to Jill Pakenham for the photo