More on wandering Bearded Tits

Just over a year ago 'Demog Blog' reported on the bizarre occurrence of two ringed Bearded Tits seen in a tiny reedbed in Hyde Park, London (here). This was pretty unusual anyway, both birds having been ringed together at Rye Meads a couple of months previously, but the story now has an extra twist.

The two Bearded Tits in Hyde Park (Chris Hinton)

We have just heard that one of these birds, L511928, has turned up again, this time in southeast Norfolk! It was recaught at Belton Marshes in August 2013, a brackish reedbed site where plenty of Bearded Tits breed. As we noted back in the original post, Rye Meads don't catch many Bearded Tits, and coincidentally the prior to these birds being ringed, the last one caught (in February 2011) was a bird originally ringed at Haddiscoe Island, Norfolk, just a couple of kilometres from Belton Marshes!

The map below shows the locations of Rye Meads (blue) and the two sites L511928 visited (orange).