The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Steve Keightley and I have just completed our annual check of the breeding Swifts at a colony at Helpringham, thanks to Noel Storr who crawls round in the roofspace locating the nests. Thirty three chicks were ringed in four houses. However, seven adults were also caught - three were 'new' birds, one 'retrap' had been ringed as an adult, but three 'retraps' had been originally ringed in earlier years as chicks, showing a good return of Swifts to thier place of birth. One Swift was now nesting in the same house that it was reared in ten years ago, having been originally ringed as a chick in 1998, and subsequently retrapped in 2004 and now 2008. (It has probably now flown in excess of two million miles in its life so far!)

Alan