The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Regular readers may recall that a Great Skua was reported from the LWT Pit at Kirkby on Bain on 26 April 2012. Over the next couple of days, this bird was photographed by Trevor Gunby, Roy Harvey, Russ Telfer and Russell Hayes (photos in the LBC Album) and the bird clearly carried a blue darvic ring B128.

I have been trying to trace the origins of this bird since 2012 and have at last made contact with the guy who ringed this bird as a pullus on Bear Island in 2011. Bear Island lies well to the north of Norway and is closer to Svalbard than mainland Europe. The bird was last seen on the island on 07 August 2011 at 37 days old before being relocated at Kirkby Pits on 26 April 2012. Interestingly, the mother of this bird was also ringed and was found dead in the Isle of Wight in November 2014. I have been advised that the ringing scheme started in 2004 and in recent years individual birds have been fitted with GLS loggers. These confirm that a part of the Bear Island population overwinters around Great Britain in the North Sea, the English Channel and the Celtic Sea while the rest overwinters around the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and off the west coast of Africa as far south as the Gulf of Guinea.

Regards,

David Cohen

Well done David for finding out, I had been wondering where it had come from.

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http://birdmanbirds.blogspot.com/

Thanks David that is very interesting. I am surprised that someone should go to such lengths
to find out so much about this rare visitor to the site - full marks for the patience and determination
needed and congratulations on the result!