A week on from #StormAmy 🌬️ data from our tagged Whoopers show both storm assistance & displacement. Some birds made rapid migrations, others battled the elements – some out at sea for 55 hrs! As North Atlantic storms grow more frequent, understanding their impact is vital. 🦢

In Feb 23 we undertook a census of the UK naturalised Barnacle Goose population. The aim to produce an updated population estimate & report on winter distribution. Results have now been published in @BritishBirds, with our thinking on future monitoring needs #Ornithology 1/7 ⬇️

17.1% young Black-headed gulls in the flocks we've assessed this week, compared to 4.1% in 2023, when many colonies were affected by avian influenza. #Monitoring – at North West, England

Gull catching finished with 106 new recruits hand selected to join the study, 7 recaptures & three controls (x2 from Norway, x1 Finland) also. 185 rings read and a nice sample of birds aged to assess the 2024 breeding season #NWBHGs

Luckily, we stock Norwegian colour-rings in our ringing kit just in case we catch a Norwegian ringed bird that needs its ring changing 👍🏻 Keeping our 🇳🇴 ringing colleagues happy 😊

Great to be back on the road with @ScottoftheMarsh today as we catch more gulls for #NWBHGs colour-ringing, 60 new birds added to the study @WaterbirdCM

Back from a great @WaterbirdCM trip up to the Solway Firth. As part of our work assessing the mixing of naturalised Barnacle Geese with the migratory populations, it's important for us to search for our colour-marked birds in wintering migratory flocks 🧐 #monitoring

Ok! Come on let's follow this lot to where they're sleeping tonight... A thread🧵 #Ornithology 1/7

In other news... Whooper Swan migration is go go 💫 The first of our GPS tagged birds left Iceland & made a 14 hour sea crossing before arriving into Northern Ireland #Migration

It's been a long day, but a successful one! Many breeding pairs + cygnets and non-breeding Whoopers caught, ringed & some GPS tagged. Such fun! – at Iceland

Heartbroken. Thank you, @Rich_Hearn, for everything. I wouldn't be the person I am today without you 💔

Our paper on the moult migration, site fidelity and survival of Canada Geese at Windermere, Cumbria has now been published online in the journal Wildfowl wildfowl.wwt.org.uk/index.ph… #ornithology

Thanks to Peter de Man for reporting these two @WaterbirdCM ringed Whooper Swan cygnets with their parents in the Netherlands today! Both were ringed in Iceland this summer, interesting sighting 👇1/2