Common Tern Recovery

The narrative and map were supplied by Dave Francis.

 Common Tern Recovery; From Pitsford to Namibia 2009

The above bird, SV07540, was ringed as a chick on one of our rafts on 21^st July 2006 and caught as an adult bird by a ringer in Namibia on 25^th February 2009. This is a distance of 8458 km (5250 miles). The distance is shown as a direct straight line but the birds will have mostly followed a longer route down the Atlantic coast around West Africa.

Common Terns are, of course, summer migrants to Britain and will make a long annual journey. Most British Common Terns only go as far West Africa, to the Guinea/Senegal region.

 The national maximum recorded life span, so far, for this species is 33 years so the birds will cover a lot of miles during their lifetime. The birds favour gravel spits and islands as nesting colonies. These are absent at Pitsford Water Nature Reserve which is why a couple of gravel covered rafts were built in 2000. They were immediately successful and the colony has continued to grow since then, and more rafts have been added.

The bird was caught by a ringer at Swakopmund. Our ring was removed and replaced with a local one. That seems to be the custom there.