Back to the cold

One of the wheatears myself and Ruth colour ringed in Greenland last year was spotted and photographed this morning by Mads at the Arctic Station. Outi has put an entry on the Arctic Station blog. Unfortunately it isn't one that we put a geolocator on, but I wouldn't expect those back yet as they were all younger birds.

The bird seen this morning is male 9Z35822, now in his third year (aged last year as fledged in 2009). He was greeted by, well, Arctic conditions - snow and ice. Just illustrates the difficulties that long-distance migrants have in timing their migration so that they arrive early enough to get good territories and rear chicks when food is abundant, but not so early that they can't find enough for themselves.