Three Gold Recoveries

Just had three recoveries back from the BTO of varying interest:

The first was an immature female Goldfinch L757075 which was ringed in my garden on 13th November 2010 and found dead 153 days later on 15th April 2011 just 2km away in Warnham (map below).

The next was an immature male Goldcrest DNK024 which was also ringed in my garden on the same day and was caught by ringers at the well known migration site Landguard Point, Felixstowe, Suffolk on 27th March 2011 - a distance of 149km (map below).  These dates would suggest that this was possibly a Scandinavian bird which had come to winter in Britain and was then caught whilst on spring migration going back, although the only way we will truly known would be if it was then caught in Norway or Sweden!  I can only hope.

The last recovery and by no means the least was another immature female Goldfinch, L132885, which I ringed at Chesworth Farm, Horsham on 15th March 2010 and was caught 654km away by a ringer on 24th April 2010 at Inch Island, Donegal, Ireland (map below)!  This is the fifth longest movement of a Goldfinch within Britain and Ireland, but by far the fastest of those five and the only one of those to have had to cross the sea.  Obviously must have been a spring migrant, but had it flown down from its birth place in Ireland to Sussex for the winter and was heading back or was it dispersing from birth place?  Difficult to know, but if it had flown any further it would have been heading out into the Atlantic - next stop Canada!