A GOLDEN WONDER
Tiny goldcrest bird flies 400 miles in storm... in less than eight hours
EUROPE’S tiniest bird flew 400 miles across eight storm-lashed hours, tracking technology has revealed.
The seven-gram goldcrest’s feat was recorded by Motus, a wildlife tracking system.
A receiver picked up a digitalised radio signal from the bird as it flew over Kilnsea, East Yorks, at dawn on October 21. Researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands had put an ultralight tag on the bird the day before.
The bird’s average speed was over 50mph, though it had a following south-easterly wind.
Nick Whitehouse, of Spurn Bird Observatory in Kilnsea, said: “We have several good examples of birds that have been tagged on the continent and are now flying close enough to the receiver.
“This technology gives you the exact timings and directions of flights. It gives you much more detail about the journey.”
The network of Motus stations, which can also track bats and even butterflies, is expanding.
Bird observatories at Gibraltar Point in Lincolnshire, Portland in Dorset and Alderney in the Channel Islands are installing receivers soon, enabling more detailed tracking of migrations.