Return of an old friend...

This was the title of an email I received last week. It was from Gary Woodburn who, for those that can remember, reported 2AAJ at Seahouses, Northumberland in February last year (see here).

As you've probably guessed, earlier this month, the same bird has turned up back at Seahouses.

Photo by Gary Woodburn

Photo by Gary Woodburn

As I've talked about before, it's amazing how predictable arrival and departure dates of individual birds are and as such, T35J should be departing soon. It'll be interesting to see if it's recorded at Antrim this weekend or not.

Wintering birds are now starting to depart and head back to their breeding grounds and Benny Middendorp is reporting that known breeders are returning to his local colony. Locally, numbers of gulls on Larne Lough have increased dramatically in recent days, in what looks like the beginning of the annual influx of birds which Neal Warnock wrote about on this blog a couple of years back (see here).

Spring is in the air!