On 4th January 2024 this bird flew east then was probably caught in wind conditions unsuitable for flying to Denmark. The south easterly winds blew it north into Perthshire at Alyth where it then promptly turned back south via Dunkeld and arrived back at Slamannan by the 5th January.
At 00.50 hrs it was roosting at a usual site on the plateau but at 01.30 hrs it flew off and headed east, flew past Linlithgow at 01.50.
By 02.45 still heading east crosses the coast south of Dunbar.
At 03.50 alights on the North Sea 30 miles NE of Berwick.
At 07.23 takes flight in an ESE direction and at 0753 changes its flight direction to ENE.
At 12.05 heads in an easterly direction until 16.34 when it changes again to an ENE direction.
At 17.00 it alights on North Sea until 17.33 when it heads off in an NE direction.
At 22.52 now heads east and alights on the sea within sight of the Danish coast at 00.52.
At 04.52 flies again after a 4 hour rest.
At 06.45 flying ENE crosses the Danish coast south west of Thisted.
At 09.52 touches down near Pandrup.
End of migration flight to staging area.
12.52 flies SW back towards Thisted.
Flight details: crossing time 32 hours, resting on sea 8 hours, flying time 24 hours.
Below is map showing all of this movement given off by its collar tag.
This early movement was not predicted as last year it was later in January before our birds moved east to Denmark.
The weather conditions in Denmark have been much colder than in Scotland with much snow on the ground within their staging areas at Thisted and Pandrup.
We are unsure just how many other birds went with tag5, but out of a winter total of approx 170 birds we appear to still have at least 68 birds still at Slamannan.
