By Chris Heward, GWCT Wetlands Research Assistant
The recent sunny weather has revitalised a number of our woodcock’s satellite tags resulting in the welcome return of some of our older birds. The good news continued today with the reappearance of Irina.
Irina was tagged in County Cork in spring 2014, and has visited the same fjordside location in Norway every summer since. The last time she transmitted was August 2017, at which point she was still at her Norwegian breeding site. The new information we received today confirms that she has been back in Ireland this winter. In fact, she’s within 400 m of the site where she was caught 4 years ago. Irina resurfaced in a very similar way in 2016.