As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Tuesday 20 October 2015

Winter is coming – but is Caper the swan?


Staff at Slimbridge wildfowl sanctuary are anxiously awaiting Caper the swan's 23rd winter visit, after a 2,500 mile annual journey from Siberia.


10:00PM BST 17 Oct 2015
It has survived the sort of hazard that each year claims the lives of dozens of his fellow travellers; from the threat of colliding with deadly power lines to being shot by hunters on the ground.

Now the eyes of those who follow his progress from the Siberia wastes are once again trained on the horizon, anxiously awaiting his return to his traditional winter home in south west England.

For most of the past quarter of a century, at the close of each autumn, Caper the swan has migrated from the depths of the Russian Arctic tundra to the wetlands of the Slimbridge wildfowl sanctuary in Gloucestershire, clocking up a total of more than 135,000 miles.

And staff at Slimbridge, who are conducting one of the longest-running studies of bird migration patterns, are now anxiously awaiting Caper’s 23rd winter visit.

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