Holkham sent us data in mid-September showing that she was still near Oslo. She has visited this site every spring since I tagged her. We received a subsequent update on October 17th. This later fix is not published on the live map – lower resolution fixes are automatically filtered out - but it is accurate enough to suggest that she had not left Norway by that point.
Holkham’s story featured a strange twist this year. We’ve since been able to speak to the gentleman who caught her in Norway in Summer 2019. It was dusk when she flew into a mist-net set for small migrant birds as part of a long-term ringing study on the island of Store Færder. Her leg-ring was read in torchlight before she was quickly released. The ornithologist said she was in good health but did not notice her back-mounted tag (the tags are small and inconspicuous). We know the tag was still attached and working as she has since transmitted from a different island in the Oslofjord.
Like Nellie III, who is currently in Sweden, Holkham is relatively close to her wintering grounds in Norfolk, especially compared to our Russian-British migrants. Given that she can complete her full migration in less than a week, we’d expect to see her waiting to make last minute movements when the weather dictates.