The mystery of a £1000 bird tracking device that went missing from the Orkney Islands and ended up in Ealing has been solved after an Ealing man realised he was the finder of the tracker.
Mike German told BBC Radio Orkney how he found the device during his three week holiday in Orkney and when he came back realised it was the missing tracker.
“I found it near a fence post on Sanday when we spent a morning there looking round the dunes and walking across the beach,” he revealed. “It was a dull sort of day, but it had been very blustery the night before, so we thought we’d get some fresh air and make the most of Sanday – which is a beautiful island. I just suddenly saw this item, and I thought: ‘Ooh, I wonder what that is’. l just thought it was something that had dropped off a boat’s buoy or something. I never thought it was a tracker. I picked it up and put it in my pocket, then in my little bag with the shells I’d picked up from the beach.”
Another Ealing resident heard about the story and produced a missing tracker leaflet which went to a number of homes, one of which was Mike’s and then it became obvious what he found.
The device is now being sent back to researchers at the University of Exeter who had fitted the device to an oystercatcher.
