Common pied oystercatchers / Eurasian oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus) pair on dry stone wall, Shetland Islands, Scotland, UK. | Photo by: Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The hunt is on for a bird tracking device that, instead of logging the bird’s movements, is likely tracking the travels of an unwitting tourist. Researchers are asking for the public’s help to retrieve the tracker so that it can be used to study birds again.
An oystercatcher, a black and white bird with a long, red-orange beak for breaking through shellfish, initially brought the tracker from Dublin, Ireland, to Orkney, an archipelago of islands north of Scotland.
The bird seemed to have lost the tracker at the beach on one of the islands, Sanday, on April 7th. It stayed there until late May, when the device started tracking unusual movements for a bird.
“It’s gone on a bit of a Tiki tour,” Steph…
