Return to Bass Rock puts twitchers on Maximus alert

BIRDWATCHERS across the country are being asked to watch out for the return of Maximus the gannet.

Maximus set a UK record two years ago as the latest birth yet recorded when he was plucked to safety by the Scottish Seabird Centre from the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth.

The largest single island gannet colony in the world, in summer 150,000 of them crowd onto the Bass Rock.

However, by Christmas day in 2008 one solitary bird had been left alone, abandoned by its parents with little chance of survival in the Scottish winter.

Maximus hit the headlines when Royal Navy Air Rescue Team HMS Gannet in Prestwick came to the rescue and transported the chick as far as Cornwall, where he was then taken by a Cornish fishing trawler and released into the Bay of Biscay.

After two years, fully grown Atlantic gannets usually return to where they were born, and the Seabird Centre is hopeful that Maximus will be able to find his way back home to the Bass Rock.