White bred Sandwich Tern

Ewan Weston from the Grampian Ringing Group writes:

On 19 June, Grampian Ringing Group carried out some colour ringing at the Sandwich Tern colony in the Sands of Forvie NNR, Aberdeenshire. The group has a long running study on the species to gather information on survival, recruitment and movements. While rounding up some of the young for ringing, one eagle eyed trainee spotted a pure white chick amongst the regular coloured chicks. This bird was colour ringed, although we were not hugely hopeful of the prospects for a white bird as it would be more noticeable to predators. The photos of the chick were sent to an expert who suggested the bird was probably not an albino, but has the recessive Ino mutation, which results in very poor oxidation of melanin.

White Sandwich Tern and birds in regular plumage. Photo by John Tymon.

Since ringing, we have had several sightings, initially as this distinctive bird migrated down the east coast of Scotland and then over on the west coast of England at Ainsdale beach in Merseyside where it has spent a few weeks. Several people have sent us photographs of it and it has turned into a truly magnificent tern.

Flying alongside a 'normal' Sandwich Tern. Photo by John Tymon.

From this colour ringing project, over the last few years we have found that once birds leave their breeding sites they spend several months on the UK coast (often north of their breeding sites) before heading south to winter predominantly in Africa. Very few Sandwich Terns return to Europe in their second summer, with most only migrating back to Europe in their third or fourth summer. It will be quite a long wait to see if this bird returns to Scotland in a few years time to breed, but if it does I am sure it will be seen.

As this project highlights, sightings of colour marked birds have helped increase our knowledge of the movements and behaviours of many species, not just Sandwich Terns. So, if you see a colour marked bird (or find a bird fitted with just a metal ring), please report it at www.ring.ac.

The return of the Waxwing!

Ringer Peter Alker from Orrell, Greater Manchester, recently got in touch with the 'Demog Blog' team with some rather interesting news:

"It is many a birder’s dream to have a Waxwing visit their garden and that dream came true for me in February 2013, when one started feeding on apples I had put out for thrushes and wintering Blackcaps. One was soon joined by another, and the number steadily grew, peaking in mid-April with 220 birds chomping their way through 25 kilos of apples each day! Some birds stayed well into spring and the last three were seen on 8th May, by which time I had caught 265 birds, nine of which had been ringed elsewhere in the UK or abroad.

A Waxwing tree - Peter Alker

Waxwing - Peter Alker

Since then, people have often asked me if any have come back to the garden or if I think they will. I would always tell them that none had returned and that I thought it would be unlikely, even if there was another big irruption; such is the Waxwing’s reputation as an irruptive migrant in search of food. The number of Waxwings recorded in the UK this winter has been particularly low, so I was astonished, to say the least, when one turned up in my garden last Saturday (7th February), almost two years on from the appearance of the first in 2013. It was an adult female but, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see if it was already ringed. It didn’t visit the garden the following day so I was relieved when it returned the next Monday and incredibly I could see it was wearing a metal ring. Grabbing a camera, I was able to read the ring number from photographs and it was a bird I’d ringed in the garden as a first-winter female on 23rd February 2013.

The key shots from the hundreds of photos taken.

On the face of it, the appearance of this bird was a bit of a contradiction as it seemed unlikely that it had returned to my garden by chance but on the other hand irruptive species are not known for showing any site fidelity in winter. I wasn’t sure if there had been any similar occurrences so I contacted Raymond Duncan, of Grampian Ringing Group, who has been colour-ringing Waxwings in and around Aberdeen since 1988. He confirmed that they only have seven records of birds returning to the UK in subsequent winters, from over 3,100 birds ringed there, and only three of these were to the original ringing site. One of these birds was ringed in Kintore, near Aberdeen in February 2009 and photographed back in the same village in February 2010; also a winter when there were very few Waxwings in the country.

Waxwing - Peter Alker

So what, if anything, could these records tell us? They may be the exceptions, but it seems to me that Waxwings have the capability to return to sites used in previous winters in certain circumstances, and it is the circumstances that are rare and not the ability itself. Most Waxwings will not need to move to the UK in search of food more than once in their lifetime, as large irruptions are relatively infrequent and Waxwings are not particularly long-lived. Their main food source of berries can vary in abundance in the UK, affecting the birds’ distribution and movements in search of food. They are a very gregarious species in winter and the behaviour of an individual will be influenced by other birds in the flock. These factors together reduce the likelihood of any Waxwing being found returning to the same site in the UK in subsequent winters.

The interesting point about these two birds is that both had returned to previously-used sites in non-irruption years. This might suggest that they were returning in search of other Waxwings and not just in the search for food. Lastly, a further factor in the case of my bird is the provision of apples. It was ringed on 23rd February 2013 and was retrapped later that winter (on 28th March), so had stayed over a month and probably much longer. The provision of apples for Waxwings is a relatively recent phenomena and experience of a long-term reliable food source may have played a part in the return of this particular bird."

Hola Common Gull!

Calum Campbell from Grampian Ringing Group writes:

After the continuing success of the large gull colour-ringing project in North-East Scotland, this summer Grampian Ringing Group undertook a new project to cover Black-headed and Common Gulls. One of the main aims of the project is to find out the dispersal and wintering patterns of the chicks from the various colonies in the region. On 30th June this year, we visited an inland colony of 2200 Common Gulls stretching over vast moorland (red pin).

Tillypronie colony - Euan Ferguson

There are very few colonies of such scale left in the UK after large declines in the breeding population. During the single ringing visit we ringed 180 chicks, 150 of which were also colour-ringed. Since ringing, six sightings have come in of Common Gull juveniles dispersing from this colony. Five of them were dotted around the North-East coast, valuable information, but we did get one sighting we did not expect.

Common Gull in Santa Crus de Oleiros - Antonio

A few days ago an email arrived from Sergio Paris, reporting that his friend Antonio had seen and photographed a Common Gull carrying an orange darvic (2XKN) in Santa Cruz de Oleiros, North-West SPAIN (green pin)!

According to the BTO recoveries database up until last year 94,916 Common Gulls had been ringed in the UK and Ireland. Only 1 of these had been recovered in Spain, a bird ringed in Kerry, Ireland in 1957 (blue pin)! Found only 7 miles from this one!


View Common Gull in Spain! in a larger map

This sighting is exceptional for the project and the ringing scheme but with only six sightings we are far from building a clear picture of where the majority of Grampian’s Common Gulls spend the winter. All sightings of all species of gulls are much appreciated and if you are not a ringer, sightings can be reported via ring.ac.

A Greenshank fae Aiberdeen to Ireland to Spain

Raymond Duncan writes:

Over 250 Greenshank have been colour-ringed since 2005 in a joint Grampian/Tay RG project investigating the origins, site fidelity and onward movements of birds on autumn passage through the Ythan Estuary (near Aberdeen) and Montrose Basin, NE Scotland. Ten individuals have been resighted in Ireland and four in Spain.

Look out behind you! YB-LB has been recorded wintering
in NW Spain for the past 6 years. Photo by Antonio Gutierrez

Recent reports of juvenile 'RL: Light green/blue LL: Blue/black' have been particularly interesting not only because of the speed of travel but also because it is our first sighting that confirms some birds visit Ireland before re-orientating south to Spain and beyond for the winter. It was ringed as a juvenile on the Ythan Estuary on 11/09/12.

Dermot Breen then resighted and photographed it (below) 11 days later at Muckrush, Lough Corrib, County Galway, right over near the west coast of Ireland.

LB-BN in Galway, Ireland by Dermot Breen

He prudently commented that he thought the bird was just passing through as Greenshank aren’t too common at this inland site. How correct he was. Five days later Daniel Lopez Velasco resighted and photographed it (below) at Ponteceso Estuary, A. Coruna, NW Spain.

LB-BN in NW Spain by Daniel Lopez Velasco

Thanks very much to both for reporting these sightings. Please keep an eye out for colour-ringed Greenshank where ever you are. Holiday birders have reported colour-ringed birds in Morroco, the Nijer Delta and this regular spring visitor on the Cape Verde Islands.

LB-LO at Santiago on the Cape Verde Islands on 10/3/12 by Danial Mauras

October oddities and November notables

Grampian Ringing Group definitely got the distance prize for October with a Sandwich Tern turning up in Liberia, West Africa (5679km in 488 days). This chick was ringed at Sands of Forvie Nature Reserve, Aberdeenshire last year and was caught by children playing on the beach in Robertsport but unfortunately died.

We also received 8 reports of Lesser Black-backed Gull wintering in Portugal and all but one were live sightings. Mute Swans were also very evident with lots of sightings but some hitting overhead power cables and one or two in poor condition. Unusually we didn't get many reports of Barn Owls in poor condition but we did get 12 reports of car victims. All of the ones that died were ringed as chicks this year. One bird, strangely, was seen flying straight into a wall and then a parked car before being rescued and taken into care.


There was also a nice Blackcap report "found and released" on 25th October in Tizi-Ouzou, Algiers, Algeria that was ringed near Sleaford, Lincolnshire in May this year (1839km in 174 days). Another notable passerine was a Chiffchaff ringed in Northumberland in August and was found dead after connecting with a vehicle in Candresse, France in October (1257km in 37 days!)

All the above recoveries have been processed and found in either October or November. We are still getting reports of birds found in November so this is not an exhaustive list. Thanks to Dawn Balmer for the photo.

Two birds in a million

There are currently over 2700 volunteer bird ringers all over the country, ringing birds and collecting vital information on bird movements and life histories.

Last year was a great breeding season for most birds and produced lots of young to breed this year. With this in mind and with the increase in the number of ringers, 2010 will be forever known as the year that over a million birds were ringed for the first time! So far a total of 1,047,092 birds were ringed and have been loaded into our database.


The millionth bird is a bit harder to calculate as a Yellowhammer ringed by the Grampian Ringing Group near Collieston, Aberdeenshire and a Coal Tit ringed by David Proll near Raglan, Gwent were both ringed at the same time, 2pm on 5 December.

Thanks to all our ringers who made this possible.

More information is on our news pages on our website.

Thanks to Rachael Portnall for the photo.

Swedish birds legs

Raymond Duncan writes:

A long morning for Lindsay Cargill, Walter Burns, Derek Robertson and Euan Ferguson in Allenvale Cemetery, Aberdeen on 5/11/10 was finally interrupted by a single waxwing flying into the mist net. It turned out be a juvenile male wearing a Swedish ring 3474720! Ringing information is on its way.


Sadly and unbelievably this bird killed itself against a window 5 days later in Aberdeen. The legs and rings arrived back in the post thanks to local ornithologist Ian Patterson. The bill from Royal Mail for £1.19 for the oversize package is in the post Ian! Never the less, this is our first recovery (not including sightings) out of nearly 200 Waxwings ringed!


Another 9 window fatalities of which none were ringed, were collected from another site but please keep checking any dead birds, roaming flocks and any photographs of Waxwings for colour rings.

Thanks very much to all for sightings so far. Most recent sightings have been from Harry Bickerstaff in Montrose, Jim Duncan at Hogganfield Loch, Glasgow and Kane Brides in Greater Manchester. Jim Duncan sent a photograph of a colour-ringed bird showing only the metal and white ring, which wasn’t enough to identify the individual. He very kindly returned the next day only to get a photograph of a different colour-ringed bird!

Raymond Duncan
(On behalf of Grampian Ringing Group)

Italian sandwiches

DE10153 was ringed in June 2008 on Ythan Estuary in Aberdeenshire by Grampian Ringing Group . Adriano Talamelli and his team captured it in September 2010, two years later in Salina di Comacchio (Ferrara,Italy). Salina di Comacchio is a regular ringing site of Adriano and his team, as well as a wintering site for this species. Notably, in the same place another tern was controlled in 2006; a 22 year old Sandwich Tern ringed in Ireland!

DE10153 was colour-marked with a cohort colour combination. The colour rings show the origin and the hatching year but don't identify it individually. In the Ringing office we therefore encourage the use of individual colour marks.

View DE10153 in a larger map
About 2000 sandwich terns are ringed in the UK and Ireland every year. Until last year, we had records of 28 of them having been reported from Italy, but this is the first since 2006.

So far this Autumn we have had another report of a Sandwich Tern; from Coimbra, Portugal.
Adriano Talamelli, who coordinates the sighting of forgein colour-marked birds in Italy, was kind enough to supply us with some lovely photographs of Sandwich Terns and we look forward to hearing from his team again in the future with more controls of British ringed birds.