Tern sighting in Namibia

Today we received a fantastic sighting of one of the 200 sandwich terns we individually colour ringed in August and September on the Ythan Estuary. We have had 65 sightings, mostly locally and 5 separate sightings in France in October and November. Since then all has been quiet until I received a very welcome email from Mark Boorman, a ringer in Namibia, to say that he had seen EFK at the salt pans where he studies terns – a distance of 8,979km. Mark has previously caught birds that we have ringed as chicks in the colony on the Ythan.

During the autumn catches we caught over 50 ringed birds from elsewhere in the UK, many of which we have now received details from the BTO. Most of these birds have come from colonies on the Farne Islands in Northumberland, the oldest being 24 years old.

EDD at Blackdog August 2010 (Nick Littlewood).

EHD at Burghead, Moray September 2010 (David Pullan).

ETH at Ile Tristan, Brittany, FRANCE (Mickael Buanic).

Hopefully we'll get some more sightings as they return in the next few months.

Ewan

Recent Cormorant Sightings

A Cormorant chick colour ringed DXV at Forvie in 2007 was seen on 03/02/11 by Afonso Rocha on the Tagus Estuary, Lisbon, Portugal. We have previously had birds resighted in Spain and France, but this is our furthest south yet.

HHC and HLF by Tristan Folland

Another interesting sighting was HHC and HLF, both seen together in a group of only 13 birds by Tristan Folland on 09/02/11 at Waterbeach Gravel Pits, Cambridgeshire. They are both from different colonies from different years, HHC was ringed at Forvie in 2008 and HLF at Inverbervie in 2009. This shows how important these inland water bodies in central England are for wintering cormorants from NE Scotland (and other areas presumably).

HHC in breeding plumage at Forvie by Chris Jones

HHC has returned each summer to the Forvie colony and leaves in early September. It has not attempted to breed yet, maybe this year it will return and do so.

CUU at Seaforth, Merseyside by Chris Gregson 07/02/11

Cormorants have been colour ringed by GRG since 2005. We have had an extremely high resighting rate, an average of 1 in 4 birds. Thank you to all observers and photographers.