A spot of bad luck!

In the 35+ years since the formation of Grampian ringing group, only a handful of spotted redshanks (probably less than 10) have been ringed by the group. This autumn was quite remarkable for the group as one night while ringing greenshank and redshank a spotted redshank was caught - the first for over 5 years! Only a few days later another two were caught together - all three were juveniles. It is fantastic to see this species in the hand and really appreciate the differences with it's commoner cousins. We were very surprised when we saw the species appear in a recent batch of recoveries. The first of the Autumn, caught on the Ythan Estuary 31 August 2013 had been found dead on the 6th of November on a Nature Reserve near la Rochelle on the West coast of France. This is the first recovery of the species for the group and only the 14th recovery for the BTO ringing scheme.

The unlucky spotted redshank found, later found dead in France 1216km further on it's migration (Ewan Weston)