MULTIPLE RESIGHTINGS OF COLOUR-RINGED WAXWINGS ALREADY

 As the Waxwings continue to move through the UK (and beyond!) we are delighted to have already received 50 distant (>50km) colour-ringed sightings of birds from our Orkney and NE Scotland colour-ringing/tracking project. 

A huge thank you to all ringers, birders, photographers and observers who have gone to the bother of reporting their sightings to us. It is very much appreciated. Many have been from photographs, some discovered afterwards whilst sifting through them at home on the camera or computer. 

All are very exciting and of great interest to us and it gets even more exciting and interesting when the same colour-ringed bird turns up again elsewhere. We have had 7 of these multiple resightings already this winter, featured below, and another, not a multiple resighting but worthy of mention, has already returned to the continent, resighted in Denmark on 18^th December, our earliest ever returner.

MAP OF WAXWING MULTIPLE COLOUR-RING SIGHTINGS UP TO 29/12/23

Apologies but there are too many observers to list here for the sightings. Massive thank you to all.

KEY         XXX = Colour ring combination (eg RYW = Red over Yellow over White)

1              OOY Saltcoates, Ayrshire           13/11
                         Gargrave, North Yorkshire 12/12
                         Barnoldswick, Lancashire  16/12
                         Clitheroe, Lancashire         17/12

2              WOO Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent                          8/12 – 11/12
                          Severalls Ind. Park, Colchester, Essex  23/12

3              RYW Gainsborough, Lincolnshire         17/12
                          Newton Aycliffe, County Durham 24/12

4              BOB Severalls Ind. Park, Colchester, Essex 15/12 - 17/12
                         Halisham, East Sussex                         26/12

5              LNW Bakewell, Derbyshire      19/12
                         Sefton Street, Liverpool  26/12

6             RWO Musselburgh                   21/11
                         Sedbergh, Cumbria       11/12

7              RYR Rendlesham, Suffolk      11/12
                         Farnham, Surrey            29/12

 So these multiple resightings (and the bird to Denmark) have pretty much covered all compass points on their travels through the UK, and beyond, so far in search of berries. And it’s only just past Xmas! It will be very interesting to see what they do in the next few months.

                  BNW 18/12 Langeland, Denmark.  Henrik Knudsen

                                                                                

                   OOY 12/12 Gargrave, North Yorkshire.  Annie Shadrake

                   WOO 23/12 Colchester.  Dan Mills

                 RYW 17/12 Gainsborough, Lincs.  Joe Downing

BOB 26/12 Hailsham, East Sussex.  Maria McGrath

LNW 19/12 Hassop Station, Derbyshire.  Andy Gregory

                            RWO 21/11 Musselburgh.  Len Hunter

                     RYR 11/12 Rendlesham, Suffolk.  Jim Mountain

We have been asking observers about “their” flock sizes and what berries the Waxwings have been feeding on which might give us a wee clue to their future plans. The berries of course are the critical thing in the Waxwing’s winter life and govern the distances they have to travel. They have been on quite a variety of rowans and hawthorns mostly so far by looks of things.

Back up here in Aberdeen we’re in a wee bit of a huff really as the Waxwings have all but gone. The critical rowan berries which they prefer to feed on had a rather patchy crop up here and critically there weren’t enough to see the birds through to the transition to Tree Cotoneaster which usually happens about Xmas. The Tree Cotoneaster has a very good crop so we are intrigued to see if the Waxwings might have a “berry memory bank” (ooh there’s a project for some keen student?!) and some return north to capitalise on this food supply.

Thank you all very much again for all your great sightings, photographs and interesting observations. Keep up the good work. We’ll post up a map of all December’s colour ring sightings and some more of your great photographs in early January.

Oh and worthy of further discussion will be the 2 colour ringed birds resighted at the same site at Hassop Station, near Bakewell, Derbyshire in the same week and another 2 at the same site at Ipswich, Suffolk in the same week, all ringed on the same day in Elgin.

Have a Happy New Year.

Raymond Duncan and Grampian Ringing Group                 

WAXWINGS moving south, coming to a car park or street near you!

 After being busy ringing Waxwings for much of November up here in Aberdeen and Elgin it is a tad disappointing to see numbers drop away as a rather patchy rowan crop begins to run out.

There were still a few wee flocks around into December.

Olivier, Edgar, Edit, Mya and Karla Jolly photographed a bunch on the smallest rowan tree in Aberdeen on Sunday 3/12……..!!

And got 3 interestingly diverse colour ringed birds in the flock…………

(B = Blue, G = Green, L = Light Green, O = Orange, R = Red, W = White)

GOR       adM       Ringed  5/11     Kings Gate

OGW      juvF        Ringed  13/11   Elgin     

BBB        adF        Ringed  22/11  Claremont Gardens

(photographs below)

   

                                                                   

GOR was our longest staying bird so far at just under a month until Jenny saw GLR, another bird from the 5/11 catch in her inlaws garden on 5/12.

We’ve now had 13 resightings already (7 local and 6 distant) from that catch of 38 at King’s Gate/Stronsay Drive on 5/11! Our loss is other folks gain though. 

The map below by Euan Ferguson shows all the resightings of colour-ringed birds up to end of November from the ringing in Orkney, Elgin and Aberdeen. A really big thank you to everybody for reporting their sightings, most nowadays accompanied by photographs, some of which are just so close up and sharp they are incredible.

Showing typical lack of flock fidelity and random dispersal, sightings have come from a wide variety of places. A juvenile male was retrapped by ringers away over in the Western Isles in Tobha isgeirnis on 15/11, 2 weeks after ringing in Aberdeen. Many were in the Central Belt and into Northern England. One had reached Northern Ireland 24/11. Most southern birds so far are one in Welshpool, Montgomeryshire, Wales in the west and Boston, Lincolnshire in the east.

RBW juvM  28/11 Motherwell John Agnew  

                   

           

 YNW juvF 30/11 Barnoldswick, E.Lancashire, Kevin Singleton

                                                                   

     

        WR adF 27/11 Knaresborough, Mark Whorley

As mentioned in the last post a Waxwing in the hand is worth two in the bush not only because you get to see all their unique plumage features in real fine detail but other surprises can sometimes be revealed. For example in this invasion a few of the juveniles have still been in body moult, most noticeable around the head, and quite a few of the adults have not been able to complete their wing moult before migrating. This suggests a fairly abrupt, rushed departure, probably driven by a sudden need to find food. Birds need to be in their best condition before undertaking such hazardous journeys as a 400km+ flight across the North Sea but the photo below is one example of several adults ringed this invasion which still had some old wing feathers from last year.   

Above is an adult wing with an old outer primary feather (brown looking) and a partially grown second outer primary feather. In the secondary wing feathers (zoomed in on bottom photo) the first 2 are new and almost fully grown but the inner 4 are old (very ragged looking)

                                                 

                                                         

                                                    

The above 3 photos show a juvenile still in body/head moult with old loose head feather, pins on the throat and chin where new feathers were growing in and a semi naked underwing.

Lots more colour-ring sightings have been coming in during December. WOO at Fenton, Stoke-in -Trent and BOB in Severalls Industrial Park, Colchester trying to out do each others celebratey status as the most photographed colour-ringed Waxwing this winter and BNW, our earliest ever returning bird to the continent, sighted in Denmark on 18/12. We'll post up something early in the New Year. 

And finally some quick Waxwing news from our foreign correspondents. Jane Reid in Trondheim, Norway, "still had a few Waxies hanging on in here" on Monday the 4th December whilst Sam Lopez said "in Spain this winter there had been 4 sightings of 5 birds (that means a flock of 2?!), 3 in Galicia, the first in 19 years, and 1 in the Basque country."

Thank you all very much again for reporting your sightings of colour-ringed Waxwings along with some amazing photographs. Keep up the good work. 

Have a very Merry Xmas and a guid New Year. Hopefully your New Year bird list will kick off with a flock of Waxwings (and a colour-ringed one in it).

Raymond and Grampian Ringing Group

A waxwing winter

Well what a super Waxwing invasion! An early spread of birds from mid-October including down into England and over to the west and right down to the south west suggested it was going to be a big one. Now flocks of 100s and up to 1,000 have confirmed this.

Over 100 have been ringed on Shetland and also on Orkney, where 69 of them have also been colour-ringed. 224 have been colour-ringed in NE Scotland in Elgin, Banchory and Aberdeen. We would be very grateful to all observers and photographers if they could report any colour ringed birds they might see or find on their photographs. Some birds are on the move down the country already, continuing their search for rowans and other berries, whilst others have settled down a bit. We have been receiving lots of sightings already. Thank you very much.

A bird ringed in Finstown, Orkney on 29^th October was photographed by Stuart McMahon and Steve Clarke in Saltcoates, Ayrshire on 10^th November.

Juvenile female Waxwing Orange/Orange/Yellow ringed in Finstown, Orkney on 29^th October and photographed by Stuart McMahon and Steve Clarke (shown) in Saltcoates, Ayrshire on 10^th November.

Juvenile male Waxwing Green/Red/Red basking in the Aberdeen sun on 6^th November (Mark Sullivan) the day after ringing nearby.

 

From a catch of 38 in Aberdeen on 5^th November so far colour-ringed birds have been photographed in Dunblane on 12^th November by Gillian Baird, Glasgow on the 16^th by Stuart Watson and Newcastle on the 17^th by Mike Carr while one was retrapped still in Aberdeen on the 22nd. 

Juvenile female Waxwing Light Green/Blue/Red basking in the Dunblane sunshine on 12^th November (Gillian Baird)

Adult male Waxwing Green/Green/Red basking in the Glasgow sun on Possil Road on 16^th November (Stuart Watson).

Juvenile male Waxwing Red/Orange/Orange basking in the Newcastle sun in Benton on 17^th November (Mike Carr).

2 others ringed on the 4^th and 8^th were resighted by Ian Rendall in a flock of 60 25kms out of town in rural Banchory on 15th. One of these was photographed 5 days later in Errol, Perth & Kinross 85kmSW by Christine Hall who then on going to see another flock at Invergowrie in Dundee on the same day photographed another colour-ringed bird, this time from Elgin ringed on the 13^th. 

And Red/White/Orange in Musselburgh on 21^st surely photographed at a distance of 1m by Len Hunter?!

Juvenile male Waxwing Red/White/Orange photographed in Musselburgh on 21^st November (Len Hunter)

A Finnish ringed bird has had its ring partially read from photographs in Kirkwall, Orkney but efforts to catch it have so far proved unsuccessful.

It is both fascinating and exciting to follow the movements of these irruptive winter visitors when we are lucky enough to have an invasion but it’s not so good news for them. They have vacated their breeding areas to find a lack of berries and so have had to make a sea crossing into unknown territory (for most of them) in search of food. Fortunately many of our towns and cities have large amounts of ornamental rowan trees which attract and support these hungry birds but this comes at a cost. A lot of them have never come across houses and windows (and bus shelters) before! Along with other urban hazards such as traffic, cats and sparrowhawks mortality is quite high.

 

Window strike fatalities are particularly common. We have heard of 19 so far this invasion in Aberdeen and Banchory. The photos show a rather innocuous yellow rowan tree beside houses in Kincorth, Aberdeen. A flock of up to 100 birds were coming into feed on it when we found it and despite birds usually flying out the opposite way to rest in taller trees 3 dead birds were found below the windows to the left. The occupant was disappointed to hear about this and her upstairs windows now have large black bird silhouettes on them. Maybe too late for this winter but we’ll alert her in future winters if the Waxwings come back.

When you arrive at a typical site such as this rowan tree in the street do have a look around for nearby obvious house windows reflecting back trees and/or sky. Have a word with the owners who perhaps could open or shut blinds/curtains to reduce this reflection. Or even better silhouette shapes or anything dark/matt. It will only be required for a short period of time (a few days maximum?) as Waxwings are like locusts and all the berries will soon be gobbled up and the birds will move on. 

Local wildlife rescue New Arc have also highlighted the issue of window strikes recently: https://www.facebook.com/newarcwildliferescue/posts/pfbid023Dnp4CdwVnBvDWQMax1FeZtK31e54yzpntMnmRDo2rzeR9hmyAoyamH9nvxJyHVRl.

 

Please try and be a step ahead and take action, and spread awareness of how to protect these birds.

 

Here's hoping we’ll post again soon with more colour ring sightings from observers and photographers helping us to follow the Waxwings fortunes and movements throughout the country.

We’ll also describe how a Waxwing in the hand is worth two in the bush: As their moult reveals just how abruptly some of these birds have had to leave home to find food. And their unique plumage features sometimes enables us to pin point which bird it is when colour ring reports are uncertain. Just what are the Waxwings favourite berries? And has Elgin taken over from Aberdeen as the new Waxwing capital?

 

rduncan393@outlook.com

Grampian Ringing Group