AN OLD FRIEND RETURNS

Waxwing colour-ringing this winter has been taking place in Orkney, NE Scotland and Newtown in Wales (so far up to mid-January 2024). As in previous winters there has been a single colour ring with the metal put on one leg and 2 or 3 colour rings on the other. I’m sure everybody who has seen and or photographed a colour-ringed Waxwing is happy that the bird is in no way bothered or hindered by these small and very light weight rings and is going about its activities in the very same way as all the others in the flock.

BWR stretching for a Mistletoe berry Great Malvern, Worcestershire 06/01/24, Simon Pugh

GYW drinking Hassop Station, Derbyshire 29/12/23, Simon Benyon

Metal over blue is the code for this winter 2023/24, on the right leg for Scotland and on the left leg for Wales, with the other colour rings on the opposite leg.

In case you are wondering we don’t give the birds names, just the abbreviations of their colour ring combinations!  eg BOB is Blue over Orange over Blue colour rings.

A = Ash/Grey (as G is used for Dark Green), B = Blue, G =Dark Green, L = Light Green, N = Black (Niger as B is already used for Blue), O = Orange, R = Red, White = White, Y = Yellow.

OLO Aldermaston, Berkshire 24/01/24, Dave Webster

BLB Newton Aycliffe, County Durham 16/12/23, Roger Simpson

 I think some of the observers in Colchester, Essex were quite pleased to have their colour-ringed Waxwing quaintly called BOB around, maybe not aware that it was an abbreviation of the colour ring combination until the not so quaintly named WOO (White over Orange over Orange) turned up from Stoke-on-Trent!

BOB Severalls Industrial Park, Colchester  15/12/23, John French

WOO Fenton, Stoke on Trent 09/12/23, Phil Cooper

So with lots and lots of photographs/sightings coming in during November and December showing a metal over blue ring on one of the legs it came as a bit of a surprise when an email from Alex Jones (not the one from the One Show I don’t think but I haven’t asked) came in alerting us to a post on a local WhatsApp group he’d seen with a photo of a colour-ringed Waxwing taken by Fred Fearn at Abergele, North Wales clearly showing a metal ring over a red colour ring on the right leg (and White over Red over Yellow on the left). This was the code for last winter, 2022/23, when we ringed a mere 25 Waxwings in a winter of very small numbers. I quickly got back in touch with Alex asking if there’s any way he could get in touch with Fred to, most importantly of all, get a date of when the photograph was taken to confirm it was from this winter. Fred replied himself saying it was taken on 1^st Jan 2024. What a great start to the New Year!

MR-WRY Abergele, North Wales 01/01/24, Fred Fearn 

So it was indeed a returning bird from winter 2022/23. A quick look at our ringing records showed WRY to have been ringed as a juvenile female by Innes on 30^th Nov. 2022. She was 1 of 4 birds Innes, Sam and Raymond managed to catch that morning standing with a mist net across the pavement outside a pub in Kincorth, Aberdeen. We remember laughing with a mannie that we were playing badminton! Then we were delighted to hear about her again when she rather unexpectedly headed back across the North Sea to be resighted/photographed in Denmark on 26^th Jan 2023 by Flemming Pedersen! 

MR-WRY Aalborg, Denmark 26/01/23, Flemming Pedersen

It's very exciting when we get a returning bird as we don’t get many (I think this our 8^th from around 4550 Waxwings ringed over the years by Grampian RG). Waxwings aren’t nailed on annual winter visitors like the Redwings and Fieldfares which arrive every winter from Scandinavia. Some winters can see very few if any Waxwings arrive at all, being an irruptive species dependent on the availability of berries back home.

A huge thank you to you all for reporting your colour ringed Waxwing sightings to us and kindly allowing us to use some of your super photographs on our blog. These one or two colour-ringed birds within a flock of 3 - 100 birds (or the exceptional 11 in the flock of 250+ at Hassop Station, Derbyshire!) allows us to track their movements and gives us a little insight into the vagaries of their fascinating social life, movements, fidelity and survival.

Raymond and Grampian Ringing Group

 

A MERRY WAXWING XMAS AND A HAPPY WAXWING NEW YEAR!

A Happy New Year and massive thank you to all birders, observers and photographers for reporting their colour-ringed Waxwing sightings to us. It has certainly been a busy December and start to January. See map by Euan Ferguson (below). See Sam Lopez on Twitter @Naturalist_Sam for an animated version!

It is clear from the map that many of the Waxwings moved on south out of Scotland and kept on going with several sightings south of London before the New Year. And “returning birds?!” (not on map) to Denmark, Norway and Sweden already!

                            

 RYR Farnham, Surrey 7/1/24, Emma Stephenson

                                    

 BWR Greater Malvern, Worcestershire 6/1/24, Andy Richardson

WGW Uckfield, Sussex 6/1/24, Keith DP Wilson

 YNW Barnoldswick, East Lancashire 30/11/23, Dave Markendale

However just as interesting as the movers are the stayers. Birds in the north of England included YNW, found in Barnoldswick, East Lancashire on 30^th Nov. which then turned up over a month later on 4^th. Jan only 55km to the east in Middleton Quernhow, North Yorkshire. RYW was in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire 17^th Dec. then turned up a week later on Xmas eve in Newton Aycliffe, Co Durham 145km to the north west.             

 

RYW Gainsborough,Lincolnshire 17/12/23, Joe Downing

 And a few were still hanging on in Scotland.

Lorraine McCormack photographed juvenile female WOW (below) at the south approaches to the Kincardine Bridge near Falkirk on New Years Day and also managed to capture a bit of pair bonding between WOW and an unringed male, passing a berry back and forth to each other repeatedly.

                                                

Hassop Station (Café depending on the reporters tendancies!), near Bakewell in Derbyshire was the place to be though if you’re a Waxwing with 250+ reported feeding on hawthorn berries along the old railway line. 10 colour-ringed birds have been reported from here so far between 19th Dec. and 13^th Jan. See some photos below:

 

LYW after drinking, Hassop 6/1/24, Tim Russon

 
 OGW “Where’s all the berries gone?” Hassop 6/1/24, Peter Garrity

 
WYW Hassop 13/1/24, Richard Oswold

Waxwings generally show little flock fidelity and pretty random dispersal when they arrive in the UK so it is interesting to speculate how flock faithful some of these birds at Hassop Station are. Seven have come from the same flock, same day ringing in Elgin on 13^th Nov., 1 from Aberdeen on 4^th Nov. and 1 from Orkney on 7^th Nov. We’ll take a closer look at this in a future post.

 The large flock at Hassop is feeding on hawthorn berries, a berry species they all but ignored in NE Scotland this winter, much preferring the rowan berries. It has been very interesting to see from photographs and information provided by observers what the Waxwings are feeding on at various other locations around the country.

 LLO photographed by Keith Gillon near Longniddry, East Lothian 7/1/24 was not only notable for still being in Scotland but also for feeding on rose hips.  

     

Keith commented, “The birds were managing to feed on the rose hips though they maybe did select the smaller ones.”

Interestingly WYG, seen by Angus Croudace on 27/12, also still in Scotland in Abernethy, Perthshire, was also feeding on rose hips. Rose hips are not just a Scottish thing though, Andrew Merrick reported birds at Arborfield Garrison, Berkshire feeding on them.

It was great to see the Waxwings tucking into big juicy bunches of white rowan berries at Farnham in Surrey and Orpington in Kent. This ornamental rowan, sorbus hupehensis, can be found scattered around Aberdeen but none of the trees here had anywhere near such an abundant crop of berries as those shown in the Waxwing photos from these sites.

BYR Farnham, Surrey 30/12/23, George Newton

RRB Orpington, Kent 9/1/24, R. Sim

WGW on Hawthorns Uckfield, Sussex 5/1/24, Alex Brookes 

What I’ve never seen and was reported from Great Malvern in Worcestershire and Farnham in Surrey amongst other places is Waxwings feeding on Mistletoe berries.

Mistletoe is not a common berry at all up here in NE Scotland so thanks to Emma & Graham Stephenson for some extra photographs of the birds eating Mistletoe berries in Farnham and to Simon Pugh for the video footage from Great Malvern. From what I can see the Waxwings have to work quite hard to get the berries, searching around in the foliage for each single or double berries. A big bunch of red, yellow or white berries on bare stems looks a lot easier to me but having said that the Mistletoe berries do look quite large, soft and juicy.

Waxwings feeding on Mistletoe berries Farnham, Surrey 7/1/24, Emma Stephenson

BWR swallowing a Mistletoe berry Greater Malvern, Worcestershire 6/1/24, Paul Harwood Browne

As well as reporting your colour-ring sightings (and flock size and berry types)  we would be interested to hear about any casualties anybody might have come across to add to our casualties table below.

Many thanks again for everybody’s tremendous contributions to our Waxwing tracking project so far.

Raymond and Grampian Ringing Group

 

CASUALTIES
Cause	Number
Car	2
Cat	2
Sparrowhawk	7
Window strike	20
Total	31