Greenshank double resighting at Rutland Water‏

Thanks very much to Peter Hill, Jonathan Lloyd, Steve Lister and Andy MacKay for a great, recent double sighting of colour-ringed Greenshanks at Rutland Water in Leicestershire. Right leg: red/blue - left leg: light green/light green (see great photograph by Peter Hill at Rutland) was ringed on the Ythan Estuary, 10kms north of Aberdeen, on 31/8/13 and was first reported at Rutland on 26/9/13, still there on 6/10/13. Right leg: dark green/blue – left leg: orange/red was ringed on the Ythan on 1/9/13 and also turned up at Rutland on 26/9/13 but wasn’t seen again.

 We don’t get many inland sightings of the birds we ring on autumn passage in NE Scotland and few are seldom reported together after they have departed the Ythan. Ringing has shown many of these birds are heading for Ireland for the winter whilst others head south to France and Spain and sometimes even further into North Africa with one site faithful bird wintering on the Cape Verde Islands, well who wouldn't?!

Far South Greenshank

A Greenshank colour ringed (left leg black over blue, right leg red over black) at Montrose Basin on 22nd August last year was re-sighted on Porto Santo (an island of the Madeira Archipelago) on 20 October this year, a movement of 2837 km! This is one of our most southerly Greenshank, with other birds having been seen in Morocco and the Cape Verde Islands.

The bird was part of a record catch of Greenshank for us, 34 birds in one night. Unusually it was ringed as an adult, the majority of birds caught on passage are juveniles.

We have been colour ringing Greenshank on the Ythan Estuary as part of a project set up by Farlington Ringing Group since 2003. For the past few years we have also caught at Montrose Basin along with Tay Ringing Group, with last year being our highest ever total.

Thanks to Adrian Aebischer for the re-sighting