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

Waxwings - a slow movement south

Lengthening days (and improving weather?) has recently seen a wee flurry of colour-ringed Waxwing sightings. With a small invasion and a decent crop of ornamental white and yellow rowan berries to feed on it has been a slow movement of birds south this winter, as can be seen on the map. Some have also remained locally. Looks like the rowans have run out though as recent photographs of colour ringed birds have shown them to now be feeding on tree cotoneaster, hawthorn and guilder rose.

 

Resightings of colour-ringed waxwings away from Aberdeen

Waxwings MY-LGG (metal ring over yellow ring right leg, light green over dark green over dark green rings left leg) and MY-WNR (white over black over red rings left leg) were together in a flock of 18 birds in Hessle, Hull, Yorkshire on 8/3/20. This was very interesting as they had both been ringed in the same flock on the same morning in a garden in Aberdeen on 7/12/19. In between however, MY-LGG was resighted in Thirske, N. Yorkshire (130km NW of Hessle) from 30/12/19 to 3/1/20 whilst MY-WNR was still in Aberdeen on 5/1/20. So they had caught up with each other again. Makes you wonder if they know?

LGG in Hessle, 10/3/20 Africa Gomez

WNR in Hessle 8/3/20 Steve Clipperton

Elsewhere, 2 were together in a flock on the Isle of Man on 22/2/20 and another in Shropshire on 6/3/20 while down the east side of the country 2 different birds were seen in Suffolk 20kms apart  and 3 days apart on 9/3 and 11/3.

RYW on the Isle of Man 22/2/20 Peter Christian

RBW in Wangford, Suffolk 11/3/20 Andrew Moon

Others remained a bit more locally. MY-YWG was in Arbroath on 8/3/20 with no previous sightings since being ringed over 2 months previously 82 kms to the north in Inverurie on 19/12/19.

YWG in Arbroath 8/3/20 David Mitchell

Finally, in a first for the project we have received news of a colour-ringed Waxwing which presumably remained in Norway during the same winter as an invasion into the UK. MY-YBR was photographed in Kapp, 100km north of Oslo on 21/2/20. It had been ringed last winter in Aberdeen on 24/11/18.

YBR in Kapp, Norway 21/2/20 Lasse Stang

There’s still time before the Waxwings start heading back to Scandinavia so if you get the chance please get out there and check for and report any colour-ringed birds you see. We have received sightings of 28 different birds away from Aberdeen out of 101 colour-ringed which is a tremendous return for a passerine. Like fishing we had a few blank days and lots of hard luck stories about the ones that got away but it makes it all worthwhile when we receive resightings of birds moving on. We are very grateful to so many observers and photographers, too numerous to list here, for reporting their sightings, many thanks to you all.

Please report any colour-ringed Waxwings to grampianringing@gmail.com and/or rduncan393@outlook.com.

Returning waxwings

There has been a small invasion of Waxwings into the country this winter. With a bit of effort and good luck we managed to colour ring 100 in Aberdeen and Inverurie before Xmas.

Some have stayed and some have gone.

It was great to hear about our first movement away from Aberdeen on 2 December 2019 when group member Euan Ferguson received news of right leg metal over yellow, left leg dark green over white over red, photographed in Blyth Civic Centre, Northumberland by Tom Tams (see photo). It had been ringed as a rather handsome adult male in Kincorth, Aberdeen on 23 November, noted as even having faint waxy tips to his tail!

GWR in Blyth, Photo by Tom Tams

Other birds have been reported moving down through Scotland and into England (see map of colour-ring sightings).

An email from Harry Scott on 3 February said he’d had a lady phone him from Alford (40km NW of Aberdeen) to say she had picked up a dead colour-ringed Waxwing beneath her window. She said the colours were green, white and red but, unsure of the order, we thought it was probably a bird ringed at Strachan (30km SE of Alford) just a few days previously.

Alas on delivery and inspection it turned out to be the handsome male photographed down in Blyth in early December. The photo of the dead bird shows close up just how handsome he was, with the faint waxy tips to his tail also visible. Such a sorry end for such a beautiful bird. Windows are the death of many a Waxwing.

Dead GWR, Photo by Harry Scott

It was actually quite a surprise to see him back up here around Aberdeen (and so quickly). Waxwings returning north are fairly unusual, at least amongst the several thousand we have colour-ringed over the years. Some wander over to the continent but most in the UK seem to depart from where they end up during the winter.

This invasion however, with a very high proportion of adults, does appear to be a little different in that this is our third bird returning north. Others were sighted in Dundee and at Flamborough Head before recently being resighted back up here.

Returning Waxwing BNR Strachan 30/01/20 Alan Mankin, ringed in Aboyne 28/1/17

Waxwing RRR Aberfeldy 19/01/20 Keith Harvey

Waxwing RYW Falkirk 28/01/20 Jim Duncan

We have also had two returning birds from previous invasions, a bird ringed in spring 2013 which we didn’t quite get the full combination of (name your drink if you get it on your camera!) and another ringed three years to the day in 2017 in Aboyne, resighted 15kms away in Strachan on 28/1/20.

There’s still a couple of months before they depart back to Scandinavia so if you hear of a Waxwing flock near you we would be very grateful if you can check for and report any colour-ringed birds you see. We are out most weekends checking our flocks for colour-ringed birds of which there are a few but it is clear that many have moved on. Please report them to grampianringing@gmail.com and/or rduncan393@outlook.com

Waxwings 2019

Before you read this, and in case you don’t get further, please go and look at your local waxwings for colour rings, and photograph them in particular. I know- a real hardship, but we really do want to get as many resightings as possible, so even if it’s just a brief look, we would really appreciate it! Each bird has a metal over yellow plastic colour ring on the right leg and more importantly, three individual colour rings on the left leg identifying the individual. It’s worth noting that individual birds can splinter off from a group from day to day, so, (for example) just because thirty were sighted both today and the day before in your local area doesn’t mean that these are the same birds!

If you resight a waxwing with a colour ring – please send the location, date, ring colour combination (and photograph if you have it and are happy to share it with us!) to: grampianringing@gmail.com and/or rduncan393@outlook.com. 

There are many ways to mark the coming of winter. The final leaves dropping from the trees, the first frost that doesn’t lift all day, or the September rush on Christmas chocolates in the shops. But here at Grampian Ringing Group it really isn’t winter until the first group of waxwings arrive in Aberdeen.

The soft chirruping of these birds marks the start of a new season of deep Scottish winter, when you have six hours of daylight to scramble and try to find the birds – let alone ring them. In our own Raymond Duncan’s words, waxwings are ‘spooky’ and by that we don’t mean that they’re terrifying. Rather that they will scattily move from tree to tree across the city, sometimes without warning, disappearing into the cool air - much to the sighs of despair of those of us out in negative temperatures trying to set nets.

In order to successfully ring waxwings, you first need plenty of birds. That might sound obvious, but the number of waxwings in the city makes a real difference between how likely we will be to catch and how many cold mornings are going to be spent waiting by empty nets. A hundred, two hundred birds are pretty slim pickings across the whole of Aberdeen, especially in years with high berry crops. This seems to be because the birds split into smaller groups to feed across the city; as and when they feel like rather than staying together as a single entity. The bigger the flock, the better chance you have of both the birds coming back to strip a tree, and of catching. Higher berry crops mean that not only do they split off more readily, but that there are that many more places to check as well. Many a morning has been spent driving across the city searching for birds that were sighted less than an hour ago, but have since disappeared into thin air.

This year has been a particularly good berry crop across all of the rowan trees in the city, and we’ve had a reasonable number of waxwings arrive. At its maximum point, we’ve had around four to six hundred in the city (sadly never in one flock) – certainly a number we’ve been able to work with. For those of you reading who aren’t familiar with the project, GRG has been colour ringing waxwings for over thirty years, and have had thousands of resightings over that period to map their transit as an eruptive migrant.

The first weekend of November is usually the best indicator of how many birds we’re going to get in a season, with a good number being sighted in that first week indicating a good start, or a lack of birds a possible no-show or poor year. This year there were as few as fifty birds being seen in the first ten days of November, followed by a decent influx of birds in the fourth week of November and early December, which was when our best days so far this season have been.

Not including the several days of attempted catches without success, we had our first catch on 23 November, once the numbers of birds had sufficiently increased to a level that made it possible. At the time of writing we have precisely one hundred waxwings colour ringed and out into the world, and have had eight resightings as far south as Northumberland.

The delicate art of ringing waxwings
Waxwings tend to eat off of rowan trees with the small, red/orange rowan berries first, before moving on to the ornamental yellow/white and lastly the pink berries. They’ll also have a picking at other large red berried rowan, hawthorn and whitebeam trees. This seems to be the general order of preference if you are a waxwing. This year has been no exception, with the birds following this order nicely, apart from there being so many berries that they haven’t been able to finish one group before either seemingly without reason swapping to the next variety or the berries of one group have started rotting on the tree. The ornamental rowans tend to rot later than the more natural types, so it makes sense that they at least would use that in determining preference. Our most success this year has been on yellow berries, with one low lying tree in particular next to a busy intersection in an industrial estate allowing us to catch over thirty birds over several days – despite the traffic putting the birds off at less than opportune moments!

When we are out catching and ringing waxwings we often get people coming and asking us what we're doing, which can be a great opportunity to both show local people what we are doing and get them interested in the birds and project. Many local photographers who had come out to snap the birds are really engaged with what we are doing, and seem delighted to see the birds up close as well as lern more about what we are doing. We have a network of waxwing spotters across Aberdeen whome we know from years of studying waxwings and are now kind enough to let us know when birds start to use their sites; it feels great to engage the local community in this way.

Aging and sexing waxwings – just add binoculars

Waxwings are one of the most straight forward passerine species to age at this time of year, with first year and adult birds being very straightforward to tell apart. As seen below, it all comes down to the ‘hook’ on the primaries. Juvenile birds lack this, and only have the downwards bar on the leading edge. This can easily be seen in the field, and it can be really satisfying and useful to see whether a flock is mainly adults or juveniles. There is a very high proportion of adults this winter.

Sexing can be a little more difficult, but is still possible in the field. Waxwings get their name from the ‘waxy tips’ on their secondaries, small red extrusions from the rachis (central spine) of a feather out of the end of the feather. Males tend to have a higher number of these (up to all eight secondaries) and will tend to be both wider and longer than those on females. There are also particularly obvious females lacking any waxy tips, known sometimes as ‘waxless’ wings or just ‘wings’, to much amusement whilst ringing. Some particularly flashy males will also have waxy tips in the tail, and is a mark that is really impressive in the hand! There is an overlap in both the length of and number of waxy tips in a birds wing to determine whether it’s male or female, and the length of yellow in the tail should also be used to determine this with males having broader bands. The bib can also be looked at if there is still doubt after these two criteria, with males having a more distinct line separating the body plumage, with females’ bibs diffusing more subtly. And just to round off their ridiculously beautiful plumage, check out the under tail coverts!

As part of the study we measure: the number of waxy tips, length of longest waxy tip, and length of yellow band on both the first and fifth tail feathers on all birds ringed. Interestingly we have caught mainly adults so far this year, and two juveniles have had particularly short wing length (~10mm shorter than they should be) and no, we haven’t just had trainees measure them. It’s impossible to know but because of this we wonder if the waxies had a poor breeding season this year, and therefore there are less young on migration, or if it’s just random chance. Nonetheless, it’s been interesting to note.

How you can help!
Now that we’ve unleashed a flock of one hundred colour ringed birds into the country, we need your help to resight them. We've started to get resightings across the northern UK already, showing our birds are already splintering off south. What we need is for a continuous look at the waxwings in your local area to look for rings. With the advent of modern photography, we get some fantastic records of our birds back and if birds hang around in your area we would appreciate you checking them again for rings as they might have been joined by new birds from the north and it helps us build a picture of their movements this invasion.

As it is, we think that with such a high number of berries many birds might stay with us up north all winter, and we’ll be out checking, but as there have been a good number going south already, it will be interesting to see if that rings true!

Thanks for reading, and happy waxwing hunting!

If you resight a waxwing with a colour ring – please send the location, ring colour combination (and photograph with rings visible if you have it and are happy to share) to: grampianringing@gmail.com and/or rduncan393@outlook.com. 

Waxwing and waning (…and resighting!)

With several reports of waxwings up and down the east coast from mid-October excitement mounted for hopes of a another of Aberdeen’s bumper waxwing winters. Numerous mobile flocks began to be reported and numbers built up to 300+ birds across the city by late November. Traditional berry tree hotspots were under surveillance as smaller flocks began grouping up. The city’s mistle thurshes were starting to panic as waxwings descended on their prized rowan trees. But the rush didn’t last, numbers soon stalled and as birds continued moving southwards totals began to dwindle and soon fizzled out. We did, however, succeed in colour ringing a few birds while the numbers peaked with the current total standing at 23 (22 juveniles and 1 adult). 

Even with this small sample we quickly received a resighting from Tony Davis in Kirkcaldy (Fife) a week after ringing in Aberdeen. Although the full combination couldn’t be read, the right leg showed a yellow colour-ring below the metal ring which identified it as one of ours from this year

Waxwing in the hand

Just as I was writing this blog and already feeling quite pleased with our capture/resighting ratio the next flurry of resightings came as a welcome surprise… Among a flock of around 150 waxwings that spent several days in Edinburgh was waxwing YGR, a young male ringed in Aberdeen 17 days earlier.

Photo by Richard Wells – Waxwing YGR in Balgreen, Edinburgh on 13/12/18

We then had a pair spotted in Yorkshire, a young male (YYW) and female (YWW), on 24 December by Mike Robinson, Richard Hughes, and Hannah Greetham. Waxwing YWW then went on to be seen with a flock of 5 birds in Norfolk 5 days later.

Photo by Mike Dawson – YWW in Long Straton, Norfolk 29/12/18

This was topped off by another Norfolk sighting, this time of YBR in Norwich – a young female ringed a week earlier in Aberdeen.

Photo by Brian Anderson - young female (YBR) Norwich 31/12/18

So with only 23 birds ringed we managed 6 resightings of 5 birds – a 26% resighting rate! Proving that these little scandi jewels are always quality, even in small quantities. A massive thank you to all our wonderful waxwing reporters! As always, any colour ring resightings are hugely appreciated and we’re very grateful to anyone who takes the time to look - so please do check any waxwings you see(and your photographs!) and report them to grampianringing@gmail.com and/or rduncan393@outlook.com 

Wishing you all the best in the New Year from all of GRG,

Caitlin Tarvet

A day in the life of a trainee

On an unseasonably warm November morning, several members of the group braved the darkness to head out to the finch ringing site at Girdleness, Aberdeen City for the final finch catching of the autumn.

After setting up both the finch net and starling net, with different foods, the usual waiting game ensued.

 

Finch whoosh net set for catching

Finch site and team

After a few flocks of finches came and went our luck finally struck and a flock of linnet came down and we were able to capture them. After extraction was complete there was 15 finches all nicely in bird bags. At the end of the session we had ringed a total of 6 new linnet and retrapped 2 goldfinches, and another 7 linnet from previous sessions this autumn.

The second ringing session of the day involved some titmice ringing at some bird feeders in the Cruikshank Botanical Gardens in Old Aberdeen. The site seemed promising on arrival as the place was busy with coal tits (with a few great & blues thrown in). The next hour of the nets up proved to be a productive one and to end our catch, we'd managed a grand total of 63 new birds (24 blue tit, 24 coal tit, 14 great tit & a robin) and single retraps of coal & blue tit. However this session was particularly special for myself as I handled three new species in the form of coal, great and blue tit. For someone who has been ringing for several years, it would come as a surprise that I hadn't come across these species before but coming from Shetland we don't have many of these peerie fluffballs and usually, when they do show up, it ignites a twitch!

Coal tit

Great tit

Blue tits, however, were a species we were particularly interested in (not something people say very often!) due to a new national moult project that GRG has joined, that looks at the post-juvenile moult of blue tits. This project aims to give us a better understanding of how juvenile blue tits moult their feathers and allow for another piece of the moult cycle puzzle to be solved, more information can be found in the Autumn issue of the Lifecycle magazine. As the gardens seem to have a decent number of blue tits, it will probably see us returning for a few more titmice sessions in the coming weeks and months.

Blue tit

For the final ringing session of the day we decided to cross the River Dee and head into Kincorth to locate the local flock of waxwing which was numbering over 100. In previous winters the group has colour-ringed many 100s of waxwings and contributed to our understanding of their movements through the UK during irruptions (see our previous blog posts). Arriving on the site, we set up a couple of mist nets, which hopefully would get us a few of these Scandinavian visitors. Over the space of the next few hours, the waxwing flock did several pass overs and at one point came as close as to land in a large tree near to the nets, but unfortunately never close enough to catch. The group will undoubtedly be trying again to ring waxwings if they stick around for the winter, there's enough berries in the area so only time will tell.

Logan Johnson - Trainee (Shetland RG, adoptee of Grampian RG)

Waxwings on the move - thankyou for all your sightings

What a difference a few weeks can make in the life of the Waxwings! Since previous update on 6 January.

Five in Ireland, a record number for our studies and at least one on the Isle of Man (which then diverted to Wales rather than carry on over to Ireland).

A build up in middle England, including GB who didn’t like the east coast.

Movements down the east side with noteable build ups in Tayside and Fife, Eastern Scotland; NE England with birds in Newcastle (3), Hull and Durham and around London into Kent and our furthest bird south so far in Crawley, West Sussex.

And we still have quite a lot in and around Aberdeen.

Maps below show the changes since 06/01 and an interesting comparison with the same time in 2010/11 when cold weather suddenly increased berry competition and lots fled rapidly south, not lingering in Scotland………..with a build up along the south coast.

Waxwing sightings up to mid-January on our last invasion 2010/11

Waxwing sightings from the last update just over two weeks ago

The current waxwing distribution map, based on colour ringing information

A huge thank you to everybody for their sightings and photographs so far. Each contributes greatly to the overall picture of what the Waxwings are getting up to across the country. All are greatly appreciated. Keep up the good work. A free plug on Winterwatch didn’t do any harm either!

We can only show a wee selection of your great photos here. Thank you very much.

Grampian Ringing Group

Rachel Hynes © Waxwing BB (colour rings blue/blue) in Lucan, Dublin, Ireland 12/01/17

Brian and Karen Mullins © Waxwing LOW (colour rings light green/orange/white) in Sligo Town, Ireland 07/01/17

James O’Neill © Waxwing LGL (colour rings light green/dark green/light green) in Portadown, N. Ireland 15/01/17

 

Sue Blyth © Waxwing RRW (colour rings red/red/white) on the Isle of Man 08/01/17

and then 12 days later in Wales..

Clive Hurford © Waxwing RRW in Newtown, Powys, Wales 20/01/17

Waxwing GB (dark green/blue) the next bird after BB in Dublin to be ringed in Ballater on 04/12/16.

Andrew Easton and Rob Wilton © Great Yarmouth 08/01/17

then 16 days later

George Ewart © 414km W in Derbyshire.

And as we were out ringing Waxwings in Aberdeen on Saturday 21/01 we received a text message from Tony Cross and his colleagues in mid Wales to say they had just caught Waxwing RB (red/blue), ringed in Ballater at the same time as BB and GB! And Waxwings WL and YB also ringed in Ballater at the same time were in Aberdeen at the weekend!