Waxwing lyrical part 40 - first foreign recovery

A recent batch of recoveries received from the BTO included details of our first foreign recovery of a Waxwing. It was ringed in the garden on 30/03/13 and was one of 19 new birds caught that morning. It was controlled by ringers in Pandrup in northern Denmark on 24/04/13; a movement of 883km in 25 days. It is likely that this bird continued to visit the garden for a while after it was ringed so the movement to Denmark was probably much quicker than the ringing and recovery dates suggest.

A quick check of the BTO online ringing reports revealed that there had only been 3 recoveries of British ringed Waxwings in Denmark up to the of 2012 so this is potentially only the 4th Waxwing recovery in that country. Interestingly there had only been one recovery of a Waxwing ringed in Denmark and found in Britain up to the end of 2012 and that bird had also been ringed in Pandrup where our bird was recovered.


View NV78923 Waxwing in a larger map

Amongst the other recoveries were several Waxwings that had been ringed elsewhere in the UK and controlled in the garden. Three of these had been ringed a short distance away on Merseyside and will be detailed in a future post. Two were colour-ringed birds from Aberdeen and both of these have featured in previous posts but another, NV64366, was also from Scotland and had been ringed at Fearnan, Loch Tay on 17/11/12 and was caught in the garden on 12/04/13; a movement of 350km SSE. This recovery is shown in the map below.


View NV64366 Waxwing in a larger map

So where are they now? Lots of people seem to think that Waxwings just come from Scandinavia and while some do most probably come from much further east in Russia and that is where the majority will be breeding now. The breeding range of Waxwings largely falls within the red line shown on the map below (source BWP).

Waxwing breeding distribution.

 

 

 This Waxwing was feeding in the garden just a few weeks ago and will
probably be breeding somewhere in Russia now.