Ringed tern, found dead on Chintsa Beach after flight from UK, evokes sadness but also hope

A sandwich tern ringed in Scotland has been found dead more than 10,000km away on Chintsa Beach, providing conservationists with rare and valuable insight into the migratory journey of the recovering seabird species after a year marked by disease and habitat losses. Migrant sandwich tern DY27132 is terminated, but this sad discovery on Chintsa Beach on January 20 by Knysna singer-songwriter Wendy Dewberry still carries some excitement and conservation value. Thalasseus sandvicensis, a little white-bodied, pirate bandana-wearing tern with a gold tip on its beak, flew 10,416km after being ringed on its foot with a stamped metal band at 7pm on May 2 2025 in Scotland.

The terns were cut down by avian flu in 2023, and further devastated by the disappearance soon after of their main meal, sand eels. Then, destruction was wreaked by a rogue fox which jumped the well-maintained electric fence of their Forvie Sands nature reserve. So the discovery last year of a record number of 1,010 eggs in their protected colony on the north-east coast in Aberdeenshire evoked joy.

Raymond Duncan, secretary of the band of dedicated bird and nature lovers, the Grampian ringing group, named after the Scottish region and mountain range, said they had all been plotting the positions of this batch from sightings. Maps showed sparse sightings around the UK and as far as Denmark. “I couldn’t resist going onto the internet and copying out a few photos of the beach at Chintsa to cheer us up a bit during this rotten spell of weather,” he wrote to his crew.

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DY27132 in Chintsa was the first of this batch reported dead, and at the furthest limit of the wintering range of British sandwich terns. Others were previously spotted on the west and east of SA’s Cape peninsula.

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