The sandwich tern is a very common summer visitor along the Southern African coast, so it’s not a big deal to spot two along the Namibian coast. But when Luderitz Marine Research looked a bit closer, they noticed that the rings on their legs corresponded with two terns ringed in Denmark together, migrating together to Nambia.
Picture: Wikimedia Commons/ Charles Sharpe
These two terns were spotted near Disa Point outside Luderitz. According to Luderitz Marine Research, they were astonished that the rings read V07-461 and V07-460 respectively: Two consecutive numbers.
‘With a bit of searching the European bird ringer groups, we found out that those colour and metal rings are used in Denmark, and after emailing our records and photos to the contact person at Aarhus University in Denmark the response was that indeed those two birds were ringed at the same site in northwestern Denmark.’
These birds were ringed in August of 2020 and now these two birds are standing side by side 11 223 km away from ‘home.’ Are they usually travel buddies or was this just a long last reunion? no one knows for sure, but it is an extremely fascinating sighting.
Pictures: Luderitz Marine Society
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