Winter 'wrecks', involving the sudden mortality of unusual numbers of individuals, are far from unprecedented in UK seabirds but they always deserve attention. They can have a severe impact on breeding seabird populations, and resulting specimens and ringing recoveries can provide valuable insights into movements, moult, physiology and longevity at a time of year when seabirds are normally so hard to observe. Recovered bodies are often the first (and last!) encounters of individuals that were ringed at known breeding colonies around UK and European coasts. In late December 2012 and early January 2013 there was a wreck of Shags Phalacrocorax aristotelis in North-east Scotland. Following extreme onshore winds and torrential rain, large numbers of Shags moved into harbours for shelter, but many still succumbed to the conditions. Over 100 individuals were found dead around Fraserburgh alone, and dozens at Burghead on the Moray coast. The casualties include a number of individuals marked with field-readable coded rings (see photo). Fortuitously, the wreck has occurred in the midst of an intensive field resighting project run by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and the University of Aberdeen, meaning that both the ringed individuals that succumbed, and others that have so far survived, have known breeding success and winter movements along the Scottish coastline. These data should tell us more about which individuals did and did not survive, and what the population consequences might be, than has been possible in previous wrecks. The full magnitude and geographical extent of the wreck is not yet clear, and birders are encouraged to keep an eye out along British coastlines farther afield. Any observations of casualties, or observations of ringed Shags (dead or alive), would be very gratefully received ([email protected]).