Colour-ringing of Upland and Lowland Stonechats in Grampian

 During 2022 Stonechats have been colour-ringed in Grampian in an attempt to find out a bit more about their survival in relation to movements and territory habitats throughout the year.

Ringing has taken place at two main locations; Glen Dye, the upland site (300m asl) and Forvie National Nature Reserve (NNR) the lowland site (50m asl). As of 21/11/2022 a total of 107 Stonechats have been ringed as part of this project.

The colour-ringing scheme involves adding a white coded ring above the normal BTO metal ring on the right tarsus and two coloured rings on the left tarsus.

In Glen Dye, most birds were trapped by mist nets, whilst at Forvie, all captures were executed by spring traps. Ninety-two Stonechats were ringed in the Glen Dye area and 15 were ringed at Forvie and other lowland sites. Juveniles made up the majority of birds trapped in Glen Dye, with only two adults being caught there. Most birds at lowland sites were seen during autumn and noted to be in pairs.

So far, only a few birds have been resighted or recaptured and all bar one were observed near their ringing location. The exception to this was a surprising record of a juvenile male, ringed in Glen Dye on 19 July 2022 and photographed at Rhoon, near Rotterdam, The Netherlands, on 11 November 2022, a dispersal distance of approximately 727 km.

Of all 55,563 Stonechats ringed in the UK up to the end of 2021, only 49 have been recovered abroad, mainly Spain, but none of these were in the Netherlands. This is therefore the first record of a Stonechat, ringed in the UK and seen in the Netherlands.

Stonechat WN(A),M /RN photographed in the Netherlands 11/11/2022

Stonechat WN(A),M /RN when ringed in Glen Dye 19/07/2022

Please keep an eye on your local Stonechats and report any sightings and colour-ringed birds in the usual way.

Moray Souter

Redpoll exodus

Lesser orangepoll

Last year GRG achieved our highest ever ringing total for redpoll, with 3837 lesser and 19 common redpoll ringed. Most were caught in spruce plantations in October and early November. There were exceptionally large flocks present in the region, demonstrated by over 1500 being ringed at the same site over the course of four days.  

We were hoping for a repeat of that this autumn, and at first it looked promising. 106 redpoll were ringed on 3^rd August, which was a great total for that time of year, and we continued to have reasonable numbers into September. But by mid-October, the time we normally start to have our largest catches, there was barely any to be found! Sites where last year flocks numbered in the thousands were completely devoid of redpolls.

Lesser goldpoll

The mystery of where they’d gone was quickly answered, with ringers in southern England reporting they were experiencing record catches of the species. This was further confirmed by a slew of controls, 19 of which were recaptures by English ringers, and one which impressively had its ring read in the field on Helgoland, Germany.

The map below shows the location of the birds we’ve had controlled over the past couple of months. We've not had any reported this week, but that may be due to the persistent winds we’ve been having making conditions for ringing unsuitable! Based on the concentration on the south east coast it looks like many of the redpolls may not spend the winter in the UK, and we are expecting recaptures to be reported from the continent soon.

What caused the redpolls to clear out of NE Scotland is unclear. The spruce crop was poor compared to last autumn, yet there was plenty of birch for them to feed on as they’ve done in the previous years. Hopefully when the winds die down ringers down south can get out in field again, and we can understand more about their movements this winter. 

Euan Ferguson

Redpoll madness!

Lesser redpoll

In 2016 we achieved the highest ever redpoll total for Grampian Ringing Group, with 2280 lesser redpolls and 45 common redpolls ringed. Most of these birds was caught at two birch woodland sites at Drumoak and Banchory, almost entirely during October and November.

Foreign travels stopped us ringing redpolls the past couple of years, but this autumn we were back in the country and keen to have another go. We started catching in mid-September and through October, averaging 70 redpolls a session. It was the end of October and beginning of November that saw our peak numbers in 2016, so we took a couple of weeks off work and hoped that time of year would deliver again.

Common and lesser redpoll

The first catches at Drumoak and Banchory were quieter than expected, with 83 and 66 redpolls caught. Perhaps there wasn’t the big numbers around this autumn like in 2016? However, some intel from Al Young in Moray suggested the redpolls were feeding on spruce this year instead of birch. On 29^th October we tried a new site with plenty of spruce at Pitfichie Forest, which resulted in a record catch of 343 redpolls. Interestingly this was exactly the same date we’d had our previous highest catch in 2016 (324 redpolls).

We then tried another new spruce site at Durris which saw the record catch keep being surpassed! Over 4 days we ringed 1580 redpolls at the site, with the peak being 510 birds ringed on 05^th November. There was clearly enormous numbers of redpolls in the area as amazingly we didn’t have a single same site retrap during these sessions.

Lesser and common redpoll

And then just like that it was all over! 9^th November saw only 42 redpolls ringed, and the following weekend only a measly 7 were caught. Multiple sites have been checked but it appears that the large flocks of redpolls have cleared out of the region. Interestingly English ringers have noted a lack of any significant redpoll numbers down south this autumn, so perhaps they will have a deluge of redpolls hitting them soon. 

We ringed 2850 lesser redpolls over the autumn, and with Al and Skitts getting some good catches too, the group total for the year sits on over 3800. Common redpoll numbers were down on 2016, with only 16 caught compared to 45. This may be do with the prevalent easterly winds we had in 2016 which we’ve lacked this autumn.

The map below shows movements from birds ringed in 2016 (including one to the south of France, right at the edge of the lesser redpoll's range). We look forward to seeing where the birds ringed this year end up. 

  

As well as to understand their movements, the main reason we're ringing so many redpolls is a study we're conducting on their poll colours. As anyone who's ringed a fair few redpolls will know, they don't all have red polls! In fact perhaps only half of them are red, with a range of shades of yellow, gold, orange, brown, pink and purple. We have detected around 40 distinct colours of poll, and hope to publish our findings soon. 

Euan and Carmen Ferguson

Neck collared Mute Swan from the Netherlands

This was surprise one morning and stretched my skills in reading neck collar rings to their max!

PN38 at Cotehill (Phil Bloor)

This mute swan first appeared on Cotehill, Aberdeenshire on 9 October 2017 and was also seen the following day.  It was originally ringed as a juvenile female one year, two months and three days previously on 7 August 2016 in Zuidhorn, Zuiderdijk in the Netherlands.  A total distance of 699.2 km away.

However, following contact with the Dutch ringers it transpired that following ringing it stayed in the Groningen region of the Netherlands until at least 14 April 2017 before being seen at Loch of Strathbeg on 20 June 2017.  There was also a later report of a neck collared mute swan on Meikle Loch the day before it appeared on Cotehill but was too far the observer to read it, presumably it was this bird.

Phil B

Ruff recovery in Nothern Spain

Last week, while I was catching up with some of the best birding blogs I know from Spain, I came across a surprise I really wasn´t expecting. My good friend Ernesto Villodas had posted a few pictures (see his blog at: http://nosinmisprismaticos.blogspot.co.uk/) of a flagged ruff he had taken on the 18/09/2016 at Colindres, Cantabria (North Spain). Thanks to Antonio Gutierrez he found out that it could be a GRG bird and he mentioned Raymond´s name in his blog post but wasn´t able to contact him. What are the chances of me coming across my trainer´s name on a Spanish bird blog?? As soon as I saw this, I emailed Raymond with all the details and, within 10 mins, he confirmed it was a juv male (054 and red ring above the knee) they ringed near the Ythan estuary just 8 days before! For me, it was definitely one of the most exciting moments since I first started ringing back in March.

Ruff 054. Photo by Ernesto Villodas

It has now been confirmed that the bird was first seen on the 16/09/2016 by Gabriel Esturo, which means the bird flew at least 1500km in under 6 days. It will be interesting to know if it decides to spend the winter at the site or if it decides to continue its southwards journey. If it decides to stay I might even get to see it when I fly home over Christmas!

Sam

Photo by Ernesto Villodas

Ythan Estuary Attracts Foreigners

The food rich mud and the safety of sandbanks on the Ythan Estuary near Newburgh provide resident birds with a perfect larder and resting area. This location is also attractive to migrating birds as they pass on their journey south. Other visitors arrive as part of their post breeding dispersal. Among the tourists to the Ythan during the autumn of 2013 have been a number of colour-ringed and “darviced” birds.

Viking gull invasion?

August saw a number of Scandinavian Black-headed Gulls arrive. These included:

Green J054 – ringed Breiavatnet, Stavanger, Rogaland, Norway on 16 July 2013 and seen on the Ythan on 28 August 2013.

White J2CE – ringed Mølledammen, Time, Rogaland, Norway on 07 April 2012 and seen on the Ythan on 28 August 2013.

White J3UP - ringed Langvannet, Lørenskog, Akershus & Oslo, Norway on 08 April 2013 and seen on the Ythan on 28 August 2013.

White J3U5 – ringed Vågen, Stavanger sentrum, Stavanger, Rogaland, Norway on 16 February 2012 and seen on the Ythan on 29 August 2013.

White VM47 – ringed in Denmark and seen on the Ythan on 28 August 2013.

Other northern travellers included:

Lapwing - White J34C – ringed Hemnes, sør, Karmøy, Rogaland, Norway on 12 June 2013 and seen on the Ythan on 29 August 2013.

 Sandering  G5RGRY – ringed at Zackenberg, Greenland on 20 June 2012 and seen on the Ythan on 06 Auguat 2013.

Sanderling Y6YWWW – ringed Griend west, Netherlands on 16  August 2012 and seen on the Ythan on 28 August 2013.

Dunlin White CST – ringed near Gdansk, Poland on 25 July 13 and seen on the Ythan on 11 November 2013.

The maps below illustrate the above bird movements to the Ythan.

Red = Lapwing, Yellow = Black-headed Gulls

Green = Sanderling, Orange = Dunlin

If you are lucky enough to see a colour-ringed bird please report it through http://blx1.bto.org/euring/lang/pages/colour_rings.jsp

MS 

Fascinating Sandwich Tern pre-migration movements

The North Sea population of Sandwich Terns is highly mobile after breeding with birds remaining in the vicinity for several months post-breeding. It has long been known and indeed our ringing has also shown that Sandwich terns from other parts of the North Sea Population arrive on our coats in late autumn prior to migrating south for the winter. Although this is a phenomena we know occurs it is still poorly understood. Hopefully some of the efforts we and Dutch researchers are undertaking will shed some light but for now little or no information exists on the inter-annual movements of individuals. As the study is no reaching its 3rd year we are now starting to gather some intriguing evidence. Today I received several sightings from a local researcher that had spotted 8 colour ringed sandwich terns while reading shag colour rings on the local coastline. One of the birds was a real gem of a sighting having first been caught and colour ringed in late August 2010 and subsequently located breeding in the Netherlands in both 2012 and 2013 (see photo). That information alone is interesting but in 2012 I observed it in early September again in north-east Scotland. So we know that this individual that breeds in the Netherlands has returned in late autumn to the same stretch of coast in Scotland at least 3 of the last 4 years prior to migrating south. Fantastic information that we would never have been able to get without the use of colour rings and the dedication of international observers! Hopefully with further ringers using colour rings in the UK and a lot more sightings we can shed some light on this fascinating behaviour.

Sandwich tern EKA breeding in the Netherlands (Fred Visscher)

EKA on a pre-migration trip up to Peterhead (Jenny Sturgeon)

5 Terns of 5 Countries

As I blogged about a single tern of 4 countries last time I thought this time I’d give an update of our tern ringing season so far. On still nights at the weekend with favourable tides we have been attempting to catch terns at night. Our main target is sandwich terns and we are steadily amassing a really interesting dataset. Sandwich Tern numbers during a lot of August on our catch sites tends to be fairly low as many of our local breeders move round into the Moray Firth – and a recent deluge of excellent sightings from Findhorn bay indicates this is the case this year. So august can be a relatively quiet period for Sandwich Terns while the local breeders are further north and the mass of continental and British birds still to arrive (hopefully!).

Two of our colour ringed sandwich terns in Findhorn Bay (Richard Somerscocks)

During this lull in Sandwich Tern activity we have been focussing our efforts on Arctic Terns with over 1000 caught so far this Autumn (over double the total number ever caught in a year in the UK previously) and with these good numbers has come excellent information from ringed birds. Although we will have to wait for the recovery details of the ringed birds we have caught we can get a reasonable idea where they are from as 12 of the 41 ringed Arctic Terns caught this autumn have been ringed abroad.

Juvenile Arctic tern (Harry Scott)

Before the end of July we caught 2 Swedish ringed juvenile Arctic Terns, surprising as they had crossed the North Sea so quickly. 5 other juveniles have since been caught with Finnish rings, with 3 on the same night in mid-August. Alongside these Baltic juveniles have been adults from Finland, Estonia and Denmark and it is interesting to see that so many Baltic breeders arrive in the East Coast each autumn. We also caught a Belgian ringed Sandwich tern earlier in the season so we have had 13 foreigners from 5 countries so far this year!

Adult and juvenile little tern (Euan Fergusson)

Alongside the fantastic number of Arctic and reasonable numbers of Sandwich tern we have also caught 3 other species of terns. As well as Common Terns we have caught a small number of Little Terns and a single Black Tern. The latter being the first for Grampian ringing group.

Juvenile Black Tern (Jenny Lennon)

A tern of 4 countries

It has been a while since we have posted anything on the blog about our sandwich tern study, but this is not due to lack of activity. Our dataset is growing rapidly with the many sightings that we and the birding community have sent to us. Through our tern work we keep in close touch with a number of tern ringers elsewhere in Europe and in particular we have good contact with the Netherlands. A massive population of sandwich terns breed in the Netherlands and each year a significant portion end up venturing up to Scotland in the autumn prior to migrating south. Generally these birds arrive during August and into September, so a portion of the birds we are colour ringing on the Ythan Estuary in autumn breed in these colonies.

Blue EBA at a breeding colony in the Netherlands (Pim Wolf)

 

This summer we have had a steady stream of sightings from several observers in the Netherlands including one partial sighting of a colour ring that looked like ELV but as it was at a breeding colony and we could not be 100% certain. Pim Wolf, who had managed to photograph the bird continued to look out to confirm the combination but was unfortunately unable to relocate it in the colony of 3800 pairs.

A tantalising glimpse of red ELV in the Netherlands (Pim Wolf)

 

The trail went cold for a while until yesterday when Pim and myself both received emails from Lee Collins with a sighting of 2 colour ringed birds associating together on Dawlish Nature Reserve in Devon. We were both emailed as the sighting related to one of my birds (an adult -red ELV) and one of Pim’s (a juvenile - white NL1). This chick was ringed at the colony where ELV had been possibly sighted during the breeding season and the close association suggested it was likely to be its fledged juvenile. A further twist to the tail is that when I colour ringed red ELV it already had a metal ring that showed it had been ringed in BELGIUM as an adult in July 2007!

7T61672 during processing - it was 672 days before we heard from it again (Ewan Weston)

 

Ewan Weston

 

 



Aberdeenshire Osprey in Spain

Since 1993, Grampian Ringing Group has ringed over 160 young Ospreys in tree nests, fitting coloured darvic rings supplied by Roy Dennis as part of the Scottish scheme. At least 11 of these have been recovered or resighted abroad, in Spain, Portugal, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Ghana. Increasingly, resightings are coming from birdwatchers using digital cameras.

Crouching in the nest, playing dead (Photo: Ewan Weston)

One such bird was a single youngster, ringed near Monymusk in Aberdeenshire on 17 July near Aberdeen, Scotland.  It was raised in a nest in a forest plantation – one that has been there for many years and has fledged many young. 2012 had very bad weather during the summer and many Ospreys found it hard to rear chicks. It was very pleasing that the birds were successful! Usually, we try to ring young Ospreys at a good large size, but sometimes they have to be ringed at a younger age. This chick was a late, small bird, lagging distinctly behind other nests in the area.

Ringed and ready to go (Photo: Guy Anderson)

Once the birds have left the nests, often they are not seen again and their fate remains unknown. However, we received news a few days ago that this young bird - ringed on the left leg with a blue ring with the white digits 89, had been present at the Urdaibai estuary near Bilbao in northern Spain from March 15th to 8th April. It had been photographed and the ring read.

The Urdaibai estuary, north-east of Bilbao



Blue 89 at the estuary (Photo: Gari Bilbao)


We don't know where else the bird has been, nor whether it is likely to return to Scotland this year, as many young birds don't come back in their first year, but it is always nice to receive reports and photographs, and doubly so as it shows that late, small chicks can successfully fledge, migrate and survive the winter.
 
Ian Francis

The Deeside Dazzlers

Following an amazing email forwarded to me the other night by Raymond, I thought I'd share this story in the hope that it might encourage folk to seek out and ring or photograph Waxwings. Who knows, it might result in a few more amazing emails?

It all started on 31^st October 2012; Raymond circulated an email warning us that Waxwings were on their way! Amazingly, on 6^th November I heard a single Waxwing fly over my house here in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, so I dashed out and stocked my garden with berries and fruit in the hope of attracting a flock to ring. Over the next two weeks Waxwing numbers around my housing estate gradually built up to 35 birds feeding on the berry trees in neighbouring gardens. On 18^th November, once the flock appeared settled, Ian Halliday and myself mist-netted and colour-ringed 3 birds of the 28 present that day, tricky conditions but at least we’d made a start!

By 24^th November I’d managed to get the flock feeding on the ground, this time Ian and I were joined but Anna Redpath and her family when we successfully woosh-netted 17 of the 21 birds present that day.

Finally, on the 26th November, I hit the jackpot; the flock started feeding in my garden!

During the early hours of 27th November I managed to assembled a crack team of local ringers (Walter Burns, Alistair Duncan and Brian Pirie), when the flock of 32 birds descended, we successfully caught 31 of them! A brilliant result I thought… time to sit back and watch / photograph them I thought…

How wrong could I be! The very next day (28th Nov), I immediately notice several un-ringed birds in the flock, AND… what looked to be a foreign ringed bird!!!  'Life' was instantly put on hold! All efforts were focused on catching the foreigner!  Luckily for me, the first bird caught on the 29th November was the foreign ringed bird which turned out to have a Stavanger ring – a stunning result!

So… now could I relax? Nope, unfortunately not. I had to go away for the weekend 1-2nd December and my supply of fruit was pretty much finished, so I put ‘work’ to one side for a couple of days and concentrated on catching and colour-ringing as many of the new birds which joined the flock each day. Finally… just an hour before I had to go away, I ran out of colour-rings and a total of 59 Waxwings (including the Stavanger control) had been colour-ringed on my estate!

When I returned home on the Monday the flock had unfortunately departed. So, with the birds now gone, what next? Well… almost immediately I started to receive emails, sometimes with photos attached, reporting our Aboyne birds from other locations!  Initially, birds were sighted nearby in Aberdeen, soon afterwards they were further south in Dundee.

Then BOOM, out of the blue, one of our birds appeared in Northern Ireland! Just the 3^rd time a colour-ringed Waxwing has been re-sighted in Ireland - I was so chuffed, what a brilliant result!

 BUT… as if that wasn't good enough, that report was quickly followed by another bird appearing in Kilnsea, East Yorkshire! Then, more recently, a bird appeared away down south in Essex! These are all unbelievable results considering we ringed just 59 individuals!

Well, like me, you're probably thinking it can't get any better than that?  Hmmm… the story continues I'm afraid!  Yep, at about 10.30pm the other night… it got a whole lot better! Raymond forwarded an email from a Hjördis Drexler…. yeh, tell me about it, even the boggin name got me totally freaked out!!!  With a stunning photo attached to his email, Hjördis was just informing us that he'd seen and photographed one of our Deeside Dazzlers near his home in Stade, GERMANY!!! This is only the third Waxwing to have ever been recorded travelling from the UK to Germany – another mind-boggling and surely ultimate result from our efforts here in Aboyne last autumn…. oooor is it?

  

  

If you can check or photograph any Waxwings for colour-ringed birds it would be much appreciated? As you can see in the map below, our 59 Deeside Dazzlers could be just about ANYWHERE now?

Harry