Rock Pipit Movements

As well as studying the breeding ecology of Rock Pipits, the colour-ringing project looks at movements of the birds. So far the project has discovered:

• Sedentary birds, which remain on territory all year

• Adults which move a short distance from their breeding site to winter on a nearby seaweedy beach

• Local movements between beaches, probably driven by the availability of seaweed (which hosts their invertebrate prey), and/or social interactions

• Daily commutes between a feeding area and a communal roost

• Migration to and from Shetland, and probably beyond

Sedentary birds

Many (but not all) of the birds breeding at Girdleness, of both sexes, can be found there throughout the year. None have been found elsewhere, as yet.

Winter flocking on beaches close to breeding sites

A special mention should be made of the bird holding the record for the highest number of resightings. 2611107/Yellow Blue/Yellow was ringed as a juvenile male during the first catch of the project, on 26/09/2009, at Aberdour Beach. He has now been recorded forty times since, always on the same beach. Only one of these sightings was during the breeding season (21/05/2012), which is still enough to suggest that he breeds nearby, probably around the inaccessible cliffs to the west of the beach.

2611107/Y B/Y after ringing. © Allan Perkins.

Local movements between winter beaches

In previous years Pennan has hosted brief sizeable flocks of Rock Pipits during the autumn. Although birds breed around the village, the origins of the birds caught there are unknown. One of these birds, 2611143/Yellow Red/Orange, ringed as a juvenile female on 28/09/2010, was spotted at various locations along the north coast, resulting in an almost-round trip of 34km, ending at Aberdour Beach on 21/05/2012. As with the above-mentioned bird, she was probably breeding nearby.

Map showing the local movements of 2611143/Y R/O.

A = 28/09/2010; B = 22 & 23/10/2010 (8km); C = 08/02/2011 (10km);

D = 08 & 10/01/2012 (10km); E = 21/05/2012 (6km).

Commuting between roost and feeding area

Communal roosting of Rock Pipits is not well documented. Thanks to the efforts of the “shaggers”, good numbers have been observed appearing in Fraserburgh Harbour on winter evenings, for the last couple of years. It took until autumn 2012 to raise my interest, when a couple of colour-ringed birds were reported. The first was ringed as a first winter female at Cairnbulg (3.5 km SE) on 20/03/2012, and not seen again in the interim. She has not been recorded back at Cairnbulg since. We retrapped her at the roost this February, and she was found 3 days later feeding nearby, on the Beach Esplanade.

2611325/G O/W retrapped at Fraserburgh Harbour roost 24/02/2013 almost a year after being ringed in Cairnbulg. © Amanda Biggins

The other bird was ringed as a chick near Quarry Head, Rosehearty (“Nest 1” in my previous blog post), on 20/05/2012, a distance of 9km. It was also photographed a month earlier at nearby Kinnaird Head.

Over the winter, the roost has held between 6 and 18 birds, with 11 so far being trapped and ringed there. Seven have been resighted back there subsequently. There is considerable movement between the roost and Cairnbulg, 3.5 km away. Half of the birds ringed at Cairnbulg have been seen at the roost, with five birds regularly moving back and forth between the two sites. Three birds have so far been observed at both sites on the same day.

To date, 17 different colour-ringed birds have been recorded at the roost, with at least 7 still unringed (and this is probably an underestimate), giving a total of at least 24 birds.

Rock Pipits preparing to roost in the wall crevices of Fraserburgh Harbour. © Amanda Biggins

Due to the limited daylight hours of the Scottish winter, the birds have not been arriving at the roost until after dusk. This has made it difficult to observe colour-ring combinations and it is likely that some have been missed. Also, birds may roost in other parts of the harbour, away from the main study area.

Migration

The regular migration of Rock Pipits was thought to be restricted to the Scandinavian littoralis race. Although there have been recoveries of Shetland-ringed birds (mainly from Fair Isle) in many parts of mainland Britain, this was thought to be juvenile dispersal, and that the adults remained on their breeding areas all year.

The first, and the longest, of the project’s long-distance recoveries involved only the second bird I colour-ringed myself. 2611110/Yellow Blue/Black, a first-winter, ringed on Aberdour beach on 13/02/2010. Having nearly knocked myself out going to retrieve it from the trap, slipping on rocks (I literally had cartoon Rock Pipits tweeting around my head), I was really pleased to hear from Jason Atkinson on the island of Whalsay, Shetland. The bird had originally been seen breeding at Skaw on 28/04/2010, but was too far away to identify the combination, until it was photographed feeding fledglings on 21/06/2010. I was on Shetland when I heard the news, and waved to the bird as we passed on the ferry to Out Skerries. It was last recorded at Skaw on 26/09/2010 and was not seen back in Aberdeenshire.

2611110/Y B/N breeding at Skaw, Whalsay, Shetland, 325km from where it was ringed. © Jason Atkinson

The second recovery involved a bird ringed on Fair Isle on 07/09/2007 and recaught at Aberdour Beach on 20/10/2010, when I was training the newly appointed Fair Isle warden, David Parnaby. 2551461/Green Red/Green was not seen again, until a possible sighting: the briefest glimpse, back at Aberdour beach 1 year and 9 days later. This bird could have been on passage both times it was caught, and was not seen back on Fair Isle in between it’s brief visits to Aberdeenshire.

The next recovery further dispelled the juvenile dispersal theory. 2611301/Green Green/White, or “Celtic” as he’s become known, was ringed as a 1st winter male at Rosehearty on 07/11/2011. Seen there regularly over the winter, up until 28/02/2012. He was first spotted on Fair Isle on 17/04/2012. He bred not far from the observatory, and was last noted feeding chicks on 21/06/2012. I unfortunately did not find him when I visited Fair Isle in early September. When I returned home I found out why: I found “Celtic”, now an adult, back at Rosehearty on 28/09/2012 - a round trip of 400km. He has so far been seen 13 times this winter.

2611301/G G/W, “Celtic”, back at Rosehearty, after breeding on Fair Isle. © Amanda Biggins.

We were alerted to the presence of a metal-ringed bird at Buchanhaven, Peterhead this winter by Ed Duthie, who sent us photo’s of most of the ring number (plus 2 colour-ringed birds). The photos showed that this was an adult. I took my fancy new telescope off to the area and soon located the bird. I felt a bit dodgy peering into someone’s front garden through the ‘scope, but luckily noone complained. I pursued it down the road to get the last digit. I discovered that, although not impossible, trying to read a Rock Pipit metal ring in the field brings to mind a phrase about a headless chicken. 2552406 was ringed on Fair Isle on 15/04/2009, and has been seen four times at Buchanhaven, between 30/12/2012 and 18/02/2013.

A colour-ringed Rock Pipit was reported from a remote part of Out Skerries, Shetland (summer 2011), which probably originates from Grampian. However, without the full combination, it was untraceable.

Next time I will talk about movements of birds ringed as chicks. I’ll hopefully find some breeding, to complete the stories of some interesting movements of these youngsters.

Amanda.

2012 Totals

The totals for 2012 are in. 12,572 birds of 121 species were processed.

4 species were new for the group, Scaup, Red Grouse, Whimbrel and Paddyfield Warbler

The top ten species ringed were - 

1. Swallow – 1552
2. Goldfinch – 1078
3.  Linnet - 580
4.  Greenfinch - 468
5.  Arctic Tern - 455
6.  Waxwing - 430
7.  Chaffinch - 422 
8.  Blue Tit - 414
9.  Sandwich Tern – 413
10.  Herring Gull - 354

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

Tawny Frogmouth Breeding Success

Former Grampian ringer Stuart Rae now lives in Canberra, Australia. Here he shares one of his studies on the local birdlife.

A brood of two Tawny Frogmouth chicks

I have been monitoring the breeding success of Tawny Frogmouths Podargus strigoides in Canberra, Australia, for several years and have found that the pattern is fairly constant. About half the breeding pairs rear two young to fledging; a few rear three in any year and about a quarter rear one chick. The proportion of pairs which fail to rear any chicks is about 24% on average over the years, ranging from 17 – 34% (Figure 1). I do not disturb the birds to record clutch size, but it is known to range from 1-3.

Figure 1: The number of young reared per breeding pair of Tawny Frogmouths in 2006- 2012, Canberra, Australia.

In recent years I had thought that more birds were failing to rear young, but this is just the impression gained as I have added more pairs to the study in the past few years. Although I have been recording more failures, this has been in proportion with larger sample sizes, there is no statistical difference (χ² = 3.8, df = 6, P = 0.43). The main causes of failure, which is usually of whole clutches or broods, are predation by unknown species, but likely Brush-tailed Possum or Brown Goshawk. One male was taken off the nest by a feral cat. A few nests have been blown out of their trees by strong winds.

Figure 2: the number of Tawny Frogmouth pairs which fail to rear any young in any year is proportional (c 24%) to the number of pairs studied (r = 0.899, P = 0.003).

Further study will aim to determine whether there are any differences between the breeding success of frogmouths in grassy woodland, dry sclerophyll forest or suburban remnant woodland; or if there is any difference between years of drought and high rainfall. Fortunately the study has already covered these criteria.

Stuart Rae

A male Tawny Frogmouth protects his chick

A Great Great Black-Backed Gull

The last post about colour ringed gulls on this blog was about a rare movement, a Common Gull chick seen in North West Spain. We have now had another unusual movement to Spain from one of our gull chicks. Not only was it ringed on the same day, but it has been sighted only 7 miles away from our Common Gull! This time however it is a Great Black-backed Gull.

On the 30th June 2012, after a morning’s ringing of 180 Common Gull chicks at Tillypronie, we headed to the coast, to Whinnyfold seabird colony. There we ringed 90 gull chicks on a tidal stack (above). Most of the chicks were Herring Gulls, but we also colour ringed 3 Great Black-backed Gulls (below), the first and only chicks of this species to be ringed in our project.

We heard no reports from these birds until 13th January 2013, when T:013 was sighted at Ares Beach, A Coruña, Spain, 1005 miles away from where it was born. A photograph by the observer Antonio Gutierrez is below. The bird was seen at the beach again two days later. What makes this sighting interesting is that very few British ringed Great Black-backed Gulls have been reported in Southern Europe. According to BTO online reports only 3 individuals have previously been recorded in Spain, and 1 in Portugal, although this may not take into account all colour ring sightings. The majority of birds found abroad are in Scandinavian countries.

Thank you very much to Antonio for reporting this sighting. You can see more photographs of T:013 and other colour ringed gulls in North West Spain on his blog -  http://gaviotasyanillas.blogspot.co.uk/.

We have only ringed 16 Great Black-backed Gulls so far in this project. Despite this small number we have had 3 other birds, all from the same catch, seen abroad; 1 in Germany and 2 in Denmark. Such a high return rate from so few birds really demonstrates the value of colour rings on this species.

The majority of gulls we ring in this project are Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls. So far this winter we have had lots of interesting sightings from across Europe and beyond, which will be the subject of the next gull post.

Euan

Tales From Lord Pitsligo’s Cave

The colour ringing of Rock Pipits on the north Aberdeenshire coast has been mainly to study their winter movements, and to discover where they breed. Birds have been trapped on the seaweedy beaches of Pennan, Aberdour, Rosehearty and Cairnbulg. Some birds have been found breeding near to the beaches at Pennan and Aberdour, but no nests have been located at these sites, as yet. The other sites appear to be unsuitable for breeding, but can hold good numbers in the winter.

The high cliffs along the north coast make ideal nesting habitat, but it is far more difficult to locate and reach nests here, than around Girdleness. The presence of breeding seabirds, particularly Herring Gulls, with their incessant alarm calls, further hinders nest-finding attempts. I have annually monitored a stretch of coastline between Aberdour Beach and Rosehearty. There is a rough coastal path, although it is not well used. Occasional colour ringed birds have been found breeding along this stretch, but again, nests remained elusive.

In 2012 monitoring of the stretch began on 14^th May. Much of the vegetation along the coast had been grazed hard by sheep, and I wondered if the birds would be able to find enough cover to nest. However, Allan and I managed to find two colour-ringed birds, and both were carrying food: a sure sign they had chicks. The first, Metal/Green Green/Orange, on the territory marked “4” on the map below, was ringed as a first-year, at Rosehearty, in Nov 2011. The other, Metal/Yellow Red/Yellow, with a nest at Lord Pitsligo’s cave, marked “2” on the map, was also ringed at Rosehearty, but was a six-year-old male. Originally metal-ringed in Jan 2007, he was retrapped, again at Rosehearty, in Dec 2009, and his bling added. He has been seen every winter since, at Rosehearty, but had not been recorded during the breeding season, until this year. Had he been missed breeding there during the last two summers, or had he moved territories?

Map showing territories and nests found along the coastline between Aberdour and Rosehearty.

With a huge amount of patience and luck, Allan managed to locate the nest of “Lord Pitsligo”, plus another nest of chicks, marked “1” on the map. Both broods had only recently hatched, so we returned six days later to ring the chicks. Allan then managed to find a third nest with chicks, “3” on the map, that we also ringed. These three nests were very different in their situations: nest 1, a hole near the top of a steeper-than-it-looked-from-the-bottom cliff-face; nest 2, a hole along an almost flat stretch of short grass; nest 3, in a fairly open rock crevice.

 Locations of Nest 1 (May) and Nest 4 (July), possibly 1^st & 2^nd broods of the same unringed pair. © Allan Perkins

Removing chicks from Nest 2 to ring (May) © Allan Perkins

Nest 3, in an open rock crevice (May) © Allan Perkins

Another interesting feature of these nests was their contents: all contained five healthy chicks, and all are believed to have fledged, though only the brood from nest 3 were all seen (the others remained hidden). Although the nest of the other ringed bird was not found, on territory 4, the pair was seen feeding fledged young (number unknown). Whilst the birds at Girdleness may lay clutches of five eggs, often not all hatch, and very rarely do five survive to fledging there. Nesting success at Girdleness has consistently been 50% over the last three years. Far more nests have been monitored there (31), so it is maybe too early to compare breeding success at the two sites, but it does warrant further study.

The differences in topography and human disturbance at the sites are perhaps responsible for differences in nest survival. The birds on the north coast are noticeably more wary: one bird was observed swallowing a beakful of insects, as soon as it saw us. Only one nest at Girdleness was known to have failed as a direct result of human disturbance, but an abundance of people may encourage predators and scavengers to the area.

Since Lord Pitsligo’s female (at nest 2) was unringed, I decided to try and trap her, as I was interested to see if the pair wintered together. A few days after ringing the chicks, I returned and set some spring traps on the territory. Although I managed to catch two birds, neither was the target female. Firstly, the male of an unringed pair: I had recorded them a few times, hanging around the edge of the territory. I was uncertain whether they had a nest nearby, but they certainly were not feeding chicks. The second bird caught was Lord Pitsligo himself (Metal/Yellow Red/Yellow), trapped for the third time (a record in my study). Like the six-year-old male at Girdleness, he had unmoulted central tail feathers and tertials.

We returned to the area in July, to look for second broods, and saw two pairs feeding young. However, it soon became clear that both pairs were different from those holding the territories earlier in the season. There was no sign of either of the two original colour-ringed birds, or any of the fledged young. An unringed pair now resided on territory 4, previously occupied by Metal/Green Green/Orange. This may have been the pair from nest 1, near the top of the cliff, further along the same beach. At Lord Pitsligo’s Cave (territory 2), the male was colour-ringed, but was the other male caught on the territory, Metal/Red Yellow/Black. Although this nest was not found, it was clear that it was close to the original nest (I did check the original nest and it had not been reused).

Despite the five chicks on territory 4 being quite large when we ringed them, we found that they had been predated by the end of the month: there were chick feathers pulled out underneath the nest. Although partial predation does occur, with some chicks fledging, no chicks from this brood have so far been seen fledged.

Fingers crossed that we’ll manage to find more nests and colour ringed birds there next year. The next Rock Pipit blog will feature the movements of individuals, both local and further afield, including the adventures of Lord Pitsligo’s offspring.

Amanda

Waxwings – all over the shop this winter

It’s a very different picture so far this winter from the last large invasion of 2010/11. See 2 maps below for comparison. Colour-ringed birds have been reported in Ireland, mid-Wales, SW Scotland, Walsall and Warwickshire (2 together) in central England, down the east coast as far as Spurn and Humberside and one across the North Sea near Arnhem in the Netherlands. Despite the huge number of resightings in 2010/11 none were reported in Ireland, Wales or the Netherlands!

Orkney colour-ringed Waxwings (yellow left leg) in Walsall 08/12/12 Andy Purcell  

Another Orkney ringed bird in Humberside 08/12/12 Graham Catley.

Two Aberdeen colour-ringed Waxwings in Warwickshire 06/12/12 Stephen Clarkson

Aberdeen Waxwing in Northumberland 10/12/12, Tim Mason 

Aberdeen Waxing in Huissen, near Arnhem, the Netherlands 23/12/12  Niek and Chris Klaassen.

Just as interesting is what the map doesn’t show, 100s still around Aberdeen this Xmas (at least 40 colour-ringed birds still present) compared to the near complete exodus in late November 2010 when the snow came big time. 

Remarkably one of the mid-Wales birds was actually originally ringed in Fair Isle on 4th November then retrapped in Aberdeen 15th November where the colour-rings blue over black on the left leg were added. Phil Owen then photographed it in Newtown, Powys on 9th December, photo below.

He passed the photo on to local ringer Tony Cross and colleagues who’d been colour-ringing Waxwings at the site that day only to cause them great consternation when they looked at the picture and saw the rings were on the opposite leg to what they had been doing! Remarkably they managed to catch it later in the day to find, much to their relief, that it had been colour-ringed in Aberdeen with same blue/black combination but on the opposite leg! 

Nearer home a visit to our neighbouring Tay Ringing Group was made to help them try to ring some of the flock of 800 Waxwings feeding on Yew berries in a Dundee cemetery. It was good to catch up with some old friends but also nice to meet up again with a newer friend……..Dennis The Menace, Waxwing with colour rings red/black/red which had been ringed 10 days previously in Aberdeen. A very appropriate combination and nickname given that the home of the Beano comic and character Dennis The Menace (wearer of a red and black striped jersey for the limited few who may not read the comic on a regular basis) was just round the corner at DC Thomson & Co. in Dundee!

“Dennis The Menace” ringed in Aberdeen 5/12/12 and rtpd in Dundee 15/12/12

More of your photos will feature in Tarry Harry’s Aboyne roundup if he ever gets round to finishing off the “Good, the bad, the ugly……..and the awesome” Waxwing feature posted up previously.

Thank you very much to all who have reported sightings and sent photographs of colour-ringed Waxwings. All are very much appreciated and help monitor the progress and fortunes of some of these Viking invaders during their visit to Britain.

PLEASE CHECK ALL WAXWINGS (AND YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS) FOR COLOUR-RINGED BIRDS AND REPORT THEM TO THE GRG BLOG AT grampianringing@googlemail.com OR raymond@waxwing.fsnet.co.uk.

WE ARE ALSO VERY INTERESTED TO HEAR ABOUT ANY DEAD WAXWINGS FOUND ANYWHERE THIS WINTER TO SEE WHAT GRIM FIGURE WE CAN COME UP WITH COMPARED TO 2010/11.

For a very interesting overview of the movements of Waxwings being colour-ringed in mid-Wales this winter go to midwalesringers.blogspot.com

Raymond Duncan (on behalf of this winter’s GRG Waxwing ringing squad)