Waxwing fever

Waxwing fever is definately building within GRG. Flocks of 300 or more have been seen throughout the city and much of the week has been spent planning the weekend's catching efforts. So far a single bird was colour-ringed yesterday and news just in is that 13 waxies have been caught in Ballater by Raymond and co. It's going to be a busy weekend!

A "Trippie" up North

A “trippie” up North to Peterhead and Fraserburgh is always fun, whether it’s cannon netting waders, spring trapping rock pipits or just looking for rings to read. Recent excursions have produced a few interesting sightings.

Several of “our” shag chicks now fledged and doing fine.

Scandinavian GBBGs, 2 chicks ringed in southern Norway in 2009 + an older bird ringed as a chick in 2001 at Vardo in the north of Norway. We received a quick response with excellent feedback from Nils Helge Lorentzen which included a weblink http://www.ringmerking.no/cr/ which offers past and any future information on the ringed birds reported. We still await information on a Scottish darvic ringed chick.

We did finally manage to ring a trapped shag from the fish box cage because Raymond remembered rings (Jane chose the comb!), but alas he didn’t have rings for the juvy cormorant (ggrrr)!

Hannah and Jessica with a juvy cormorant and juvy shag ringed PIS.

Photos Raymond

Migrants

Strong south easterly winds have brought in excellent numbers of migrating birds this autumn, giving us good oppurtunities for ringing. Along the coast we've been catching birds such as Goldcrests, Robins, Blackcaps, Flycatchers and Redstarts.

We've also ringed some less common species, such as Lesser Whitethroats and a Reed Warbler. Despite these species abundance further south, these birds are relatively scarce in the north-east. With regards to rarer migrants, A Blyths Reed Warbler was ringed at the end of September and today a Pallas’s Warbler.

Other interesting birds that have turned up on the coast have included a leucistic (ginger!) Meadow Pipit, and a very nice Long-eared Owl.



Photos Euan Ferguson

Metal detecting ringing

So how do you ruin a nice Sunday walk? No not golf - you take a metal detector with you to look for rings! We decided that we would have a go with a metal detector in the Sandwich tern colony at Forvie to look for rings on chicks that hadn't fledged.

After weeks of practicing on small nails in the garden we headed off on Sunday with dogs in tow, with a spade and big rucksack to carry back all of the 100's of rings we expected to find.
Well it didn't quite turn out that way... D2's don't cause a reaction in the metal detector unless you have almost a whole string of them together! So we found nothing with our metal detector (but had great fun playing airport security!) and had to look for rings the old fashioned way. We found 12 of this year's chicks long dead with rings on, including 6 that were colour ringed also.

We had fun on our walk but learnt an important lesson for ornithological conservation - don't use a metal detector for finding D2s! Thanks to Ian for sourcing the metal detector.

Raymond, Jenny, Ewan, Clunie, Freya, Bramble, Sula, Moya and Tyr

Sea eagles in Aberdeen

Back in August we went down to Fife to help with the radio-tagging of the White-tailed eagles before there were released as part of the RSPB's reintroduction project. It was lots of hard work but good fun, as you can see below with a picture of Ewan with his new best friend!

Last week E (aka Ewan the eagle) was spotted by Nick Littlewood at Blackdog which is also Ewan's regular migrant ringing site! Thanks to Nick for such great pictures - it looks as though the bird has since headed further up the coast towards Strathbeg. Ironically Ewan the eagle is a girl so maybe we need to think of a new name!

Ewan and Jenny

Lapwing on the Ythan

On Sunday we braved the wind and rain to try and catch some more lapwing to be colour ringed on the Ythan. The strong winds prevented the net fully extending but we still caught 6 birds which provided a good challenge for sexing and moult!

Colour-ringed Eider

Our 2 youngest ringers Euan and Callum, came across a dead colour- ringed eider on the Ythan at weekend. Turned out to be over 10 years older than them, ringed in 1982! By coincidence Raymond saw a live and healthy LL: WG male at lunchtime down Donmouth.