Recent Gull Sightings

The frustratingly mild winter we've has this year has meant that gulls haven't been very hungry, making catching them quite challenging. However, some interesting sightings have come from the birds we've managed to ring. We had good numbers of northern Argentatus Herring Gulls about at the beginning of the year. Distinctively pale plumaged first winter Herring Gull T:610 (above), which was ringed at Peterhead Harbour on 8th January, confirmed its Scandinavian roots when it was seen and photographed by Arnt Kvinnesland at Ferkingstad, Karmoy, Norway (below) on the 14th March.

The past few months we've also had lots of sightings from the Herring Gulls we ringed during the summer. Most of these have been around North East Scotland, but we've have had several birds travel further south, mostly to England, and recently one to Ouddorp in the Netherlands. A map of our long distance Herring Gull movements is below. We are now down to a 1 in 4 sighting

rate overall.

Glaucous Gull T:193, ringed last August at the Ugie Estuary, Peterhead (below with a satisfied Calum) which was then seen at Boldon Flats, Durham in Decemeber, has been sighted again several times across England.

It was seen at Newburn Sewer, Seaton Carew on 15th January, and then it went down to Cotham Landfill Site, Nottinghamshire for a couple of weeks from the 18th February (photographed below by Nick Crouch). It was next seen for a few days at Ogston Reservoir, Derbyshire from the 8th March. It then went north again, and was at Longnewton Reservoir, Cleveland on the 24th and 25th March.

It will be interesting to to see where it turns up next. Please look out for it and any other colour ringed gulls, send sightings to e.ferguson17@hotmail.co.uk. All our gulls have yellow rings with the letter T followed by a colon and three numbers.

A big thank you to all observers and photographers.

Euan

The Gentlemen's Ringing Group

Whilst trying to think where to take some of the more office-based staff from RSPB Aberdeen out to see some birds in the hand and a bit of ringing, the first place that came to my mind was the Gentlemen Ringers of Craibstone.

Alastair, Brian, Walter and others are well known for their good ringing, butteries and hot tea. And they made special efforts for us with jackets and ties! It wasn't just about how you fold a hankercheif though as we caught a few birds too, inlcuding this rather white-headed long tailed tit after we left.

Thanks to Ann for taking the photographs (although we were disappointed you weren't in a cocktail dress Ann!) and to all for putting on such a good ringing demo.

Jenny

2011 Totals

The totals are in for 2011.

13,193 birds were processed of 115 species. 3555 of which were pulli.

Sandwich Tern tops the list, with 1157 individuals processed, including 93 retraps/controls.

The top 10 fully grown species processed were-

1. Goldfinch -1037
2. Blue Tit - 684
3. Chaffinch - 658
4. Siskin - 559
5. Arctic Tern - 512
6. Common Tern - 497
7. Linnet - 416
8. Great Tit - 414
9. Coal Tit - 392
10. Sandwich Tern -321

The top 10 pulli species were -

1. Sandwich Tern – 836
2. Linnet – 292
3. Tree Sparrow – 248
4. Swallow - 207
5. Willow Warbler - 185
6. Ring Ouzel – 161
7. Whitethroat – 137
8. Cormorant -101
9. Sedge Warbler - 87
10. Kittiwake - 84

Great Grey Shrike!

After a few weekends braving windswept farmland and freezing temperatures on whoosh net expeditions with Raymond, it was time to return to the relative tranquillity and the shelter of the reed bed and carr woodland at Leys.

This has been run as a CES (Constant Effort Site) for the past three years and we occasionally ring here in winter. We expected a quiet morning with mostly great, blue and coal tits. The redpoll tape played all morning and attracted only a single lesser redpoll.

What we didn’t expect was a Great Grey Shrike. We did not see it beforehand but just came across it during a net round. We wonder whether it was attracted by the concentration of birds around the feeder.

We should have considered it a possibility as one (presumably the same bird) was reported on ABZ birds by Paul Baxter at Raemoir Fishery only a few hundred metres away and is thought to have been there since mid December or even earlier. -http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ABZ-Rare-Birds/message/7514

The bird was aged as a first year bird as it appeared not to have moulted any greater coverts or the alula.

In 2010 only 13 birds were ringed in the UK, Five adults and eight first year birds.

What a morning!

Walter and Alister

Gulls on the move

T:605, Duthie Park (Ewan Weston)

We are now getting some interesting sightings from the gulls we've been colour ringing since the summer. Most of our sightings have been from Herring Gulls around Aberdeenshire, however some have gone further afield. We've had two, both ringed on the same day, seen in England, one at Greatham Creek, Teesside and one at North Hykeham, Lincolnshire. Going further south was Herring Gull T:228, ringed at Torry in August and seen in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Pas-de-Calais, France four months later. This is only the second Grampian ringed Herring Gull recorded in France, the previous had been ringed as a chick.

T:209, Peterhead (Chris Gibbins)

The bird that has travelled the greatest distance so far is Lesser Black-backed Gull, T:027, ringed at the end of June in the Asda car park beside Aberdeen beach. It was caught by hand after it was chased inside a shopping trolley!

It was then sighted in September at El Puerto de Santa Maria in the south of Spain. It was resighted several times into November. We only colour ringed seven Lesser Black-backed Gulls this summer, so we were very pleased to get such a good movement out of one of them.

T:027, El Puerto de Santa Maria (Rafa Garcia)

Similarly, we have also only colour ringed seven Great Black-backed Gulls so far, yet we've still had one venture abroad! T:007 was ringed on boxing day at Peterhead Harbour, and seen four days later in St. Peter Ording, Germany!

A nice surprise this summer was managing to colour ring a Glaucous Gull at the Ugie Estuary, Peterhead on the 3rd August. We heard nothing at all about this birds whereabouts until it was seen at Boldon Flats, Durham on 23rd December. Few Glaucous Gulls have been ringed in the UK, so it will be interesting to see where this bird turns up next.

Thank you to all observers and photographers. Please check all Gulls you see for colour rings, all our rings are yellow with the letter T followed by a colon and three numbers.

Euan

Shag darvics galore!

After the wild stormy winds of mid week where else would Jane be found last weekend but wandering around Fraserburgh Harbour. The sea was still raging with waves going over the north breakwater. The outer coast was totally washed, including the annoying roost-wreck at Cairnbulg where the birds stand just out of scope range on an upturned trawler. However the inner harbour appeared to be a calm sanctuary and Jane managed a new Broch record of 62 darvics.

Some shags roosting on the tyres in Fraserburgh Harbour (Photo Jane)

Loads of juvvies, including some of our own chicks from Bullers of Buchan (20kms south down the coast) plus two new data logger adults. These are birds from the Isle of May, much further south in the Firth of Forth. Data loggers are attached to the darvics of breeding adults in the summer and the ringers hope to recapture the birds back breeding at the same nest site next summer when the logger is removed and the data down loaded. Amount of daylight is continually recorded and this can be correlated with the amount of daylight expected during the winter months to plot the birds wintering grounds. Resightings of particular birds help calibrate the accuracy of the data being collected.

“I’ll just gee them a wee stun, honest" says Skitts (Photo Raymond)

On the down side Jane rescued a rather weak juvie, blue darvic UPP, from a bouldery roosting place. With more storms expected it is possible we may get a “wreck” of shags, an abnormal amount dying due to these harsh conditions.

Please check all harbours and rocky shores for roosting shags and beaches for potential high mortality over next few months

Raymond

Linnet breeders still at home

With the weather turning a bit colder now linnets are finally coming onto one of the bait sites. 2 catches have produced 99 linnets and a few goldfinch, chaffy and greenies. 12 retrap linnets have included 4 colour-ringed adults, 2 juveniles and 3 pullus from this summer’s ringing at Girdleness.

Males Orange/Orange and White/Yellow ringed as breeding males in May 2011 and retrapped December (Raymond Duncan)

Mind you, if the linnets sat in the trees above the catching site and looked through a telescope they could see their nest sites 6kms away to the south. Hopefully we can get a few more flocks onto bait sites this winter scattered a bit further around the region to see how far adults and juveniles disperse and see how many survive the winter. It’s amazing how many actually survived the previous 2 winters given the deep snow we had and how long it lay in freezing conditions. We actually watched weakened linnets drop from the air through starvation at one site in January 2010 and had to refrain from catching large numbers at the bait site along with 5 different bunting species (snow, corn, reed, yellow and lapland) as conditions were just too extreme

Finch/bunting flock and 4 bunting species (Hywel Maggs)

Some very fluffy linnets on bait at New Aberdour 9/1/10 (Hywel Maggs)

It would appear not all of our local bred birds remain for the winter. Breeding female retrap Yellow/Yellow photographed below at Girdleness on 15/5/11 by local birder Graham Ruthvin, had originally been ringed as a juvenile on passage at Portland Bill, Dorset on 5/10/10.

Please have a go for those lintie flocks if you can.

Raymond