Our Cormorants off souff again

 Cormo colony: Trumps 7th green on his new golf course is a bit of a challenge.

Our cormorants are once again going their different ways for the winter. HXY is first off down souff again, reported back on Farmoor Reservoir in Oxfordshire by Paul Willis on 27/9/12 for its second winter and PJB passing through Northumberland for 2nd autumn, seen by Steve Holliday at Blyth Harbour on 4th October.

HXY in its first winter by Matt Prior 

Since the project began in 2003, thanks to the many observers who have reported darvic ringed birds, we have been able to build up a very interesting picture of the species winter movements and site fidelity. It’s fair to say our cormorant chicks make a generally southwards but otherwise fairly random dispersal in their first winter. However once settled down at a site for the winter, whether it be close to home, or on an inland water body in central England, or on the east or west coasts, or even further south into France or Portugal, they will then religiously return to this site winter after winter. 

Cormo FCX last 5 winters spent on Watermead Country Park, Leicestershire (photo by David Gray) and christened “JOCKY” by Steve Lister and David Gray

JOCKY” on eggs back at home by Chris Jones.

Thanks very much to all who have reported darviced cormorants over the years. It is hoped to send an updated history of “your” bird to you ASAP to let you know if it was seen back at a breeding colony in Aberdeenshire in 2012. Keep your eyes peeled again this winter please. 

Raymond Duncan

Neds Lintie conservation goes wrong and thanks to South Manchester RG

 Nice gorse bank, 11 known lintie nests and probably blackbird, song thrush and dunnock (well I’d like to see you cold search through that lot) last weekend. Well photo actually taken last April when we did get a sunny morning. 

This weekend 6 known lintie nests and prob the others mentioned all torched.

After no burns last summer we’d been complimenting the Neds on their controlled gorse burnings, creating new vigorous growth for the linties and keeping it in nice accessible, nestable patches. Grrrrr.

 

On the brighter side we’ve retrapped/resighted over 40 adult linnets and 20 chicks returning from last summer so with us well over the RAS quota we can take the rest of the summer off!

Finally a big thank you very much to South Manchester RG for information on one of our pied wag chicks from last summer which they controlled on 18/12/11 wintering in Mobberley, Chester. Here’s the very nest site (hole in wall) it was ringed in (2^nd brood) and an adult (gnat in foreground) back last weekend, neither of the pair ringed unfortunately.

 

Raymond

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