One of my main passions in birding is finding out more about birds - hence my involvement with survey work, etc. I have also undertaken a number of personal studies over the years, including:
NE Scotland (Kincards/Aberdeenshire)
SE England (Herts)
SE Scotland (East Lothian)
Some more information is provided below.
NE Scotland (Kincards/Aberdeenshire)
Banchory gulls Map Detailed information
I have watched the gulls at this site for the last 20 years or so since my first interest in birds as a teenager. When I first counted the Herring Gulls on 7/1/88 there were over 4000 present but these days around 1000 is more normal for mid-winter. Great Blackback numbers seem to have shown the opposite trend, with very few in the mid-80's but about 150 present in winter 98/99. Lesser Blackbacks are present in smaller numbers, rarely in mid-winter, and I observed a presumed hybrid LBBxHG on 26/12/98. Only once did I find a white-winged bird amongst them, this being a 2nd-win. Iceland in the nearby day-roost at Maryfield.
In December 2003 numbers had fallen to less than 1000 birds and the manager informed me that "bird scaring" (with falcons) is now used on a daily basis to satisfy demands of SEPA. These birds included only 7% 1st-winters, much lower than averages for the early 1990's of 26% and perhaps to do with the scaring? Also, less than 1% were argentatus-race birds, including the adult and 4th-win individuals shown below - quite a low number, cf the paper of study of Coulson et al. 135 Carrion Crows were accompanied by 5 Hooded-Carrion hybrids and 3 pure-bred Hoodies - high counts for NE Scotland.
A more detailed description of the trends in large gulls numbers in this area is now included in this linked document.
Waxwings in NE Banchory, Kincardineshire, Scotland Detailed information.
I recently made an analysis of our Waxwing records in NE Banchory between 1985 and 2005 (birds also occured in earlier years but I made no systematic records). A total of about 550 birds-days were recorded distributed over 14 out of the 21 years.
Strong regional correlation is shown with over 10 birds logged in Banchory in every year when peak flock size exceeded 100 in the NESBR region, whilst in every year with regional peak flock size <10 no birds were seen. The ratio of local to regional peak flock size is fairly consistent at around 15%. Most birds occur in Banchory in December with a fairly linear decrease through to April.
Birds have most often been found feeding on cotoneaster berries (frequency 65%), with gean, rowan, apples, hawthorn and rosehip visited in decreasing frequency. Amongst the cotoneaster varieties, Cot. bullatus seems to be most favoured, followed by the taller Cot. simondsii and the hedge-forming Cot. horizontalis.
Colour-ringed birds were seen in 1987 and total of 8 amongst a flock of 36 birds in late January 2005 as shown here, and above:
All were ringed locally in previous weeks by the Grampian Ringing Group, in Aberdeen (4), Aboyne (3) and Inverurie (1). All of the Aberdeen-ringed birds had also been seen subsequently in other places on Deeside, i.e. Aboyne (3) and Westhill (1).
A more detailed description of Banchory Waxwings is now included in this linked document and the study data is summarised in this linked spreadsheet.
SE England (Herts)
Large gulls from central London in roost at Hilfield Park Resr Map
I started visiting this HMWT reservoir in 2003 to count the gull roost which can be viewed from the footbridge over the M1. The above image shows <25% of the full roost flock and is compressed to 40% of the real width. During late winter in 2003 and 2004 I found 10-15 thousand Black-headed Gulls, about 500 Common Gulls, up to 200 Lesser Blackbacks, and up to 75 Herring Gulls and occasional Mediterranean Gull, Yellow-legged Gull and Great Blackback. The record books show that several thousand Herring Gulls were present in former times (e.g. 7250 on 11/1/69) but it seems that changes in waste disposal practices have forced them to move elsewhere (cf Crow's Nest observations below). In April 2003 I noticed that this species arrived much later in the roost, most coming in from the south, often well after dark!
On 17 January 2004 I took part in the full BTO roost census at the site and we counted nearly 17000 Black-headed Gulls, 2300 Common Gulls, 380 Lesser Blackbacks, and 90 Herring Gulls. I also observed an adult Mediterranean Gull on the water prior to the count.
I followed up these observations with a study of the roost flightpath of the Herring Gulls arriving at Hilfield from the south-east. This is described in full on the linked page here, and downloadable as a pdf here.
Whippendell Wood, Watford, Hertfordshire, England Map
I undertook a personal survey of this site in spring 2002 by means of dawn visits. I found the expected woodland species: Great Spotted and Green Woodpeckers, Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Marsh Tit, and plenty of Blackcap and Goldcrest. Owls included several Tawnys, with Barn Owls also at another locality in the neighbourhood. More details are on this linked page.
SE Scotland (East Lothian)
Seton gull roost
After moving to East Lothian in 2004, I began visiting the local gull roost at Port Seton (typically gathered on the sea off the Seton Burn, or at pre-roost by the burn on Seton Sands, map). I began approximately weekly visits in winter 05-06, concentrating mainly on getting a general idea of the composition of the roost, finding that this was highly variable, as per linked summary document. In the 06-07 winter I made more effort to locate Mediterranean Gulls in the roost, finding up to 5 birds together, and a minimum of 9 different individuals in both the first and second halves of the "autumn", with an unknown overlap.
One regular bird is the red colour-ringed 7P8, which was ringed as an adult on 14 May 2004 by the Vistula at Zwirownia, Skoki Duze, west of Warsaw, Poland (52 36N 19 24E), distance 1505km, direction WNW; first seen (at least with its ring on!) in our area on 7 August 2004. A summary of the resightings is available on Johan Bos's page on colour-ringed Mediterranean Gulls in Scotland.
Barn Owl road casualties in Lothian
Barn Owl road casualties are always a tragic sight, yet have clear potential for providing insight into the status of the species in particular areas. This might be particularly useful where there is no dedicated monitoring, as has apparently been the case in Lothian in recent years. Whilst casual records showed a marked increase in 2004 there were no confirmed breeding records in either 2003 or 2004 and considerable uncertainty on the current health of the population in the area.
Historical reporting rates of road-kill averaged 2.4/year between 1984-1993 and only 1.0/year 1994-2003 [from Lothian Bird Reports]. This picture is consistent with a general view that the species has declined drastically in the area over the last 40 years. However, within a few weeks of the author moving East Lothian in August 2004 increased numbers of casualties were being recorded and a personal study commenced. Despite the fact that no special effort was made to find them, a total of 51 Barn Owls were thereafter recorded as RTA’s on Lothian roads during the two-year period from October 2004.
This article presents a summary of the findings from this initial two-year study period, with the intention of providing a baseline against which future trends can be monitored. Valuable additional insights have been obtained by means of post mortem analyses of 18 casualties, all courtesy of veterinary surgeon Jason Waine of Redditch. Other reports have appeared recently in Barn Owl Link (p.6), the newsletter of the Barn Owl Conservation Trust, and in the Lothian Bird Report for 2005.
Overland migrants in south Scotland
Many studies [e.g. British Birds, 100, 8, 502] have reported the overland passage of skua species and other seabirds between the Forth and Clyde estuaries. Since moving to Lothian I have also noticed nocturnal movement of birds over our house in Longniddry suggestive of an overland passage between our location further down the Forth (i.e. Gosford Bay/Aberlady) and the Solway in SW Scotland. This includes many species of wader, Pinkfeet and Barnacle Goose, and also Common Tern and Sandwich Tern. The overland migration of the former species between NE England and the Irish Sea has been documented previously - in particular, observations on Teeside have indicated a SW departure at dusk taking birds over to Liverpool Bay (Ward, R.M., Ringing & Migration, 20, 19, 2000), whilst the latter is known to move off S up the River Esk from Musselburgh during evenings in August.
Some of my records of possible nocturnal migrants are included in this linked spreadsheet.
Updated 25/08/07