Latest Raptor poisoning hotspot maps published – 71 kites to date!!

Myself and tom had the honour of being invited to the launch of the latest PAW Scotland Poisoning Hotspot Maps, published today. They show that Scotland’s birds of prey continue to be poisoned with illegal chemicals.

Figures from the Scientific Advisory Service for Scottish Agriculture (SASA) show that 28 birds were poisoned between January and December 2010. We obviously have a vested interest in red kites and since their re-intoduction 71 have been confirmed victims of poison abuse!

The maps clearly show where confirmed poisonings have taken place and the Scottish Government, RSPB Scotland and the Scottish Rural Property and Businesses Association have all been involved in their publication on behalf on the PAW Scotland Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group.

Minister for the Environment and Climate Change Roseanna Cunningham attended the launch at the Doune Estate in Stirlingshire earlier today (see picture).

Shy kite makes an appearance!

We had a great sighting on Sunday 1st March. Green/white 5 is a 2002 female from Dumfries and Galloway (D&G). She was originally from the Black Isle, but was one of twenty supplied for the South West Scotland re-introduction project.
She was released from the secret cages on the Galloway Kite Trail in July, but dispersed very quickly, with her last recorded in D&G on the 20th August 2002. Only two months later she was located in Central Scotland for the first time.
Red kites usually start breeding when they are 2-3 years old, so when she was spotted at Argaty for the first time in February 2005, it proved she had settled in the area to raise future generations! Over the years her breeding performance has had mixed fortunes and her nest failed last year!
She was last spotted at the hide in February 2007, but it’s strange that she’s not a regular at the feeding station, considering she breeds in the locality! Other neighbouring pairs in the vicinity also do not use the feeding station, which is a great indication of good natural food supply and further proof that our population are not dependant on the small amount of food that we supply!

Fingers crossed she has a better breeding season and produces a good number of young this year!

Dead kite appears to be victim of the severe winter!

Sorry to have to report that we picked up a dead kite on the 13th December 2010. RED/BLUE 31, was from a brood of three on the farm last summer, but she had not been seen at the hide since the 16th November. Sorry for the delay in reporting this, but all of these incidents must be investigated before we can go public.

Although it initially looked like a case of starvation, she was, as standard recovered by the police and sent to the laboratory for post mortem. Thankfully the kite tested negative for the commonly abused pesticides and other illegal poisons. Starvation remains a likely cause of death, as she had lost 25% of her bodyweight since she was ringed and tagged back in June.
Apparently, she was carrying a low concentration of a rodenticide, which could have been picked up from eating live or dead rats in an area where they were being controlled. On this occasion the quantity of rat poison was not sufficient to have caused the death of this bird. Nevertheless, it is a valuable reminder of how potentially vulnerable kites are to picking up rodenticide from affected rats – hence the ongoing campaign to educate rodenticide users about following the label instructions on containers, to keep rat control within the law and minimise the risk to other wildlife.
There is a legitimate need for rat populations to be controlled in many areas, particularly around farm steadings and other rural sites, but rodenticide poisoning is a particularly painful way for any animal to die. Many rodenticides contain anticoagulants, which gather in the liver and cause heavy internal bleeding.
Kites are predominantly scavengers, meaning they like to scour the countryside for dead animals to feed upon. This lifestyle can unfortunately make them vulnerable to the use of poisons in our countryside. The RSPB has produced an information leaflet on how to effectively control rodent infestation in a responsible way. This leaflet contains impartial advice and best practice guidelines, such as searching for and correct disposal of dead and dying rats.
The free leaflet entitled ‘Rat poison and the threat to wildlife’ may be obtained by contacting the RSPB on 01463 715000 or downloading the leaflet via the link below:

http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/Images/ratpoison_tcm6-16130.pdf

Sheep ultrasound reveals a surprise!

We had all our expectant mothers scanned yesterday! We ultrasound our pregnant sheep each year so we can tell the how many lambs we are expecting in April. We then know how much feed to give each sheep to ensure the lambs grow to the right size for a healthy birth.
The technology is similar to the ultrasound used on pregnant women. The ultrasound scanner probe is rubbed underneath the sheep at the top of its leg and we can then see on screen how many lambs are inside the womb. The sheep is then colour marked to indicate how many lambs she is expecting!
This year our 500 sheep averaged at 150%. We ideally want all of them to be carrying twins, but this year we’ve had lots of singles. On the plus side, only 10 were not pregnant and we’ve have thirty sets of triplets and one quad to make up the numbers!

Unbelievably, the last sheep to go through the scanner was carrying quintuplets…..yes that is five!!

Waxwings…..the final flurry!!

With the first snow and frosts back in November, waxwings starting appearing in Dunblane, basically, everywhere that had berry bushes or trees. They seemed to be unconcerned about hanging about in busy places and I spotted large flocks in excess of 300 birds in Tesco’s car park! The Scottish berry crops appeared to be good and many stayed, often breaking up into smaller flocks. We never managed to get massive numbers at the hide unfortunately, but we were getting gangs of 50+.
The number of waxwings in Scotland peaked over the winter (see graph), but the birds will often appear again in the early spring as they make their way back home….this seems to be the case with the six at our hide on Saturday (12/2/11)!
These stunning birds flood to the UK from Scandinavia every few winters, but in between you would be lucky to see one at all! They don’t breed in the UK, but are erratic winter visitors. When they influx in larger numbers, it’s often called an irruption, or ‘waxwing winter’. Small numbers of waxwings travel to the UK every year, but big numbers only appear when the supplies of their preferred food of berries in their homeland dwindle. The last major irruption was in the winter of 2004/2005. It used to be estimated that this would happen once every ten years or so, but irruptions are getting more frequent and involving larger numbers of birds. One possible explanation seems to be that climate change has resulted in less consistent weather patterns, which result in more unpredictable berry crops. But it might just be that the birds are having more productive breeding seasons and the population on their breeding grounds gets too big for the food available.
As waxwings and other winter migrants feed on berries, I would urge you all to avoid cutting any bushes/trees in your gardens with the last berries still on them, until they have all been eaten!

Kites, Camera, Action!

In the last few weeks, we have been laying cables and sorting transmitters / receivers for our new red kite nest CCTV. In the coming months, we will be bringing you ‘up close and personal’ with a family of red kites.

Once fully installed at a secret location near an existing nest, the nest-cam should produce fascinating and intimate footage. CCTV technology will beam live video to our visitor centre, allowing our visitors an opportunity to witness the day-to-day life of a red kite family, from the building of the nest, the incubation and hatching of the eggs, to the development of the chicks into young adults.

Once the chicks have fledged from the nest, the camera will be moved to the feeding station. ‘Dive-cam’ will get incredible footage and capture the breathtaking aerial piracy of wild red kites as they dive bomb for their winter food…..we are getting very excited now!!

An unusual dinner guest!

On the 25th of January we had a Grey heron in at the kite feeding station! This is the first time this has happened here since we opened in 2003, but since the discovery of an alternative food source, it’s been back daily….the kites seem a bit unsure of their new dinner guest!

Grey herons are among the most familiar of our local ‘water’ birds. Although they are quite versatile and will eat almost anything small enough to swallow, when their fishing grounds freeze over during prolonged periods of severe weather, they tend to suffer quite badly.

The majority of ringing recoveries sent to the BTO are in the winter – In fact, we found a dead ‘ringed’ heron on the farm last week, so will give you an update once we have more details about the bird. Not all Grey herons risk starvation during cold spells, but will migrate instead of settling in one place all year. Ringed birds have been recovered during the winter in places like France, Spain and Portugal. Unfortunately, many stay put and starve rather than migrate during severe winters….we are glad to be giving this one a helping hand!!
As top predators in the freshwater food chain, herons are able to thrive only when their potential prey are also present in good numbers. Monitoring their breeding population provides a great indicator of the health of the whole freshwater environment. For this reason, BTO monitors Heronries through special surveys that count ‘occupied nests’ at colonies. This census has monitored Grey herons since 1928 and shows the effects of harsh winters on these birds, as high mortality is clearly visible in the long-term trend…..thankfully, if succeeding winters are milder the Heron’s population bounces back!!

Owl chick from Blair Drummond‏

The Tawny owls around the farm have been calling like crazy in the evenings recently, so hopefully we should have a quite a few breeding this year! There is one owl in particular that we are all really interested in.

The young tawny was brought here by one of the guys from Blair Drummond Falconry Centre in early August and to be honest, it appeared fairly imprinted on man – so I was a bit worried, although we do quite a bit of rehab work with the Scottish SPCA. It spent a few weeks in one of our rehabilitation aviaries…. having no human contact. I ringed and released the bird and hoped its natural instincts to hunt live prey would kick in! As you can imagine, it lacks a certain fear of man and spends most of its time hunting mice around the farm steading, but at least it’s back in the wild. I took the attached picture back in October and the bird was in great condition. After months surviving on its own, it’s safe to assume its return to the wild has been a success!!

Barn Owls suffer in snow

Many birds have been suffering during this cold snap, with Barn Owls hit particularly badly. Although we haven’t found any dead barn owls on the farm itself, it has not been the same elsewhere. In recent winters the BTO typically receive 30-40 dead Barn Owl reports in December, but in 2010 the December total has topped 100…..so far January is also looking fairly grim!!

Snow cover makes it especially difficult for Barn Owls to find the small mammals on which they prey. As such, they are more vulnerable during periods of prolonged snow than many other species. This winter there have been many reports of Barn Owls out hunting during the day, even in such odd places as supermarket car parks and this is presumably because they have not been able to find enough food elsewhere.

Unlike many areas of Britain our 2010 Barn Owl productivity was high, with 15 chicks fledging on the farm. Lets hope that those adults who do manage to survive this cold winter aren’t in poor condition at the start of the breeding season and manage to fledge young….fingers crossed!

http://deanbricknellphotography.com/index.htm

Tracking down the oldest kite in Britain!

On a recent trip to our hide, two of our visitors had learnt about the importance of wing-tag sightings for the ongoing monitoring of red kite populations throughout the UK. As dedicated kite enthusiasts, they had been to see kites at various locations around Britain and on many occasions had taken photographs. A few days later we received a picture that had been taken at Cors Caron, Tregaron in Wales on 6th February 2010. Initially it was thought to be one of ours (Red/Red = Central Scotland 2003), but on the computer screen the photo was quite dark. After enlarging and lightened the image it was actually Orange/Orange, which would initially suggest it’s from North Yorkshire 2005…..or so we thought!

After contacting the Yorkshire Red Kite Co-ordinator it was discovered that a few of their 2005 birds went to Wales not long after they fledged. One of them was found poisoned near Knighton in Powys in 2006, but they had heard no more about the others and this record was a welcome indication that one of them was alive and well in 2010. If confirmed, this was to be the first record of a Yorkshire bird breeding in Wales.

In one final twist of the ‘tail’ we were then contacted by a Consultant Ornithologist from the Welsh Kite Trust with the news that this was almost certainly a Welsh bird after all. In September 2009, a rehabilitation kite that had recovered from a minor wing injury was released at that exact location. The bird was originally ringed in June 1989, but in the intervening 20 years it had lost both its wing-tags. At that stage, the bird was already a record breaker and was just over the known British longevity record for a wild red kite, at 20 years 1 month old! Before release, the kite was re-tagged with its original colour-scheme (Orange/Orange R) to see how much longer it would last! The kite was again positively identified at the same site on 1st February that very year. In all probability, this photograph now appears to be of this very special red kite, which at that point was 21 years and 7 months old! The oldest recorded wild red kite ever was a German bird at 25 years and 5 months……fingers crossed this one beats it!!

This amazing story, involving kites workers in Scotland, England and Wales demonstrates that the success of wing-tag monitoring is really enhanced by you guys reporting sightings such as this, so any photo’s are really appreciated!
Mike