Contents Scottish Birds 33:2 (2013) 98 President’s Foreword K. Shaw PAPERS 99 Scottish Birds Records Committee report on rare birds in Scotland, 2011 R.Y. McGowan, C.J. McInerny & T. ap Rheinallt on behalf of the Scottish Birds Records Committee SHORT NOTES 122 Did Red Kites breed in Caithness in the 19th century? A review of the two supposed breeding records R.M. Sellers & D.G.D. Russell 124 Robin ejecting a pellet R. Holland 125 Peregrine retrieving prey from water G. Ruthven OBITUARIES 127 Dr Dorothy (Betty) Rowling (1915–2012) 127 James Anderson Stout (1911–2013) 129 Philip Newman (1954–2013) ARTICLES, NEWS & VIEWS 131 Scottish Birdwatchers’ Conference, Edinburgh, 16 March 2013 138 NEWS AND NOTICES 143 SOC and Scottish Environment LINK A. Fox 145 Long-term declines in Scottish seabird populations W.T.S. Miles 153 History of a bomb-damaged and transformed painting by George Lodge revealed by X-ray imaging J. Savory 155 Branch Spotlight - Tayside Branch B. McCurley 157 An unprecedented wreck of Puffins in eastern Scotland in March and April 2013 M.P. Harris & N. Elkins 160 FIELD NOTE 161 BOOK REVIEWS 164 Swainson’s Thrushes in Scotland in autumn 2012 D. Brown, S.L. Rivers & C.D. Scott 168 White’s Thrush, Creachan, Barra, Outer Hebrides, October 2012 C.D. Scott 170 Laughing Gull, Rosehearty, December 2012 - a first for North-east Scotland H. Maggs 172 Chestnut-eared Bunting, Virkie, Shetland, October 2012 - the second record for Scotland R.M. Fray 174 Black-throated Thrush, Banchory, 25–30 March 2013 - first record for North-east Scotland H. Addlesee 178 White-billed Diver, Isle of May, 23 January 2013 - the first island record W.T.S. Miles & M.A. Newell 181 Harlequin Duck on North Uist, Outer Hebrides, February–April 2013 B. Rabbitts 184 Pine Grosbeak on Shetland 2012/13 M. Chapman & R.J. Nason SCOTTISH BIRD SIGHTINGS 188 1 January to 31 March 2013 S.L. Rivers PHOTOSPOT BC Arctic Terns B. Thomason 33:2 (2013) Scottish Birds 97 President’s Foreword President’s Foreword It is mid-April and, strangely, I am writing this piece from a hotel in Bournemouth! I am on a reptile hunt with a couple of pals – unlike back home all the Swallows and martins are in. Recently, I have been working on raptors on Lewis. While we were there, some well-known egg collectors were also there being followed by the police. As is often the way, these days Plate 81. Ken Shaw, Fife, August 2012. © Amanda Coia many interested people followed the whole thing on the internet. Like many of my generation I collected birds’ eggs as a wee lad in the 1960s, but it difficult to understand 40-year-old men doing it! For some rare breeders, the problem of egg collecting is, of course, completely overshadowed by deliberate persecution. In Scotland, it strikes me this wide-ranging problem has worsened, not improved, over the last 20 years, and with such entrenched views, I fear there is no solution on the horizon. On the way down to Dorset, we stopped at the RSPB reserve at Ham Wall in Somerset. The RSPB has some superb new wetland reserves in England and for me Ham Wall and Lakenheath, in Norfolk, stand out. The reed bed creation for breeding Bittern at Ham Wall is excellent and I totally underestimated the size of the wetland. One of the locals told us that there were 40 booming male Bitterns, yes 40! It is an exciting time for wetland birds in England, with increases in Little Egret and the colonisation of Great White Egret and Purple Heron. I look forward to the day – sometime in the future – when we have a site like Ham Wall in Scotland; Spoonbills, Little Egrets and Great White Egrets breeding in Scotland sounds pretty good to me. By the time you read this, the new SOC website will be up and running. My sincere thanks to Jane Cleaver for the time and energy she has devoted to steering this important project. Thanks also go to all staff at Waterston House and Stephen Hunter for their input and support. We have also been busy organising this year’s annual conference. We were hoping to go to Perthshire, but unfortunately we could not find a venue with weekend availability or within our price range. However, we are delighted to have found a super hotel on the Ayrshire coast and I am very much looking forward to it. It will be difficult to follow last year’s programme, but we are doing our best! We have managed to book Mark Avery, the Political Birder. At one time, Mark was the director of conservation with RSPB, but now he is very effective as a freelance writer/speaker – a really interesting guy. Also, Tony Marr will be our Friday night speaker. Tony has had an interesting life too, not least of all as a tour leader in the Antarctic for ten years. He recently lived in Norfolk, but has a house at the north tip of Lewis where he can do his birding in relative peace! Steve Roberts was a big success at the raptor groups’ conference. He is a Honey-buzzard specialist and has been in touch with me recently as he is writing a paper on the status of the species for British Birds. When asked what the most important technique for finding breeding Honey-buzzards is, his reply was simple ‘check every buzzard’. Have we stopped doing so, I wonder? I look forward to seeing some of you at the conference and until then my best wishes and good birding - Ken Shaw, President 98 Scottish Birds 33:2 (2013) Scottish Birds Records Committee report on rare birds in Scotland, 2011 Plates 82–83. Red-rumped Swallow, possible subspecies japonica/daurica, Talisker, Skye, Skye & Lochalsh, 17–29 June 2011. © Ian Fulton Scottish Birds Records Committee report on rare birds in Scotland, 2011 R.Y. McGowan, C.J. McInerny & T. ap Rheinallt on behalf of the Scottish Birds Records Committee This is the fourth annual report of the Scottish Birds Records Committee (SBRC), covering 2011. Previous reports have covered the periods 2005-08, 2009 and 2010 (ap Rheinallt et al. 2010a, 2010b, 2011, 2012). Several changes to record assessment have been agreed this year. Great White Egret Ardea alba, Rough-legged Buzzard Buteo lagopus and Water Pipit Anthus spinoletta are now considered sufficiently numerous that assessment is delegated to a local level for records from 1 January 2013. Continental Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis will be assessed locally from the same date (ap Rheinallt et al. 2012). Similarly, due to an increase in occurrences in Britain, the British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC) will no longer assess records of Glossy Ibis Plegadis falcinellus (http://www.bbrc.org.uk/514); accordingly, from 1 January 2013 records of Glossy Ibis will be reviewed by SBRC. For a summary of these changes, see Appendix 2. In this report we give details of a late acceptance of an Egyptian Goose Alopochen aegyptiaca in Orkney from 2008, which becomes Scotland’s first. In 2011, two species had their highest ever annual totals. There were three Purple Herons Ardea purpurea, which had not been recorded for nine years, and five Black Kites Milvus migrans, which have been more or less annual in recent years. As assessment of American Golden Plover Pluvialis dominica and Ring-billed Gull Larus delawarensis is now undertaken locally, these species only appear due to late acceptance of records for the Outer Hebrides in 2007 and 2008 respectively. A Red-rumped Swallow Cecropis daurica, seen first on Orkney and then on Skye in 2011, is possibly an Eastern Palearctic subspecies. This potential occurrence of a subspecies new to Britain is under consideration by the British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee (BOURC). 33:2 (2013) Scottish Birds: 99–121 99 Scottish Birds Records Committee report on rare birds in Scotland, 2011 In 2011, there were no accepted Scottish records of Caspian Gull Larus cachinnans for a second successive year. There have been no records of Aquatic Warbler Acrocephalus paludicola since 2008, making this the longest blank period since 1981-84; and there were no occurrences of Red- throated Pipit Anthus cervinus in 2011, making this only the third blank year since 1990. In 2011, as in previous years, the Northern Isles accounted for most Scottish records of songbirds on the SBRC list. Only 20 of 94 individuals newly recorded in 2011 were seen outwith the Northern Isles, and only nine of these were on the mainland. Two species (Dusky Warbler Phylloscopus fuscatus and Water Pipit) accounted for seven of the nine mainland sightings. Format of the report The species accounts in the report follow a standard format, which is modelled on the annual BBRC reports published in British Birds. Nomenclature and taxonomic sequence follow the Scottish List (Forrester 2013). On the header line, after the species or subspecies name, are three numbers: Ⅲ Total number of birds in Scotland to the end of 2004, based on Forrester et al. (2007), with adjustments in some cases, and also including records added in this report. In some cases, older records, ‘At sea’ records, or records pertaining to the breeding population are explicitly excluded from the totals, following the example of Forrester et al. (2007). In the case of Marsh Warbler Acrocephalus palustris and Ortolan Bunting Emberiza hortulana, numbers seen in the past were so great that totals have not been estimated. Ⅲ Total number of birds in Scotland during the period since 2004, but excluding the current year. Where appropriate, acceptances by BBRC and by local committees are included.