Winter 2016 Newsletter of the Aberdeen and District RSPB Local Group Issue 3 At a glance Not just peanuts! Local Group member, Bill Craigie, handed a cheque for £10,000 to Simon Busuttil, Regional Reserves Manager for Bill Craigie .............................. 1 the RSPB, at the start of November. This is the latest tranche Letter from the Chairman...... 2 of money raised by the Friends of Strathbeg (which Bill Red-backed Shrikes .............. 2 leads) primarily from the sale of bird food. Birding NE Scotland .............. 3 The idea started in 1990, when the then Aberdeen 2017 Calendar ........................ 4 YOC group started selling Sparrows ................................ 5 peanuts to raise money for Seabird season 2015 ............. 6 conservation projects. Bill was one of the leaders of The RSPB and shooting ........ 7 the YOC group, and when Group Outing to Islay ............ 8 the group ended in the late 90's he carried on selling Islay goose strategy .............. 9 bird food and other bird Simon Busuttil (left) and Bill Craigie (right) related items. The Friends Come along to our have sold an average of 12 Indoor meetings - tonnes of bird food per year, in addition to £3,000 worth of locally made second Tuesday each nest boxes and squirrel feeders. month, January to April. Since 1990 £95,370 has been raised in this way - much more than a peanut sized sum! Of this total £87,405 plus matching grants has been See the separate donated to various Loch of Strathbeg projects. A great example of Programme sheet for details of our outings money raised locally going We hope that there is to local projects. The something for everyone. money handed over in Please come along - it November goes towards doesn't matter whether the current refurbishment you are a novice or an and re-building project at experienced Strathbeg. Those of you birdwatcher, all are welcome. who have visited the site recently will see the extensive changes Also sign up for our underway. Note parking is work parties on RSPB reserves. We have limited and the Visitor Centre is closed until further notice. You can achieved a lot in the follow the progress of the work by visiting past - so please come http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/seenature/reserves/guid along and help out if you e/l/lochofstrathbeg/ are able. It really makes a difference! Contact The accompanying photo shows where the new window, paid for by the Mark Sullivan for Local Group Chairman's Appeal and a generous donation from Ian information. Duncan in memory of his mother, will be located. Page | 1 Page | 1 Letter from the Chairman A Happy New Year to all members of the Local Group, and Local Group website all best wishes for a wildlife filled 2016. More information about I will have completed five years as Group Leader on the 1st April - I the local group and its really don't know where the time has gone. I hope that the various activities can be found changes brought in during the past few years have improved your on the group's website: experiences within the Group. I would like to thank all the committee http://www.rspb.org.uk members, past and present, for their support. They have worked /groups/aberdeen really hard to make sure that the Local Group continues to reflect the wishes of you all and provides a wide range of indoor and outdoor activities that will enhance your birding. Local Group donation This edition of the newsletter contains a range of topics, from Tim £5,500 donated to Marshall "gripping us off" with his NE Scotland list to more serious Strathbeg in 2015, topics regarding Barnacle Goose "control" and shooting game birds. from the Chairman's If you wish to comment on any of the articles or would like to have a Appeal, including subject covered in the next edition, please contact the editor (Mary £1,000 from Ian Middleton - [email protected]). Duncan. Hopefully the 2nd January Ythan Wander will have got our year lists to a cracking start, so good birding and I look forward to seeing you Welcome to our new out and about throughout the year. members Mark Sullivan Margaret Stewart Red-backed Shrikes and Common Richard Thompson Cranes David White John Imrie by Ian Francis John & Liz Summerwill This year, one pair of Red-backed Shrikes successfully fledged three young in Aberdeenshire. This is the first confirmed breeding attempt here since 1981, though there was a case of probable breeding, not Look out for........... the same site, in 1998. However, a pair bred in Scotland's Big Nature Moray in 2013. Festival on 21st and There appears to have been only two pairs 22nd May 2016 at successfully breeding in the UK in 2015, the other Levenhall Links, Lothian being on Shetland. The sites chosen by this species in our area are completely typical of the land uses present – there is nothing obviously special about them – so it is worth keeping an eye open in any suitable area of heath, scrub and forest edge. How many The Royal Society for are overlooked in Scotland? (If you do find such rare breeding birds while you are out and about, please contact the local RSPB office the Protection of Birds and speak to Ian, and do not spread the information further). [RSPB] is a registered charity; England and The pair of Common Cranes which breeds in our area also produced Wales number 207076, young, however no young birds fledged, due to predation (by a fox). Scotland number We are grateful to Ian for allowing us to publish this information. SC 037654 Page | 2 Birding NE Scotland - 347 species to date and counting! by Tim Marshall My work brought locate the bird, but on my way back to the car a me up to Yellow-browed Warbler popped up in front of me, Aberdeenshire on nice I thought, but then it gave the strange call 17th October 1982, and it wasn’t till I got home that alarm bells went off and I spread the news (morse code if I which was about remember correctly!!). It stayed for 3 days and the time of a large was twitched by many birders. influx of Pallas’s Warblers: I had never heard of a Pallas’s Warbler and knew My first Pallas’s Warbler was also very satisfying. Having missed the big influx in 84, there was a nothing of east coast ‘falls’. period of strong easterlies and rain in mid-October I was already a keen birder but when I arrived up 88 and I thought I would go and find a Pallas’s here my life list was probably about 120 and (like you do!!), so I went to Cruden Bay woods although I could identify common birds, things like and eventually a small stripey warbler with a small waders, pipits, warblers, etc were a lemon rump flew across the path in front of me - nightmare! I was very lucky in that my mentor was Result!! It was blowing a gale and pouring with Steve Palmer who was a very enthusiastic and rain so I went back next morning and got great knowledgeable birder up here at the time. Survey views (I have seen about 20+ since then!). work for the first Atlas of NE Scotland Birds was Another memorable bird was the American Robin starting, and Steve would take me out on his trips that was found at Inverbervie on Boxing Day 88. mapping the birds of the area, and I was able to Not what I expected to be doing on Boxing Day get to know the birding hotspots which, of course, but a drive down on a very pleasant day was included Rattray Head - this was to become my suitably rewarded and there wasn’t much traffic!!! ‘Patch’ over the next 30 years. One bird was quite hard work and that was a I think my first rarity was a pristine Water Pipit in a Citrine Wagtail that turned up in late September wet field at the back of my house outside 98. It would drop onto the putting green at Longside in April 1984. This was a first for NE Girdleness for about 5 mins at about 07.00 in the Scotland (it has since been rejected by the morning and then disappear. I went down there on Rarities Committee! - but I saw it and it WAS a three mornings in succession (leaving home Water Pipit!!). I then saw three absolute 'megas': a before 06.00) and finally connected with it – a Kentish Plover at Rattray in April 84, a Wilson’s lovely bird and the only one I have seen to date. Phalarope at Cotehill Loch in September 84 and a Black-winged Stilt at Meikle Loch in September As this is the RSPB Local Group newsletter I had 84. These really got me hooked on finding rare the honour of finding the first Avocet that was birds, but I did limit my twitching to Scotland. I seen at the Loch of Strathbeg in January 86, Jim now only twitch within the NE Scotland Bird Dunbar (The Warden) was well pleased to get Report area, because I would often drive down to ‘official’ recognition for the reserve!! Fife or Dumfries etc to see a bird and sure enough We are fortunate to live in one of the best birding one would appear in our area sooner or later - I let areas in the UK and the variety of commoner birds them come to me now!! go from Ptarmigan to Puffin with plenty in Highlights over the years have been many, but between.