The Harrier The Devon Bird Watching & Preservation Society Newsletter: February 2012 No1 PLEA from HON TREASURER/MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY Membership subscriptions are due! Have you Paid? Paid enough? Paid too much? ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION FEES (due on 1st Jan annually) * Junior (under 16 on 1st Jan) £10 * UK based membership £18 * those living in Europe £28 * rest of the world £33 NON-PAYMENT Some members still haven't paid their membership fee for 2012. See above for current rates and sign up for a Direct Debit so you don't have to remember about paying your correct fee on time, in the future. UNDERPAYMENT Some members are still paying at the pre-2011 rate. Please check that you are now paying as shown above, to ensure that your membership does not lapse at the end of March 2012. OVERPAYMENT 400 members have completed the Direct Debit introduced in 2011 and I thank you for changing to this method of payment. However many of you have NOT cancelled the Standing Order that you had previously. As a result a double payment by Standing Order and DD may have been made for 2012. The Society offers a 'period of grace' for payment, after which time underpaid memberships will automatically lapse. This is in accordance with the Constitution. Usually the period of grace runs until the end of February, but, this year, because of the lateness of this notice, we are extending the period until the end of March. Unless you're confident that you have paid correctly, please contact Paul (see below) to check on the status of your payments, as soon as possible or to ask for a Direct Debit Mandate. Paul Stubbs, 7 Plymouth Hill, Princetown, Yelverton, Devon PL20 6QG, by Tel: 01822 890520, or E-mail: [email protected] Many thanks. Paul 1 eHARRIER This is an update to let you know the outcome of the exercise to get more members to take the eHarrier. The DBWPS committee decided that we would send the December eHarrier to all members that we had email addresses for but who did not take the eHarrier in an attempt to get them to switch to the eHarrier. Therefore 713 emails were sent out to these members. We had a very good response with about 100 members agreeing to opt to switch to the eHarrier. This means that about a quarter of the membership now receive the eHarrier. However over 90% of the membership have email accounts, so I believe we can improve the take up of the eHarrier even more. The reason behind this exercise is not only the obvious cost and environmental benefits to the society but it will also make it easier to improve the Harrier. We do realise that some members do not have computers or access to the internet and that some members really prefer a hard copy – this isn’t a problem, they will still receive their hard copy. Anyway a thank you to those members that switched. If you haven’t already done so and would like to receive the eHarrier then please email Paul Stubbs, the membership secretary, [email protected] , informing him of your wish to do so. The exercise also prompted about 25 delivery failures which indicate that some members have not kept Paul updated with their new email addresses. This information can also be updated yourself via the DBWPS website. In the October Harrier I asked members what they would like to see in the Harrier of the future. A common response was more pictures of birds, so I am willing to give it a go. If you have taken a picture that you think other members will enjoy then send it to me. It must have a strong Devon connection and you must own the copyright. We could even have a bird of the month! I would prefer it if you sent it as a JPEG attachment but I am willing to give any format a try. Include a brief description of where and when it was taken. Jack Aldous DEVON BIRD REPORT 2011 Want a new challenge? Write a section for the 2011 Devon Bird Report! Currently writers are needed for the following groups: Gulls (about 13 species);Thrushes and Chats (16); Finches (11); Buntings (8). The time table is as follows: you will receive the necessary material, including the relevant slice of the Excel database, by mid- April. I would like a first draft by mid-July. You will then receive a revised and edited version for checking by mid-August. The whole report should be ready for typesetting by early October, and for the printer by early November. Please get in contact if you might be interested in contributing a section! Many thanks to all those who have already agreed to write sections. Mike Lock (Co-ordinating Editor for 2011 DBR). [email protected] 2 RECENT INTERESTING RE-SIGHTS OF SLAPTON-RINGED PIED & WHITE WAGTAILS. Further to the sightings of Katla in Iceland (Harrier December 2011 No 6) and the fact that no wagtails have been ringed at Slapton since September 2010, there are two particularly interesting records of birds re-sighted recently: X455477 (L:O:Y) ringed as a M.a.yarrellii 5th October 2009 on passage through Slapton was re-sighted at Clogher Head, Co Louth, Eire on 17th October 2010 on passage a year later and re-sighted on N Uist on 14th August 2011 where probably breeding. This is the only Slapton-ringed Pied Wagtail to be re-sighted in Ireland but indicates some birds heading for Slapton and elsewhere in the southwest pass through Ireland. X 455722 (Y:G:O) ringed as an M.a.alba 31st August 2009 on passage through Slapton in it's first year was re-sighted at Grund, Fellsstrand in W Iceland on 23rd May 2010 where it was breeding and then back at Slapton, on passage south again, where it was seen on several occasions during the first half of September 2011. The colour photographs below show two contrasting photos of Katla the White Wagtail from Iceland. One, taken 2nd-6th May 2009, shows her resplendent in full breeding plumage and the other when she was moulting (early) 25th July 2011 apparently having failed to breed. Note the layer of volcanic ash some 15 months after the eruption of Eyjajellajokull in mid-April 2010. e-mail: [email protected] Dennis Elphick, 2 Somerye, Chillington, Kingsbridge TQ7 3JU PLYM PEREGRINES As some of you will know a pair of Peregrines has bred at Cann Quarry near Plym Bridge, just to the north of Plymouth, for at least 15 years. The quarry is on National Trust land and during the breeding season they set up a public viewing platform, equipped with telescopes and binoculars, so that the public can view the birds. The platform is on the cann viaduct, part of the old Plymouth to Tavistock railway line, and this therefore allows you to view the birds from more or less the same level as the 3 nest. The birds can be seen in all stages from egg laying through to the young birds fledging. The platform is manned by National Trust volunteers whose main job is to interface with the public answering their questions on the birds and helping them with the telescopes etc. They also make sure that members of the public don’t stray too close to the nest site. A 24 hour watch is kept on the birds as in 2000 they were killed when poisoned meat was lowered into the nest. I have been one of the volunteers for the past three years and find it a very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. The viaduct takes the railway over the river Plym so there are a whole range of habitats including the Forestry Commission plantations and the established beech and oak woods. A large number of other birds can be seen, the NT sets up bird feeders and last year wood warblers bred nearby. The National Trust is always keen to get more volunteers to help out so if you are interested contact Beth Hamblin, the NT ranger responsible [email protected] . Shifts are for two hours and you can do as many or few of them a week as you want. There is also a website where you can find out more about the projrct: www.plym-peregrines.co.uk Jack Aldous DEVON HERONRIES IN 2011 One question hanging over this year's results from the Heronries Census was whether two hard winters in a row have reduced the breeding population. The answer, at least in Devon, is no (though the national data show a continuing decline). The Arlington heronry in North Devon, once our second largest, has continued to decrease, falling from 17 pairs in 2010 to only 9 in 2011; but this is exactly balanced by an increase from 9 pairs to 17 at Tracy in East Devon. The recently established colony at Chawleigh Barton was lost when the plantation was felled during the winter, but a second colony at Axmouth has now been included in the Census. Changes elsewhere have been minor, and result in a nett increase of six pairs for the county. The other question was whether the Bird Atlas project would reveal heronries which are not covered by the Census. I had smugly assumed that the Census covered virtually all of the county's heronries, but the provisional map for the Devon Atlas shows confirmed breeding in 13 additional sites! Two of these are old Census sites which are no longer monitored, having been deserted for at least three years; the other 11 are unknown to the Census.