Cottage Holidays throughout Scotland

Marking Birds – 20th October 2008

Marking birds can take many forms from tiny leg rings to sophisticated miniature transmitters whereby you can follow individual birds by various means. There are other means of marking such as wing tags and these have been extensively used on birds of prey in the re-introduction programmes of the red kites and sea eagle. Tags have large letters or numbers that can be read in the field by using binoculars and telescopes. The movements of many bird in these programmes have been followed and used to work out their whereabouts. Tiny transmitters have been extensively used in the red kite programme but these have also lead to unexpected results. Tracking such individual birds means that if the bird literally stops moving there is something wrong. The high percentage of poisoned and shot red kites, particularly in the north of Scotland, including the Highlands, has been revealed by such transmitter programmes.
As regards small birds the only way in which a bird can be identified is if the bird is caught again or dies and then the age of the bird, its origin and other aspects can be determined. With larger birds such as swans and geese neck rings and leg rings can be so large, still minute for the bird, that the letters or numbers can be read in the field with binoculars and telescopes. In the Highlands this has particularly been the case with whoopers swans that breed in Iceland and come south for the winter. Such flocks, known as herds, frequent the field around the Tain area and people with telescopes often search the birds for the leg and neck rings. The birds seem to use that part of the Highlands but sometimes using it as a stopping point before going on to Ireland. Some of these birds are ringed in Iceland where for a while the adults and juveniles are flightless and are caught up.
One method of identifying individual birds started at Slimbridge in south west England in the 1960s when Peter Scott realised that he could identify individual Berwick’s swans by their yellow markings on the beak. This research and other studies came to the remarkable conclusion that some birds pair for life. At first this was thought to be the case with only the larger, long lived birds but now it is thought that very many birds do, even the small familiar ones in gardens such as blue tits and great tits. In large seabird colonies this may seem even more remarkable that one bird can identify its mate. Perhaps even more so with night birds such as petrels and shearwaters when they come to the colony under the hours of darkness.
What seems even more remarkable is what happens if a bird cannot fly. Sometimes large birds such as geese and swans fly into overhead cables or are hit by shotgun pellets. It sometimes means they cannot fly and therefore cannot join the rest of the birds when they fly north to their breeding grounds. Their mate will often choose to stay with them for the summer. Such was the case with a pair of whooper swans in South Uist a few years ago and a nest was built and the female actually laid eggs. A pair of greylag geese did the same thing at Loch Flemington a few years ago. More recently just after the New Year a mute swan hit overhead cables in Strathnairn. The bird broke its neck and for a few days its mate flew up and down the strath trying to find it.

Larch – 27th October 2008

At this time of the year the larch trees with their golden yellow needles brighten up many areas of woodland in the straths, glens and hillsides but unlike other conifers all the needles will be shed for the winter. The next colour on the trees will be in the spring but you have to look close because it is the loganberry red of the female flowers and the yellow of the male flowers. The cones grow all around the twigs and are egg shaped with tight scales and are unusual in staying on the trees years after the seed has fallen. There seems to be a mystery as to when they were introduced to Scotland as although there are records going back to the 17th century it was not taken seriously until much later. It is, arguably, the one introduced tree that transformed the landscape and as regards its value in timber terms it produces a much better quality timber than Scots pine and grows much faster. Unusually, it was widely planted before the Forestry Commission was formed in 1919 and the most famous example is on the Atholl estates in Perthshire where, from 1740 to 1830, 14 million larches were planted. Larch trees support a variety of wildlife and are particularly important for crossbills as the seeds from the cones are ready in August whereas the seeds of the Scots pine, that are their staple diet, are not ready until later. Various small birds take advantage of caterpillars on larches and the small birds that nest in them include lesser redpolls and siskins. Larger birds, such as buzzard, sometimes build their nests in the older trees. As these trees let in more light than other conifers they also allow a herb layer to form such as bugle, bluebell, wood sorrel and grasses and this in turn attracts a wide range of insects including butterflies. Part of the trees success is its timber that is as hard and strong as Douglas fir. Its great strength in big timbers made it the tree for the heavy beams needed in trawlers and as it is highly durable in the ground or the air it is the traditional timber for fencing posts on the farm or croft. The use of larch in building ships is legendary with, in the early nineteenth century, a brig being constructed of larch timber. The first British warship to be built entirely of larch was a frigate of 28 guns built between 1816 and 1820. Unlike oak, larch does not corrode iron bolts and fittings and it is less prone to shrinking. For warships in battle the fact that larch is not prone to splintering meant fewer lives were lost. We may just accept the larch in the straths, glens and hillsides but along with a few other trees such as Sitka spruce it changed the landscape of the Highlands and will do for some years to come.

Geese – 13th october 2008

The wild geese around Inverness such as the greylag and pink-footed geese are commonly seen in large flocks, called skeins, flighting to and from their feeding and roosting grounds. Skeins at this time of the year tend to fly low but in late Autumn some of them are very high with some descending whilst others flew further south. These could well have been birds that had flown direct from their breeding grounds in Iceland in one non stop flight, such is their strength. Other geese are much smaller and the brent goose is a good example as it is only the size of a mallard drake although the neck is longer. These geese are plump with rather short black legs and small black beaks. The head, neck and upperparts are dark looking, black from a distance, and contrasting with the white under tail feathers. The underparts are either mottled grey or brown. The adults have a white collar of feathers on the sides of the neck that is absent in young birds. They are a bird of the sea coast and estuaries where their favourite food is eel-grass but they will eat saltmarsh plants such as glasswort, sea aster and grasses.
Historically the brent goose in the Highlands poses a mystery as at one time it was reputed to be by far the commonest goose. Old records for Sutherland and Ross and Cromarty indicate that they outnumbered other geese by 100 to 1. There are old records with, unfortunately, no date of up to 4,000 being seen in the Cromarty Firth whereas these days a flock of over ten birds, anywhere in the Highlands, would be noteworthy. It is not as if large numbers no longer come to Britain as each winter England and Ireland support over 130,000 that represents nearly half of the world population. Why there are so few in the Highlands these days may be tied in with the food as perhaps there has been a dramatic change in the amount of eel-grass available.
The reason for the increase in the south is put down to legislation against shooting, and their move onto agricultural land. There are still some causes for concern such as habitat loss, disturbance and the lobby that seeks to put the goose back on the quarry list so they can be shot for sport.
The brent goose is one of the more remarkable of the geese as it breeds further north than any other goose. The dark bellied race breeds in Siberia and in northern Russia
and they winter mainly in England and France. The pale bellied race from Canada and Greenland winters in Ireland. In these Arctic areas the weather suitable for breeding last only around 100 days so even slight variations in conditions can affect the success of gosling survival. Families migrate together and remain together until the following breeding season. Some of them can survive 28 years or more.
The best places to look for brent geese around Inverness include Nigg Bay, Tarbetness, Udale Bay, Clachnaharry and Alturlie Point. The latest Highland Bird report states that the brent goose is a “Scarce (but increasing) migrant and winter visitor” so we can put hope that the numbers will return again in the future. The photograph was taken of a bird caught for ringing along with some pink-footed geese on the east coast. The Scots names for the brent goose include ware goose, clatter goose and routhurrock. The Gaelic name is Geadha-got meaning brent goose. The main problem for the future would seem to be whether the bird is on the quarry list or not.