Scottish Success

The day has finally come for our first Scottish Coot recovery. On the 18th January we received news from Bernie Zonfrillo that CAI had been sighted at Hogganfield Loch, Glasgow. CAI was ringed at Linlithgow on 11/11/11 (coincidence?!) and travelled 36km to Hogganfield.



CAI's movements



The first recovery of the project in Scotland is very exciting and I'm looking forward to many more - if you see any colour marked Coot you can send in your sightings, with as much detail as possible, to kanebrides'@'gmail.com. Many thanks to Bernie for getting in touch.

More Bonnie Coots and Shakerley Magic!

Before I blog about this weekend I wanted to briefly write about last weekend's trip to The Annual BTO Conference at Swanwick. It was my first time at the conference along with Kane, Chris and Craig Brookes. I really enjoyed the conference and it was great to met so many new people such as BTO's Andy Clements and Kate Risely. Over the course of the weekend there were many fascinating talks, my favorites included talks by Richard Castell, Richard Broughton, John Wilson and Jane Reid. An enjoyable weekend was had by all and it was especially nice to finally met Craig who's just returned from Sweden. 

This weekend was very varied from catching Coots up here in Scotland to hiding in the bushes at 6am in Bangor harbour waiting for the 'boom'! As the snow fell and the weather here in Stirling suddenly turned cold Kane and I decided to go after the local Coots. Thursday was a little manic shall we say, trying to get Kane to Scotland as red alerts were being issued by the Met office, flights were cancelled and mobiles ran out of batteries but luckily Kane made it and so after a horrific car journey to pick him up we were finally ready to catch some Coots. 

After my uni exam on Friday morning we set out in search of Coots - what better way to de-stress after an exam? We had a good catch of Coots which now sport new Darvic rings and as the Black-headed Gulls were hungry and therefore catchable we ringed 8 new and had 1 Polish control!

Kane was worried he was losing his 'BHG touch' but as he caught all of the day's BHGs I don't think he has anything to worry about, especially due to the last catch - you'd have to have seen it to believe it!

As the Coots and gulls wised up to our intentions and started to shy away from our reach we decided to pack up and head down to North Wales. A nice but long drive later we arrived in Bangor for another SCAN cannon netting attempt. Unfortunately Saturday ran very similar to the last SCAN session we attended. After getting up at 5am and setting the nets in the dark, a nice catch of Redshank was lined up in front of the nets and as the time to fire came ever so close a juvenile Buzzard flew over and flushed the lot! Luckily the other team over at Beaumaris had better luck and managed to fire on a flock of 400+ Dunlin. As the catch was so large extra extractors were required, so most of our team from Bangor harbour were sent over to help out. This gave me a nice bit of extracting experience before Kane and I had to shoot off to Manchester.

On Sunday it was time to net Kane's winter feeding site (Shakerley) for the first time of the season. I had heard so much about the Shakerley feeding station and so was eager to experience a session there and what a session it was! A very nice catch was had of approximately 60 birds including a couple of new species for me in the form of a Treecreeper and a few Willow Tits.

Both Shakerley and I's first Treecreeper

I was a fool to think these guys would behave similar to their long-tailed cousins, more like their Blue Tit brothers - ouch!

Some nice Bullfinches were also caught giving me the chance to learn more about ageing them.

Juvenile Bullfinch (female) - note the obvious contrast in the greater coverts.

Adult Bullfinch (male) - note the uniformly light grey tips of the greater coverts.

A bonnie flock of Long-tailed tits were also caught which kept up busy.

Can't help but go 'awww!'

Another key bit of training over the weekend was getting to do some of the data input in IPMR, which I am quite enjoying using. Thanks to Kane for making the daunting trip up to Scotland and for both encouraging and teaching me more about ringing.

Tomorrow is my last uni exam of the winter and I shall then be free until mid-February to go in search of Coots, have some ringing adventures and go back down to Slimbridge for another stint of volunteering in the Species Monitoring Unit....stay tuned!

Introducing The New Scottish Team Coot

This weekend saw the formation of Scottish Team Coot. After all of the planning and hard work it was finally time to colour mark some Scottish Coots.

On Friday I picked up Chris & Kane from the train station in Linlithgow and took them down to the my favourite Coot site: Linlithgow Loch. I have been counting the Coots at Linlithgow Loch over the past few months, watching the numbers gradually grow up to 350+ last week and it was great to finally be able to mark a sample of the population.

Scottish Darvics - coming to a Coot near you.

It wasn't long before I grabbed the team's first Bonnie Coot which received a lovely new Darvic along with the standard BTO metal ring. The day's total came to 20 new and 1 recap, not a bad start to the project.

CAA - the very first Scottish marked Coot

We noted a few metal ringed Black-Headed Gulls whilst there and so attempted to catch a few. We managed to catch this Swedish control.

Swedish control - photo stolen from Kane Brides

After Linlithgow and introducing the guys to some traditional Scottish cuisine (deep fried pizza) we ventured over to my 'local patch' of Stirling University and Airthrey Loch. The Coots on the loch decided that they didn't want any new Darvics so we decided to catch this beautiful male Goosander instead - my first Goosander!

What a stunner!

This stunning beauty has now overtaken my previous favourite (Water Rail) and has become my new favourite bird to have ringed, what a beauty and so lovely to hold. Massive gratitude goes to Kane for catching him and by hand no less!

My new favourite bird!

After meeting up with some more Dinsmores for a cuppa we were off the The Scottish Ringer's Conference up in Aviemore (one of my favourite places in Scotland). We had a superb couple of days at the conference and enjoyed many talks, personal favourites were talks by Ewan Weston, Raymond Duncan, Tony Fox  and Euan Ferguson.

During an afternoon break the three of us took a trip to Loch Garten to try and see some Crested Tits (of which myself and Kane have never seen before). We took a short walk to some woodland bird feeders and were lucky enough to observe many Crested Tits close up but as we arrived at the bird feeders someone else stole the show - the resident Coal Tits. The Coal Tits were incredibly tame and would land on our hands, heads and even phones - what an experience, sorry Cresties!

There's a Coal Tit on my head!

I really enjoyed myself at the conference, getting to swap stories, talk to many of the people I have been pestering with ringing emails recently and meeting lots of new people and networking. I especially enjoyed hearing about the gull grabbing antics in Aberdeen and getting an offer to ring at Bobby Smith's famous Sand Martin wall next season, can't wait! Well done to the Grampian Ringers for hosting the conference and entertaining us for the weekend., I especially loved the videos and would love to help out on some of the groups projects if they'll have me!

We had to leave the conference early on the Sunday as Kane was giving a talk at my uni. I really enjoyed the talk and Kane did a fantastic job of inspiring the students to get out and start looking for colour marks.

Fly By Night

On Monday we visited my other Coot sites and ringed 13 new Black-Headed Gulls including my very first hand caught one, which was shortly followed by a couple more. I really love catching and ringing Black-Headed Gulls, I don't know why there is just something special about them.

My first hand caught Black-Headed Gull

In Edinburgh Kane, once again, showed off his amazing hand catching skills by catching me this beautiful Tufted duck, another new species for me and such a bonnie wee duck to hold and admire at close quarters.

A Bonnie Tuftie - mega thanks to the hand catching master Mr Birdes for this one!

Throughout our catching trips Kane was teaching me how to take biometrics so that one day (hopefully soon) when I have my C permit I will be able to go out and add some Coot data to the project on my own. It was interesting to note that the Scottish Coots seem to be a bit heavier than the English ones, although as only 20 were caught it is too early to confirm. I'm also learning from the master about improving my hand catching techniques and manged to catch quite a lot Coots over the weekend. I think I'm starting to learn the art of Coot mind reading!

Reading this Coot's mind I could tell he was about to poo on me!

I had such an amazing weekend and cannot wait until the next time Scottish Team Coot comes together - hopefully with some more members on the next trip. I want to thank you all of the ringers and land owners who have given us their permissions to ring at their sites, to my sister Elaine for letting us invade her flat for the night and of course I want to say a huge thanks to the new Scottish Team Coot for a class weekend and some top banter as usual - you guys made my weekend : )

Scottish Team Coot

If you see any colour marked Coots in the UK then please email your sightings to kanebrides'@'gmail.com