RSPB announces two Scottish island acquisitions to expand its portfolio of 200-plus reserves

                                 

The RSPB today announced that it had acquired two seabird-rich islands off the East Coast of Scotland. Bass Rock (above)  is famous for its huge colony of nesting Gannets, while Craigleith Island (below) is where thousands of Puffins breed each year. The society has not disclosed how much it paid for the two islands but is has thanked the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, plus various individual donors, for their contributions. The vendor of both islands is Sir Hugh Dalrymple. Pictures: RSPB.

                                                              

How to encourage Western Reef Herons to roost in North Wales - plant plenty of coconut trees!

                                                    

Western Reef Heron - this slate-grey morph example was snapped in Bahrain by Charles J. Sharp - photo via Wikimedia Commons 

IT is not quite clear whether it is  Simon Hugheston-Roberts or Lewi Burgess who takes the honours for having detected Britain's first Western Reef Heron at the weekend.

Some might fancifully describe  the moment as  the ornithological equivalent of being the first man on Mars.

The bird was firstly seen feeding in  Foryd Bay, Caernarfonshire, then in nearby Caernarfon in the shadow of the castle.

Since then it has been watched by hundreds of twitchers whose arrival has brought a boost to the local tourist industry including hotels, guesthouses, pubs and restaurants. 

With no historic British ornithological literature to provide context, description and perspective, where better to turn to than an article in the 1987 edition of the  journal of the Bombay Natural History Society whose authors focus on the bird's habitats in Western India?

The authors write: "The Pithalpur colony located in an agricultural farm  was the biggest colony in this area. 

"The farm comprised of a farm house, couple of barns and a crop field and had about 250 coconut trees  planted on its border. 

"The farmer told us that they first nested in the farm in 1978, and since then they have been nesting every year. 

"During one of our visits in winter we found that many reef herons were roosting on the same coconut trees. 

"Because of the birds’ nesting and roosting activities, there was considerable loss of flowers and young coconuts. 

"The coconuts were also damaged by the birds’ excreta dropping on them.

"We saw that the birds’ excreta had dripped down the surface of most of the coconut fruits. 

"The farm owner estimated that he lost about 50 per cent of his coconut crop every year because of the herons.

"Despite the heavy loss of income, the farmer and his family tolerated the birds and did not molest them in any way. 

"The herons and their broods on top of the tall coconut trees were almost free from predation."

The sharp-eyed authors, R.M. Naik and B.M. Parasharya, continue:  "At another location,  New Port,  we found the biggest concentration of the nesting Reef Herons

"The port area is fenced  and human entry to it is severely restricted. 

"The area includes docks, warehouses, administrative and office buildings but no residential quarters. 

"The birds nested on Mangroves, Peepul, Peeper, Tamarind, Casuarina, Mesquites  and Portia trees growing on the roadsides close to  buildings 

"Although most of the herons' nests were low and the port area was buzzing with activities during certain hours, the herons remained apparently undisturbed.

"The birds would readily come down from the nesting tree to the ground to pick up nest material. 

"They were actively protected by the dock workers and no one would dare to molest them. 

"The dock workers had even nursed a large number of herons that were stunned by shock and cold during the cyclone which hit Saurashtra in November 1982. 

"Occasional predation of the herons' eggs and chicks by the domestic cat and the House Crow occurred.

"White Ibis was a serious competitor of the herons for the nesting sites. 

"The ibis came into breeding condition later than the herons and occupied the heron nests after ejecting the nest contents. 

"The ibis, however, preferred to nest on top of the tall trees, so that the heron nests built lower in the same trees, and also those on short trees, were not affected. 

"Another reason for the success of the New Port colony is that the nesting birds had rich and extensive feeding grounds available close to the colony. 

"During the low tide, the mudflats, except the channel dredged for an approach of ships to dock, became exposed almost up to the horizon, and birds avidly fed on the mudskippers and other fish from the mudflats and tidal pools."

But back to the star visitor to Wales. 

It will be a while before the record is confirmed by the various  authorities pending which time there is always a chance that some spoilsport will deem the Western Reef Heron to be a sub-species of the Little Egret with which it sometimes hybridises.

                                  

Caernarfon Harbour and Castle - photo A.J. Marshall via Wikimedia Commons

Delightful painting of water-feeding birds sells for more than double pre-sale estimate at Salisbury auction

                                                  

Seaby's study was one of star Lots in Salisbury auction

THIS unframed watercolour-on-linen, said to be of two Water Pipits, sold for more than double the highest estimate at an auction held earlier this month by Salisbury-based Woolley and Wallis.

Including the buyer's premium, the price achieved was £610 compared with a pre-sale estimate of £200 and £300.

The artist was Allen William Seaby (1867-1953), best known as an ornithological painter and printmaker who was also professor of fine art at the University of Reading.

It was he, too, who provided the illustrations for two Ladybird books - British Birds and Their Nests (1953) and A Second Book of British Birds and Their Nests (1954).

Seaby was the grandfather of another wildlife illustrator who became even more celebrated - Robert Gillmor.

Flamingoes and other wildlife under threat from Albanian tourism development backed by country's premier

Residents in Albania  have taken to the streets of the capital, Tirana, to protest against a  £1.2-billion luxury tourism development that  will destroy precious wildlife habitat including the Narta Lagoon area on the western coast which is home to Flamingoes and well over a hundred other bird species, many of them rare. Foreign investors, including President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, are understood to be involved with the venture which also has the backing of Albania's prime minister, Edi Rama. 

*Photo: PPNEA (The Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania)

Swifts pay the price as catalogue of oversights leads to demolition of buildings where they once nested

                                         

Regent House - home to nesting Swifts

DID  negligence by naturalists contribute to the  demise of a Swift colony in Surrey?

It has emerged that wildlife organisations failed to raise the  alert  on Swift welfare ahead of  the demolition of buildings which have long provided a home for some 20 pairs of  nesting Swifts 

Surrey Wildlife Trust and Natural England were both consulted about the proposal to redevelop the site, Regent House  - which is on the approach road  Dorking Railway Station - but neither raised any concerns.

As part of an ecological appraisal, two site surveys were carried out by consultants acting for the developers.

But these were carried out on February 17 and September 28 when the birds would have been in Africa.

The consultants acknowledged that the buildings earmarked for demolition may have been summer home to Swifts, but maintained that mitigation could be provided by installing on the proposed  replacement building a single nest box between three and four metres from the ground.

It is understood that Surrey Police wildlife unit and Mole Valley District Council are now investigating to establish what went wrong and whether there has been any breach of legislation.                                

It's not as if there had been no warning. Signage was displayed prominently in advance of the works 

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Artist's impresson of how the  site might be redeveloped to provide 126  flats -  but there is no planning condition requiring the installation of Swift bricks

The Wryneck says: This is casebook example of how the welfare of wildlife - in this instance Swifts - is compromised regularly by deficiencies in the planning system. The consultants  carried out the surveys in  the wrong seasons and gave duff advice on Swifts' nesting requirements. Natural England and Surrey Wildlife Trust seem both to have been asleep at the wheel. And, particularly at such a prominent location, why did no local birder have the foresight to raise any  concerns with the district council whose planning case officer, unforgivably, approved the demolition with no safeguarding mitigation. After this sorry event, there has been plenty of tut-tutting in both local and national media. Doubtless there will be  inquiries into what went wrong. One of the main lessons is that planning officers, not just at Mole Valley council but everywhere, need to be properly trained on ecology and wildlife-safeguarding, to reduce their chances of making damaging decisions.

'Gigantism' in birds - two chapters by different authors in the strange story of the St Kilda Wren

                                                           

The St Kilda Wren was on the front cover of W.H. Hudson's pamphlet which was published by the Society for the Protection of Birds - forerunner of the RSPB 

IN a pamphlet published in 1894, W.H. Hudson asserted that the St Kilda Wren - a sub-species of the bird  familiar on the  mainland  - had been extirpated by unscrupulous collectors.

Happily, he was wrong. The bird was not extinct - and it is the subject of a study on 'island gigantism' published in the most recent edition of  the  Evolutionary Journal of the Linnaean Society.

It seems odd to apply the term 'gigantism' to such a diminutive species - but apparently it  can occur, as discovered by Charles Darwin,  on islands when species evolve in a different way from their mainland counterparts.

At between 13 and 16 grammes, the St Kilda Wren can be twice the size of a mainland Wren which typically weighs in at 7-10g.

The authors of the new study on gigantism note that the former typically lives  in very open and often sheer cliff face habitats which tend to be predator-free.

They also have longer bills and  there may also be differences in song.

Unfortunately, the Evolutionary Journal is a bit of a soup, full of unfamiliar academic jargon which makes it difficult to follow.

By contrast, though written more than 130 years ago and flawed in its conclusions, the commentary of Hudson is much more accessible to the contemporary birder.

He writes of the St Kilda Wren: "This small feathered creature is a dweller among the rocks near the sea, and it frequently nests in crevices and holes just above highwater mark on the shores of places which the Great Auk once haunted.

"It will be remembered that, about nine or ten years ago,  Charles Dixon found this wren quite common at S. Kilda, where it was the only small bird resident all the year. 

"It differed from the Common Wren in its habits and more powerful song, its paler ground colour and its more distinct markings and stouter legs and feet. 

"On account of these distinguishing characters, it was described as a new species - Troglodytes hirtensis. 

"It is now believed by ornithologists that the St Kilda Wren is not specifically distinct from the Wren of the mainland but that it is a variety, or race, which has diverged from the parent form during the long centuries of its isolated life on that wintry island where not a tree or shrub exists. 

"Species, sub-species or variety, it matters little, what concerns us just now is the following fact. 

"No sooner had the news gone abroad that "lone St Kilda’s isle" possessed one little songbird of her own - a Wren that differed somewhat from the familiar Wren - than it was invaded by the army of collectors who did not mind its distance from the mainland so long as they secured something for their cabinets.

"And the result of their invasion is that the St. Kilda Wren no longer exists."

                                             

Cliff faces on St Kilda provide an all-year habitat for the island's 'giant' Wrens  (photo: Stephen Hodges via Wikimedia Commons)

'We have no desire to profit from breach of trust.' Birdfeeder company returns funds to SNP

                                                  

The feeders were bought from a company based in Canterbury, pictured (photo: Christine Matthews via Wikimedia Commons)

A COMPANY that designs and assembles birdfeeders has returned £155 to the Scottish National Party after learning  that three of its products had been purchased with misappropriated SNP money by its former chief executive, Peter Murrell.

The magnanimous gesture was today revealed by Graham Evans who is senior partner with Jacobi Jayne & Co which supplies feeders to customers all over the UK and beyond from its base in Canterbury, Kent.

In a letter published in today’s edition of The Daily Telegraph, Mr Evans writes: "While we are in the business of supporting garden wildlife, we have no desire to profit from a breach of trust.

"We are therefore donating  the full £155 received for these items back to the SNP."

He continues: "We are an entirely apolitical organisation, but we believe that stolen money has no place in our accounts.

Mr Evans concludes with a challenge to other firms that also received unauthorised payment through the actions of the former SNP chief.

"It is our hope that other suppliers named in the investigation will follow suit to ensure that such funds are returned to their rightful owners," he urges.

At a total cost of £155, the three feeders sold to Mr Murrell are likely to have been top-of-the-range products which are resistant to all but the most cunning of squirrels.

It is not known if Mr Murrell bought the feeders for others members of his family or for him and Nicola Sturgeon, now his estranged wife, to watch the finches, tits and other birds that visited their garden.

Nor is it known if the feeders will be returned to Jacobi Jayne & Co following its refund of the £155.