extra detail...

How much do you really know about the birds on your patch?

On the surface of things, it's probably quite a lot. I'm sure you know when to expect the first singing willow warbler, how curlew numbers fluctuate through the year, or where the best places to look for snipe are. But how much do you know about the lives of the individual birds that live on your patch?

Probably not so much. Mostly, because it's very difficult to know anything about an individual bird because, well, all the rock pipits look the same as each other, dont they.

All of the extra attention I'm paying to the commoner birds has made me realise how many birds on my local patch are colour ringed. I've started paying attention to these rings as well, and supplying my records to the local ringing group. The feedback I've been getting from them is fascinating...

The details below refer to some darvic rings I read on roosting shags at the beginning of January

All are from the Isle of May, except that SDI is from Bullers of Buchan.

Red FUJ:

This winter: No previous sightings

Last winter: Also seen in Aberdeen.

Your sighting (the first this winter) is great because it shows between-winter philopatry to Girdleness!

Blue TAI:

An Aberdeen faithful:

This winter: Hasn't been seen since Nov, so your sighting is really valuable

Red SDI:

No previous sightings this winter or last!

White NUD:

No previous sightings (it was ringed as a chick in 2012).

These last two are really helpful - showing that there are clearly some new ones still to find in Aberdeen.  Obviously we need to keep plugging away!

The next refers to some colour ringed rock pipits that I've observed through the first half of the month. I wasn't expecting too much interest back from these reports as our (petrosus) rock pipits are pretty sedentary and, I thought, dont do anything interesting.... 

M/G Y/R was ringed as an adult male, on 16/10/2010. Breeds at the north end of Greyhope Bay, near where you saw him. I saw him on 23/11/1012. The 'Shag-spotter' & her other half have been there quite a bit lately & saw him on 15/01/2013.

M/G Y/Y was ringed on 24/04/2011 at the breakwater under the Battery, where you saw him 1st time? Another male, holding territory in that area. He is mentioned in one of my blog posts, as he sang away all summer in 2011 & never attracted a mate. Happily, he bred successfully in 2012. His female is also ringed, but has never been seen over the winter - yet.

Y only M only was ringed as a nestling on 27/05/2006, at the southernmost territory in the area, towards Nigg Bay. Last seen 21/09/2012, so good to know he's still about. Mentioned in a blog post, as I'd first seen him breeding under the lighthouse, 500m away from where he hatched, on 14/06/2010. We finally managed to catch him on 12/05/2012, to read the ring & add the colour. He is the only bird to fledge young from all known nesting attempts.

Whilst trying to catch him, I managed to catch his 2 females. The first in 2010, which did not return the following year. The second was the other bird you reported: M/G R/R, near to the territory. She was ringed on 25/06/2011, and has bred under the lighthouse for the last 2 seasons. Last seen on 04/01/2013.

Brilliant, isn't it! That people take the time to study these things, and take the time to pass their findings on to you, and all you have to do is pay a little attention.

You can find out more about 'my' rock pipits by looking at the grampian ringing groups blog.

And if you see any colour rings, but don't know where to report them, this is an excellent starting point. Hopefully you'll get some feedback as good as mine.

points/per/bird

There are 2 ways of accruing a high score - seeing a lot of birds, or finding high scoring birds, like the Gyrfalcon that recently graced an Askernish rooftop! (Don't forget, scarce birds worth three points are doubled if you find them, and rare birds worth 4 and 5 points are trebled if you are lucky enough to stumble across them).

One way of assessing the quality of a year list is to look at the points scored per bird (which is very simple to work out - simply divide the number of points by the number of species). My points per bird for the last two years are as follows:

2011 - 1.297

2012 - 1.380

Living by the coast, I'm lucky enough to get several easy 2 pointers every year, like kittiwakes, razorbill and the like. These are my bread and butter. The ones that really make a difference to the points per bird are the ones for which you get the finds bonuses (see above). 2012 was a much better year than 2011 for finds bonuses, with three 'finds' scoring me an extra 9 points. If someone else had found these birds my points per year would have been 1.313. If I hadn't seen them at all, it would have been a lowly  1.274.

You'd think that the best time to see these 'extra pointers' might be the spring and autumn - and if your patch was on the east coast like mine you'd probably be right. The graph below for 2012 shows a big peak in October (when I picked up YBW and barred, and saw a lovely but unfortunately second hand RBfly), but shows no real peak for my other 6 pointer (an April wryneck - probably as it would have been somewhat 'swamped' by the scoring of lots of 1 point birds in the form of common migrants). The blue line is the monthly 'ppb' with the red line representing the year end 'ppb'.

The points per bird graph for 2011 looks somewhat different though - a trough in October and peaks in August, and perhaps a little more surprising, March. Just goes to show that it's worth getting out there at all times of year - you might find yourself scoring very valuable points at a time when you least expect it!

And thats enough of the graphs for now...

Charting your progress...

When you're as geeky as me, you can do this....

These graphs chart my progress through 2013 compared to the two previous years (i.e. the ones that contribute to my average). As you can see, I'm doing alright. The broad green line represents in a) number of species this year, and in b) the number of points I've accrued. I've already seen the same number of species and I'm only a few points behind the totals for 2012, so ahead of my average: not that this matters one bit at this stage though!

The only reason this has any importance to me is that I'll be away for a wee bit of February, so there'll be a few weeks off patch. In which case, its good to get a wee bit ahead of yourself....

Birdtrack – making your patching worthwhile

Over the last couple of evenings, despite my terribly slow broadband and forgetting my login details, I’ve managed to get all of my Girdle ness records for 2012 uploaded onto Birdtrack. It’s something I started using back in the summer - and instantly found intuitive and user friendly – but stopped using for no reason other than going away on a boat for a while and sort of forgetting about it. I know….not good enough….

When I say all of my Girdle ness records though, unfortunately, that’s not really what I mean. I uploaded 135 records of 77 species – mostly migrants, interesting records like a December chiffchaff, or large counts, like 119 red throated divers south in an hour in September. I’m relatively old skool in my birding in as much as I carry a notebook and pencil with me and actively use it to write things down in, but while going through my notebooks for 2012 it became clear that I didn’t really write down enough. There are plenty of birds that would merit closer attention than I give them on patch – spring build ups of displaying long tailed ducks and late summer build ups of goosander for example would be worth reporting, and would allow for the generation of some funky looking graphs through Birdtracks online analysis tools. Pink footed geese are two a penny up here and as such, unless there are thousands on the go, I don’t pay them much attention apart from scanning through them for rares. It could well be worth charting the movements of these things in a little more detail.

With these thoughts in mind, I have decided that as well as birding as I always do, and reporting migrants, unusual records and large numbers, I will have a core of 10 species, whose numbers I will try to count, or at least estimate, on every trip to the patch I make. My ten (with a few justifications) are below. What I’d like to propose is that you all do the same. Choose species that interest you, species that you think your patch is good for, or whatever you want really!
My ten are as follows:

Long-tailed duck – spring build up including displaying males, and sometimes a good late autumn passage.

Goosander – Late summer build up of birds in the harbour, with up to 50 present sometimes.

Common gull – spring passage can be up to 300 birds pr hour on occasion, and winter flocks can be large.

Pink-footed goose – migrating flocks in autumn and spring, hard weather movements.

Ringed plover – a small resident population that swells in spring and autumn, with the odd tundrae type bird.

Black-headed gull – winter visitor mainly with a small number of birds passing in spring with common gulls.

Purple sandpiper – up to 300 birds through the winter.

Kittiwake – I probably won’t count all birds I see offshore, but there can be thousands in the harbour in late summer/autumn that I don’t think anyone ever counts.

Grey wagtail – occasional birds on good breeding habitat but more of a passage and winter thing. Mainly because I like them….

Red-throated diver – can be some great passage in both spring and autumn.

In doing this, and generally keeping better notes as well, I reckon I would be contributing well over 1000 records per year to Birdtrack. Imagine if all 129 Patchworkers did that…!

What would your ten be? Would local birders choose the same species as me? Probably not all ten, but if we all chose a couple of the same ones we could collect some fascinating data.

Pan list Patchtick predictions

With girdle ness fresh in the memory, or at least just a few scrolls down the page, here's a look at what's missing from my patch list...

Birders like to do many geeky things - looking at birds being a good example, as well as keeping lists, and some at the far flung reaches of the scale like to make the odd graph or two. A lot of us like to look at other things as well, when there are no birds to look at.  Dragonflies seem inexplicably popular; as are moths (insert winky face). Butterflies get a wee look in and mammals probably would as well, if there were a bit more variety.

One thing that unites most of us is our desire to predict. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s struggled to pronounce ‘accentor’ after half a bottle of Bruichladdich while trying to predict the next British first. Thank god willet rolls off the tongue more easily...

Making a prediction for your next patch tick would probably be a lot more ‘feet on the ground’ than ‘head in the clouds’ unless you were lucky enough to have a patch on Shetland or Scilly. There’s plenty of stuff I need that lives within a few brief fluttering of a treecreepers wings…so with this in mind, and with a wee look at a few non-bird options too, here are some predictions for my next patch ticks.

Wildfowl – apart from seaduck, and the odd skein of migrating geese, wildfowl are pretty difficult to come by at Girdle ness. Seawatching usually gets me a bit of variety but even simple things like shoveler and gadwall have me airgrabbing. A spring garganey flyby is probably not too much to ask, but the best contender for adding to my list is without doubt, pochard.

Seabirds (inc divers and grebes)- red and black-necked grebes are definitely options, but true seabirds might be tricky. Leach’s petrel is as difficult here as it is anywhere on the east coast, and I’d be looking at Cory’s for a new shearwater.

I have the full list of auks (apart from the craziest of the rarities) but Sabs gull is a bit of a hole in the list, as is roseate tern. Taking frequency of occurrence nearby as my main guidance, I can narrow it down to red necked grebe or roseate tern….and I reckon roseate tern is marginally more likely.

Raptors – raptors are pretty poorly represented on my list. If it’s big and it’s not a buzzard or an osprey then I’m quids in. I’m yet to benefit from the white tailed eagle re-introduction, and despite many days looking up on warm spring mornings I haven’t encountered marsh harrier or honey buzzard. Goshawk and hen harrier are long shots (although there was a record of hen harrier last year) so, with a local population doing well on the west side of town, I think red kite is by far my most likely new BOP.

Waders – as with wildfowl, most waders are tricky to come by (unless they like hanging around on rocky shorelines). Wood sandpiper, little ringed plover and spotted redshank would all be new for me, and a spring flood could easily produce a Temmincks stint or pectoral sandpiper. I actually had a flyby wader that fitted the bill for pec sand earlier this year but it was too far away to do anything with, so perhaps that ship has sailed…in which case, I’ll have to go with the most likely nearby…wood sandpiper.

Stuff between auks and larks – there are a few good options here. Turtle dove might be more difficult these days but must still be on the cards, and who would rule out a flyover bee-eater or a hoopoe in spring. There’s one option that is much more likely though, a species I’ve come across many times in Aberdeen before, and that’s tawny owl.

Larks, pipits and wagtails (and swallows, as they are about here in the book) – I missed short-toed lark the other year, but as far as larks go, that must be the best option. There are a few pipits to come too. Olive-backed is probably just as likely as water pipit in North East Scotland, and considering red-throated would be a county tick, I think olive backed would be the best bet there. The most likely therefore must come down to red-rumped swallow. A bit of a long shot, but why not?

Chats, wheatears and thrushes – another group where most of the usual suspects are represented. If my next patch tick is going to come from this group then it’s going to be something pretty handy, a Siberian stonechat perhaps, or a pied wheatear. If my thrashing of the cover around the sewage works is ever going to be rewarded though, I’d love it to be in the form of a red-flanked bluetail…

Warblers – a bit of a theme developing , as there are no really common options to add to my list. I’m looking for greenish (yup, I missed all of the two or three that were around during our big greenish year in 2004), a subalpine would be great, and I’ve missed both Radde’s and Dusky in recent years. The most likely new warbler is another one I’ve missed before though, marsh warbler. And preferably one singing in spring please….

Finches, sparrows and buntings. Corn buntings still hold on in North East Scotland, but nowhere near Aberdeen, and something like little bunting would be the next most numerous species. Despite the habitat we do OK for finches – I missed a rosefinch a few years ago (I’ve missed a lot…the vast majority I was out of the country for) but I think a mainland horny roll is a bit of a long shot. Most likely therefore would be an autumn migrant hawfinch.

Miscellaneous passerines – no need for discussion here. A species I’ve literally seen hundreds of in Aberdeen, and seen within a stone’s throw of the patch too…treecreeper!.

So there are 10 bird predictions, some of which I have a lot more confidence in than others! I’m not going to waste time predicting any moths as I don’t know anything about them, and any dragonfly I managed to put a name to would be the first on the list. I know my butterflies though…there are grayling and dark green fritillary a few miles up the coast, but I think a migrant might be my best shot, in which case I’ll predict clouded yellow. And as for mammals…there are probably more options on land than there are on the water, and if I had a bat detector a bat would be a shoe in at this point…I see most mammals while looking out to sea though, so I’ll look that way for my prediction. Most of the regular stuff is already on the list so it’s going to be something pretty rare from land, say between  killer whale, fin whale, sperm whale and white-sided dolphin. With no reason at all, I think I’ll go for fin whale……

So what are your glaring omissions? Or am I the only one with these massive gaps on my list…..?

Dr Patchlove or How I learned to forget work and love my Girdle ness

I realized something pretty fundamental recently. I. do. not. like. work. This is a bit of a problem really, as work, or at least the money that one accrues as a result of it, is pretty essential. It keeps me in cakes and my girlfriend in those expensive satchels that are all over the telly at the moment. It pays for my holidays. It’s added another dimension to my social life, and it means that if I ever wanted to watch an episode of Judge Judy, it would be guaranteed to be one that I hadn’t seen before. So, unless you’re willing to hitchhike forever eating Go-cat, work is just the thing for you.

The thing I resent so much about my job is that it takes so much of my time. Five out of seven days a week, it uses up a pretty large portion of the available daylight, a time at which I’d much rather be out doing other stuff. And when I say doing other stuff, I mean birding.

I don’t really think there is any solution to this whole work thing. I have friends who get paid good money to disappear offshore for a month counting birds, and then get to spend two months in Shetland every autumn. To me this sounds perfect, but if I was to go down that route I’d almost certainly not have anyone to buy those expensive satchels for. This is my bed, and for better or worse, I will lie in it.

Luckily for me, the great thing about the bed that I lie in is that it is very close indeed to my local patch. About 4 minutes walk to be precise. It’s also 4 minutes from where I work, which means that when daylight allows, I can grab opportunities to go patch birding before, at lunchtime, after, and on the odd occasion, even during work.

In the spring, summer and early autumn I can have three hours on patch before work. This is long enough to cover it properly although when the seawatching is good or there are migrants around it can be a bit awkward getting round in time. After work, on pleasant evenings, I can dress up another wander around as a ‘walk’ with the good lady, and unless I’m really busy, I can usually get out at lunchtime to cover a small portion of the patch – a tactic that has got me barred warbler among other things this autumn.

The value of this to me is impossible to quantify. If I never saw anything interesting it would get a little frustrating, but imagine never having the opportunity to look. It’s this that keeps me sane – knowing that there are opportunities to get out and escape the office, and the whole work routine. Knowing that if I can get out 10 times during the week then there is less pressure on me to get out at the weekend (not that that stops me…) so I get to play the dutiful boyfriend too. Knowing that when the weather looks promising, regardless of work, I’ll get a chance to dip my toe into the rarity pool.

To me, the consequences of not having these opportunities would be dire. The cabin fever, the ever growing resentment of my job, and the increasing anguish that would come with every Birdguides message would drive me mental very quickly. These opportunities are my fix, my medicine if you will, they are the things that allow me to function in the real world that I reluctantly live in.

So learn to love your patch. It’s worked wonders for me.

Girdle ness on Thursday....dead, but much more satisfying than being in the office...

My multicoloured spreadsheet

WARNING - the text below contains levels of geekiness that some readers will find offensive and all readers will find boring.

I’ve been actively keeping a patch list for 5 years now, although it was only recently that I decided to keep it all in my amazing multicolured spreadsheet. This is different from the ‘Patchwork’ spreadsheet (that contenders have received, or will receive soon) in that it doesn’t calculate any scores. Instead, it allows me to compare the ‘anatomy’ of each year’s list,  noting how many species I see every year, which species I’ve seen in one year, two years, three years etc, and showing which months have been most productive.

Over the course of the last five years I’ve averaged 127.2 species per year (assuming I finish on what I’m on now). This is a little lower than perhaps it should be as for the first few years I posted relatively low scores due to the fact that I lived a 45 minute walk away, rather than the 3 minute walk I have these days (….that house move was no coincidence by the way). So, for the sake of argument I’ll say that my average is 130 spp/year.

Of these 130, the vast majority, over 90, are birds I see every year. These ‘boring’ birds get a boring grey highlight on the spreadsheet, but include some species that could well be missed – eg redstart and black guillemot (tystie is not common up here at all). So of these 90+, perhaps 80 are totally guaranteed.

Pinky red birds are birds I’ve missed on one year out of the five years. Essentially, I see these birds as ‘grey’ species that I’ve managed to miss by being rubbish, or, in the example of barnacle goose this year, being away from home during the peak passage period. The blue birds are ones I’ve missed twice, green the ones I’ve missed three times (probably more sensible to think of them as rarer birds I’ve seen twice), and the peachy birds are ones that I’ve only recorded on one year. This is what it looks like at the business end...

You’d expect the peach and green species to be the rarest birds, but there’s plenty in there that only a patch birder could get enthusiastic about – little grebe, bullfinch, stock dove, coal tit for example, sitting nicely alongside desert wheatear, white-billed diver and surf scoter. One thing that surprised me initially is that the peach zone is bigger than the green zone. The peach birds are the rarest birds on the patch, but the pool of potential new species is much larger than the pool of potential second records, hence more single record birds.  The screengrab below shows the full set of 1, 2, 3, 4 and every year birds - look at the gulf in quality in the right hand column...!      

As well as giving me something to do while the missus is watching Eastenders, my amazing technicolour spreadsheet allows me to target certain species – which grey, red and blue species I need and have a chance of seeing, etc. It also gives me a chance to work up some pretty pointless graphs, the likes of which I will show you below.....

I have to warn you that there is nothing earth shattering coming up....

 The graph above shows the accumulation of species per month. It will surprise no-one that apart from January of course, the largest gains are made in spring and autumn. What this doesn't show is that May perhaps is not the most valuable month...most of the birds seen in May are common migrants that would easily be seen at any point during the summer and autumn. This year, despite being away for a week at the beginning of the month, October has been the most valuable month in terms of adding the most 'unusual' species...

October has also been the best month in terms of point scoring. Two 6 pointers (yellow-browed and barred warblers self found) as well as RBfly (3 points, found by 'the other guy'), and a few 2 pointers.

So, stop the press, October is good for birds in general, and especially finding rarer birds. I did warn you not to expect too much!

I should make it clear that this level of geekery is not necessary to take part in the competition - the spreadsheet we'll send you is as simple as adding species to a list, some fancy lookup queries do the rest. It would be reassuring to know that I'm not the only one out there who does this sort of thing. Please, now I've come out as the geekiest type of patch geek, I need some support. Anyone else have a multicoloured spreadsheet?

.....no?

....oh...