Tollie Red Kites - Blog

A Highland Spring at Tollie

2013-04-15T21:43:00Z

Oh, the joys of a Highland Spring. Frosty mornings, sunshine, wildfires, drought....and snow! Yes, wildfires and snow, all in one week. And what a difference a week makes! Last Sunday at Tollie it was a winter wonderland, snowing heavily and bitterly cold, and all the birds had – quite rightly- fluffed up their feathers and stayed in some form of shelter in their half-built nests or under a cozy spruce, far far away from our prying eyes and searching binoculars. Fast forward 5 days and what a difference! Nests being built, mating (awkward pause), fighting pheasants, crows and kites, green shoots everywhere, woodpeckers drumming from the woods, ospreys returned, a first bee sighting, fleeting sunshine, and warmth....ahhhhhhhh.

A scene reminiscent of last Sunday, 7th April. Image courtesy of Brad Chappell

If at first ye dornt succeed, try th' bit an' 'en th' heed (Unknown Glaswegian poet)

5 days later and with the temperatures rising, these pheasants decided to fight! Image courtesy of Ron Mackinnon.

Spring this year has, I’m sure you’re aware, been very late indeed. By my rough estimations about a month. Migratory birds have been kept at bay for most of March and into April by a ferocious North Easterly biting wind, so it’s with bated breath that we await the arrival of our usual migrants at Tollie, notably chiffchaff, house martins and swallows which are normally seen and heard in abundance by now. Ospreys have returned, as have the less-travelled pied wagtail, so I’m sure the others aren’t far behind.

As for the kites at Tollie, our resident pair Mr and Mrs Tollie have been seen circling above their nest which they successfully inhabited last year, and apparently been seen mating. Today, Tollie chased off a 2011 male, 6E from the centre, just to confirm his territory. All fantastic indicators that they’ll continue to be our resident pair this year. Fingers crossed! Actually, I have a hunch that Mrs Tollie is already brooding eggs at the nest, as Tollie takes the food straight there and she’s not been seen with him at all in the past couple of days.

Other birds making an appearance at Tollie this weekend have been: Osprey (2 today), kestrel, buzzard, grey heron, migrating geese, a pair of mistle thrushes, very vocal pheasants, and the usual suspects: red kite, greater spotted woodpecker, siskin, coal, blue, great and long-tailed tits, greenfinch and loads of chaffinch.

We have a mystery nest been/being built in the copse area nearest the track, which I’m guessing is a crow’s nest as it’s the right size. The nest can be easily viewed from the little side window in the centre, so take a look and let us know if you see which bird it occupying it, even if it is ‘just’ a crow it will be very interesting to be able to view it so closely.

So, with spring firmly on our minds and positive warm thoughts being channelled towards the weatherman, I’ll leave you now with a very appropriate poem by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Spring Song

The air was full of sun and birds,

The fresh air sparkled clearly.

Remembrance wakened in my heart

And I knew I loved her dearly.

The fallows and the leafless trees

And all my spirit tingled.

My earliest thought of love, and Spring's

First puff of perfume mingled.

In my still heart the thoughts awoke,

Came lone by lone together -

Say, birds and Sun and Spring, is Love

A mere affair of weather?

2012 A Good Year

2013-01-22T16:06:15Z

The last year at Tollie has seen quite a bit of change. Firstly, back in February the ‘Tardis’ arrived with the installation of the evaporating toilet and so far all seems to be going well with it, though I have yet to give it its first service. Then in April we had the official opening, with Dave Thompson MSP performing the ribbon cutting, assisted by Alex Matheson of the Brahan Estate and George Campbell, RSPB regional director. Also present was the fantastic team of volunteers who feed the kites on a daily basis and members of staff from the RSPB office in Inverness. For a change we ate venison instead of giving it to the birds and even sampled a bottle of Red Kite Ale from the Black Isle Brewery.

In May we had reports of a White-tailed eagle in the area and it was spotted over Loch Ussie, though sadly, as far as we know, it never made it to Tollie for a feed, so it could not be added to the Tollie list. At the beginning of the year I set a target of 100 birds for the year, we made it to 69, one of which was a first for me a Brambling, so let’s have a go for the 100 this year.

By this time we had noticed one particular bird was spending a lot of time at Tollie, we knew it was the same bird by its wing tags, blue left, pink right with a black triangle. On further investigations we discovered that this young fellow had got himself a female and they had built a nest in the area, the nest was not visible from the visitor centre, but his favored perch was. Blue/pink black triangle was proving to be a bit of a mouthful for the staff so after a consultation with the volunteers this bird was named Tollie. By the end of the breeding season we learned that Tollie and co, had successfully raised one chick, one is the norm for a first time breeding pair. Let’s hope for a repeat this year.

A photo of Tollie our resident male bird, thanks to Ronald for this and many of the great photos in the gallery.

By the autumn kite numbers were picking up and it was in November whilst I, along with one of the volunteers, were watching an impressive display by the kites when we were visited by the UK’s second largest bird of prey a young Golden eagle. The eagle accompanied by a kite flew over the car park, the eagle was seen regularly seen in the Contin area for the next few days.

So all in all a good year at Tollie.

2013 has already got off to good start, with increasing numbers of kites coming in to feed and an appearance, albeit brief, on the BBC Winterwatch programme.

Tollie sightings for 2012.

Red kite
Buzzard
Great spotted woodpecker
Great tit
Blue tit
Mute swan
Whooper swan
Greenfinch
Chaffinch
Goldfinch
Long tailed tit
Raven
Rook
Hooded crow
Carrion crow
Mallard
Fieldfare
Yellowhammer
Starling
Wood pigeon
Common gull
Black headed gull
Blackbird
Mistle thrush
Coal tit
Skylark
Curlew
Jackdaw
Pheasant
Shelduck
Cormorant
Hen harrier
Jay
Grey partridge
Grey heron
Dunnock
Red-legged partridge
Redwing
Pied wagtail
Robin
Wren
Siskin
Bullfinch
Meadow pipit
Chiffchaff
Osprey
Swallow
Bewick swan
Moorhen
Oystercatcher
House martin
Kestrel
Willow Warbler
Tree creeper
Peregrine falcon
Song thrush
Twite
Tree pipit
Swift
Sparrowhawk
Whitethroat
Tawny owl
Pink foot goose
Merlin
Rock dove/Feral pigeon
Brambling
Crossbill
Herring gull
Golden eagle

Small Tortoiseshell
Pine marten
Field vole
Badger
Toad
Slow worm
Gravid lizard
Stoat
Grasshopper
Weasel
Bumble bee and nest
Red squirrel
Wasp and nest

Kites of a Feather don’t Flock Together!

2012-11-19T14:38:00Z

Red kites, as you may or may not know don’t migrate to warmer climes during the winter months like the osprey. What they do instead is stay in their local territory, group together for warmth (and company?) in communal roosts in the woods and survive as best as they can. The juvenile kites born in the spring have a tendency to wander, however, to explore the surrounding territories and to find a community of kites that they are happy to spend the winter months with. This wandering can extend quite some distance and is being reflected in some new data received from our 2012 satellite tagged kites. This data also shows that red kite siblings have no allegiance at all to one another. After becoming independent from their parents, they go their separate ways – surprising, I think, as they are sociable birds who enjoy each kite’s company generally.

One great story which has emerged over the last couple of weeks which perfectly demonstrates this trait is that of siblings 4V (female), 5V Ruaridh (male) and 6V Wyvis (female). This spring’s late snows had a disastrous effect on one of our monitored kite nests near to Muir of Ord when the weight of the snow caused the nest to fall from the tree. Remarkably, another nest was quickly built and a clutch of three eggs were laid, all three eggs were hatched and reared successfully by the parent birds, albeit later in the year than usual. Two of these three chicks were fitted with satellite tags and given names, Ruaridh (which means Red king in Gaellic) and Wyvis (after a local primary school which helped to raise funds for the tags). The satellite data received from these two birds show just how individual these birds are in terms of patterns of movement. Data from Ruaridh shows him to be a predominately east/west explorer, flying as far west as Dunvegan on Skye and as far east as Stonehaven, only to return to his home territory near to Tollie for the winter. Bear in mind this was a late brood so he has flown a long way in a few short months!

Thanks to Linda for this photo of Ruaridh in her garden at Muir of Ord.

Data from his sister Wyvis, however, shows her flying south, checking out the port at Stranraer and settling at the moment just South of Aberfeldy.* A startlingly different flight behaviour from her brother.

Not to be left out, the third sister 4V who wasn’t satellite tagged has recently been spotted at a kite roost in east Yorkshire, much to any Yorkshire kite enthusiast’s delight.

Photographs of 4V in Yorkshire.

*When viewing the satellite data please bear in mind that we only include positions when a kite is on the move to avoid clutter. We will also over the next few months be removing more repeat positions to make the data easier to read.

Another recent development is the sighting at Tollie of an old bird, and no, it wasn’t me! It is a kite, who was born in 1999, so is 13 years old, positively well into middle-age by kite standards, and who is the mother of another of our 2012 satellite tagged kites, Merida or 2V. She’s not been seen around since May, so it’s good to know she’s ok.

Other aspects of kite behaviour are equally as intriguing, as Ian, another intrepid volunteer at Tollie recently testified:

“I have spent many hours at on duty Tollie watching red kites and seldom has a shift passed without seeing either a local photographer or a visitor with all the kit. I was a visitor myself on Sunday 14th October when Terri, Brad and Co were running a very well attended bird feeder event.

I was in the car park watching a kite through my binoculars, it was in perfect profile perched near the top of one of the dead trees near the approach lane corner. It was quite bright at the time, but the bird was just too far away to distinguish its tag and I’m thinking again time I invested in a new scope or camera.

This kite was sharing a tree with several crows when suddenly it tilted forward and launched a huge squirt of white excrement right over a crow about six foot behind it. It lasted long enough to appear as a white missile. It would have made a great photograph.. Where were you Ronald and the rest?

I looked around to see if anyone else may have witnessed the event and luckily one chap, a first time visitor, was down at the car park entrance watching the same bird. He swears that the kite looked over it’s shoulder and took aim at the crow. I know some birds are capable of shooting waste some distance so as to clear their nests but is it conceivable that this could be a weapon as well?”

Many bird species, especially gulls are well-known for this behaviour, but red kites? It would be interesting to have your thoughts and experiences on the matter in the comments box below.

Briefly, other Tollie news. Within the next few days, visitors to Tollie will notice a screen up at the viewing window. We have noticed a reduction in feeding activity at peak visitor times (frustratingly) so this will, hopefully, screen us from the birds to make them feel secure enough to come down to the table. Also, there is a new bird feeder to the west of the car park, which is a hit with many varieties of tit and of course, the woodpeckers, which are always a joy to observe.

Anyway, bye from me and I hope to see you at Tollie soon! Andrea

Chicken Soup

2012-10-30T13:34:00Z

Fact 1- Volunteering is good for you. It has only positive outcomes for all involved, for the giver and for the receiver. Barack Obama famously said, “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” And I agree. It feels great to give up your time and energy to a worthwhile cause, to do something positive because you can.

Fact 2 -. It has been proven that getting out into nature and wrapping yourself up in what Mother Nature has to offer can alleviate depression, anxiety and stress-related illnesses. So, in effect volunteering for the RSPB has a double-whammy effect of feelgoodness (yes, I made that word up!)...twice the benefits you might say.

When I began my foray into volunteering just last year little did I know just how life-changing it would be. Not life-changing in a physical or geographical sense, but moreover a spiritual sense. It quite literally lifts my soul. I love being at Tollie. I love the tranquillity of the place, the fact that at only 5 miles from my door it feels like another world, that each visit is unique, the sheer variety of bird species and of visitors, and of course I love the kites.

Tollie building - by Brad Chappell

Volunteers at Tollie are on a rota to come along and feed the kites each day, stay for a while and talk/inform any visitors about the centre and about kites in general. I tend to be mostly available at weekends, so it is usually a quiet weekend morning that I pack my Tollie things into the car and anticipate the day ahead. Sometimes I’ll go for a run before-hand, down the Dingwall canal and along the river Conon to observe the wildlife as I’m jogging (slowly) past – indeed there’s no better excuse to stop for a breather than to watch an osprey fishing for his breakfast! Driving up to Tollie after lunch gives me the opportunity to see if there are any kites hanging around the centre, waiting patiently for their own lunch. Eager eyes tend to spot me emerging from the car in my RSPB fleece and badge. Not the birds, but visitors who have come to hopefully observe the spectacle of the kites feeding, and who are hovering in the car park watching the skies and the woods with their binoculars and state-of-the-art telescopic cameras.

After greeting any visitors I walk down to the table to put out -and in effect display- the meat for the birds from my bucket, subconsciously noting whether I can hear or see any kites watching me, or whether I ‘just know’ that they are around! Sometimes a kite will circle low over me as I’m at the table, which is always a thrill. After quickly retreating into the sanctuary of the centre it’s then time to wait – sometimes not for long!- and chat some more to the visitors.

First more often than not you’ll see a crow fly over and recce the table. Then a crow will land on the fence next to the table. Then, when the kites can’t resist any longer they come! It’s a wonderful moment when I just know the kites are coming and the visitor’s eyes light up with glee, cameras raised to take the shot, binoculars poised. It’s a scene I’ve seen again and again, but it never fails to fill me with the wonder of nature. The sheer elegance and manoeuvrability of the kites just blows me away, they’re a real contradiction of grace and greed, beautiful ballerina pirates. They fly over the table, check and dive, swooping up at the last moment to grab some meat and twist away, bringing their feet up as they bank away to take a look and a nibble at what they managed to get. Buzzards often get involved, although they will land on the table to feed. Interactions between the two raptor species are minimal surprisingly, as they are neither a threat or prey to one-another, both are top of the food chain, and there’s plenty for everyone. After this frenetic frenzy of feeding the table is just about emptied and the crows chance it for some slim pickings and scraps on the ground, and the show is over, as quickly as it began. Visitors eye’s wide, their grins wide too.

Red kite and buzzard at the feeding table at Tollie - by John Brierley

After staying as long as is needed, and after filling up the feeders, filling in the days log and message book and checking the whiteboards I head off home. A little warm glow heats my chest as I drive down the road with my smelly empty bucket, and I know that I could never get that feeling from working behind a desk, or from meticulously cleaning the house every day.

It’s official, its proven. Fact 3 – Volunteering at Tollie is chicken soup for the soul.

For your own bowl of chicken soup you can check out volunteering opportunities on the RSPB website.

And They’re Off!

2012-09-26T11:36:42Z

Sorry it has been a while, again, since I last wrote anything, as always, I have good intentions but it is so easy to get sidetracked.

There are indications that the quiet time at Tollie is coming to an end, I was there on the 23^rd Sep. and there was a lot of Buzzard activity with a few Crows in amongst them and of course this attracted at least three Kites, may have been more as some of them were untagged. Whilst there was no feeding seen while I was there, there were some good views of the birds. The Woodpeckers are still giving a good account of themselves and we are now getting a sizable flock of Goldfinch in to feed on the thistles in front of the visitors centre.

Improvements have been made to the Satellite tracking page and the birds can now be followed on Google Earth, click on the Google Earth link below the map on this page and follow the instructions.

You will see we have added four new birds for 2012, Millie, Merida, Ruaridh and Wyvis, this bird should not be confused with the 2011 with the same name that sadly died earlier this year, the name has been used again as it is the Wyvis Primary School in Conon Bridge that helped us to secure the tags for this year. Merida has been named after the lead character in the Disney film Brave, RSPB see here for more details. Millie is named after the scientific name for the Red kite, Milvus milvus and Ruaridh, the only male, is Gaelic for Red King. Sadly, no photos were taken of the birds when they were tagged but they all have blue, left wing, and red, right wing, tags with the follow codes:

Millie - 1V
Merida - 2V
Ruaridh - 5V
Wyvis - 6V

So the challenge to any photographers out there is to send in photos of these birds, two have been to Tollie and as you can see from the tracking page all four of them are quite active at the moment.

The two tagged birds that bred this year, Lewis, on the Black Isle fledged one chick, who apparently was quite feisty when being tagged. Professor Feathers, in Angus, fledged three chicks and as far as we can tell all are doing well.

Other developments up at Tollie, we have had a wasps nest under the feeding table which made feeding quite lively, this was successfully moved to a more suitable site in the woods. We have also had a bumble bee nest in a gap between two of the logs that line the edge of the car park. Slow worms have also been spotted along with toads under the two panels we put out to attract such things. Some photos of other things that have been spotted in and around Tollie.

Four Spotted Chaser

Black Darter (Immature)

Silver-ground Carpet Moth

Speckled Wood Butterfly

Thanks to Liz for the photos, lets hope we get more like this and more of the kites.

Finally, now that we are starting to see the winter migrants we may be able to advance the Tollie bird list closer to the 100 target, it has been stalled in the mid 60s for a while now.

Kites and More.

2012-07-23T14:34:10Z

First I must apologise for being quiet of late, but every time I tried to write a blog something came up to stop me, I have finally managed to get some time so I’ve locked the door so I won’t be disturbed.

We are now in to the quiet time at Tollie, the breeding birds will have seen their chicks fledge and will now be moulting, the immature birds moult earlier in the year, so will be keeping a low profile until they get a full set of feathers back. Should you see any kites flying they can look like they have been dragged through the proverbial hedge, this is quite natural and they should soon be looking as good as new.

I can now tell you that Tollie and his mate successfully reared one chick. We hoped to put a satellite tracking tag on the chick so we could follow the young bird. However, on the day we went to do this the chick decided that it would be a good day to fledge, so we got to see it leap from the nest and fly away. Unfortunately, we do not know the sex of the bird, nor will we be able to identify it should it come and feed from the table.

Lewis and Professor Feathers were also successful in getting chicks away this year, once I know the details I will pass them on.

Of our other satellite tagged birds, Beauly and Moray are sticking close together to the south of Loch Ruthven, Ussie on the other hand is going all over the place and is presently down near Kielder Water. You can follow them here. (please note the latest data will not come online until the 24th July)

Since my last blog some great photos have been added to the gallery, notably one of Tollie regurgitating a pellet, this is how they get rid of all the indigestible skin, hair and bones that they eat, it is not often you get to see this.

Thanks to Ronald for this photo.

So apart from the kites, there is still lots to see up at Tollie though it may be on a much smaller scale. All around the car park the grass is left to grow and has also been planted with some bug friendly plants, so here is a few of what we have found, let’s see if we can get more.

Sciarid Midge

Common Marbled Carpet

Common Blue Damselflies

Sexton, or burying Beetle

Thanks to Liz for the photos, more to follow.

We have had two pairs of Great Spotted Woodpecker breed in the area, with at least three chicks between them so keep an eye out for them, the chicks have a red cap. Also for a little while yet you will still be able to see the Osprey flying over.

He’s a She

2012-06-08T12:18:00Z

Last week the new satellite tracking page for our Red kites went live, of the birds we track by this method we are putting the details of six on the page, two birds from 2009 and four from 2011. On posting the data for Lewis one of the 2009 birds we noticed that he hadn’t moved for a few days so a colleague went to check out the site, expecting to pick up and injured bird, or worse. What he found was Lewis sitting on a nest, what we thought was a male bird was in fact female and even better she was on a nest that we knew nothing about. I’m not sure gender reassignment is an option for kites at the moment, so I guess we got it wrong.

Lewis, or should that be Louise.

You can follow the birds here. Few details of the nesting birds have been posted as we do not want to give the nest locations away.

As I said in my last blog we were looking for a name for the bird nesting near the visitor centre, and Tollie came out as the preferred choice so Tollie it is. Ringing and tagging of the kites starts soon, so as soon as I know any details of the nest I will let you know.

The newly named 'Tollie', thanks to Ronald for the photo.

Tragedy struck at Tollie last week when the Blue tit box was raided by woodpeckers, one of the chicks, close to fledging, did manage to escape and it was seen hiding in the undergrowth by the bug stack, it was found by the parents and was being fed so hopefully it did manage to get away. Metal plates have been ordered, too late for this year but hopefully they will save this happening in future years.

We have noticed a lot of Buzzards around at Tollie recently; it appears that some of the young birds from last year are back. Also, one of the older Buzzards has started to swoop at the table, kite like, instead of landing on it and eating its fill, perhaps it had been knocked off the table just once too often. When I first saw it happen the Buzzard was not that good, but after a few days of practice, it is now a lot better and even putting in a few fancy moves to thrill the visitors.

A Buzzard not quite getting it right, it is much better now, another one of Ronald's great photos.

Red Blue and a Dodo

2012-05-28T10:03:00Z

The jubilee celebrations are upon us, up at Tollie we have done our best to get into the spirit of the occasion. We of course have our Red kites, and now we have a pair of Blue tits in the nest box, we just need something white. There has been reports of a White-tailed Eagle in the area so it would be nice if that put in an appearance over the weekend of celebrations, then if we could arrange for them all to hang about until the Olympics are over.

Blue tit about to enter the nest box on the side of the visitor centre at Tollie.

Rumours of a nest in the vicinity of the visitor centre have been around for a couple of weeks now, I can confirm that they are true and we think that our regular visitor to Tollie is the male bird of the pair, he is the one with the blue and pink tags with the black triangle, I will hopefully get this confirmed as soon as I can. I think it is about time this kite had a name as blue/pink with black triangle is a bit of a mouthful. So far three names have been put forward, Tollie, for obvious reasons, Tristan, the ‘tri’ being a reference to his triangle symbol and Ruaridh which means Red King. Please let me know what you think.

The soon to be named (I hope), Blue/Pink with Black Trinagle. Thanks to Ronald for this and the Blue tit photo.

Apart from kites and blue tits, lots of other things are being seen around Tollie. The Osprey is putting a regular appearance overhead, Chiffchaff and Willow warblers are regularly calling from near by. I was up there the other day and heard my first Whitethroat of the year with its scratchy protesting call coming out of the gorse bushes by the track, you can hear what they sound like here. Reports of Pine marten have been received and we have been finding chewed cones in the woods so we may have squirrels in the area too.

Who chewed these? Thanks to Liz for finding the cones and the photo.

I noticed on the sightings board that Phoenix and Dodo had been spotted at Tollie, I think we would need some photographic evidence before either of these can be added to the list. Should anybody get any photos of either of these two please do not tell anybody and contact me directly as I think there may be a couple of quid to be made with these photos.

Hello Houston, we have a problem.

2012-05-04T10:55:00Z

For the last few years we have been putting satellite tags on to some of our kites and you have been able to follow their progress through the Eyes to the Skies website. That website is no longer being updated but we have our new site on the main RSPB website and of course the community page which you have already found as you are reading the blog. It is our intention to have a tracking page from the main website too. So the kites are flying around happily transmitting data from their backs up into space, the data is being beamed back down to Sat Tag HQ where it is sent to me via email, I process the data and then upload the relevant bits on to the website, now here is where the problem lies, we are still having a few issues with this webpage, so the data is failing at the last hurdle and not getting to your computers. We have the RSPB’s finest minds working on the problems and hope to get it resolved very soon, so watch this space.

Here we see Lewis being fitted with his tag.

On Friday 27^th April we held the official opening for Tollie, RSPB members of staff, volunteers and representative from the Brahan estate and the other agencies involved in the project were there to see guest of honour Dave Thompson MSP cut the ribbon. After all the time we have fed venison to the kites, it was only right that we got the BBQ out and cooked a few venison burgers for the guests, this was accompanied by Red Kite beer so a good time was had by all. I was interviewed by BBC Alba for the evening news, sadly I was left on the cutting room floor, so my bid to be the next Springwatch presenter as taken a bit of a hit.

Sarah Walker, RSPB Volunteer and cake baker with Dave Thompson MSP

Of the Kites themselves, we have two birds that are currently nesting, Professor Feather is in the same area are last year with an Aberdeen male, we also have Lewis who looks to be nesting in the Munlochy area. We also have two of the 2011 birds around our reserve at Loch Ruthven whilst the rest of the tagged birds are still around the Black Isle area. We are also seeing what looks to be nesting activity around the visitor centre, so we are just waiting to confirm this, it would be great to see this develop through the season.

We are now getting regular sightings of the Osprey over Tollie along with lots of other migrants, Chiff-Chaff and Willow Warblers are very vocal up there at the moment, Swallows have been sighted, just waiting for the Swifts and Whitethroat to put in an appearance. The last time I looked the year list at Tollie was sitting at around 64, so still some way to go to get the 100, but getting there.

Bugs, Spies and Dr Who

2012-03-14T11:32:00Z

It has been a while since my last blog and much has happened at Tollie and the Red kite population since then. Sadly, there was the loss of Red T, one of the last of the Swedish birds brought over in 1993 to RAF Kinloss. It was even reported by STV.

I was serving in the Photographic Section at RAF Kinloss in the late 80’s when the first of the kites were brought in. I remember going out to meet the aircraft as there was quite a bit of interest. Little did I know that 30 years later I would be so involved with their offspring.

Work has started on a bug stack in the grassy area adjacent to the visitor centre. At the moment it looks like a pile of pallets, but come the summer it is hoped that it will be teeming with all sorts of bugs and beasties. More work will be done on the stack and we hope to get a pond started in the future.

Should you want to do something similar in your own garden take a look at the Homes for Wildlife Community page. There are lots of great tips and ideas and you don’t all need a stack of pallets!

As you are probably aware we use satellite tags to track the kites as they make their way around the local area and on occasions further afield. Whilst this technology is normally associated with the likes of James Bond tracking the baddies round the world it has on this occasion shown that a tagged Red kite has visited Tollie for a feed. Here are the details of a few days in March which show the bird, wing tagged 9G at Tollie:

Here is another photo of 9G swooping to the table, this was taken on the 24 February, you can just make out the aerial of the sat tag on her back. Thanks must go to Ronald Mackinnon for this and many of the other great photos posted to the website.

9G, a female bird that fledged in 2011 from a nest in the Tain area, was found caught in a fence in August and spent some time in the SSPCA wildlife hospital near Dunfirmline. She was released in September, now fitted with the satellite tag. At the moment she can regularly be seen at Tollie.

Of all the other tagged birds we have, most are still in the area around Inverness, though a couple have ventured further afield and are down in Angus and we do have one at Loch Ruthven, so if you go over there to see the Slavonian grebes keep your eyes peeled for a kite or even two as we are now starting to see the birds pairing up.

On a recent visit to Tollie, I heard a young lad exclaim 'the Tardis! ' when he saw the new toilet that has just been installed. Whilst it does appear to be larger on the inside, we won’t be able to travel back in time to when our waistlines were smaller and our hairlines a little closer to our eyebrows.

The toilet is an evaporation unit and at the forefront of waterless toilet technology. Without going into to much detail, once everything has been dried out by the wind (hence the chimney on the unit) the remains can be composted.

Here we can see James from Woo Woo - and that is the name of the company, and not a planet in the far reaches of the Delta Quadrant of space - wielding his sonic screwdriver during the final stages of construction.

You can use the Woo Woo evaporating toilet for free. So now that there will be no more nipping into the woods to spend a penny, all those pennies can go into the donation stone!

Birdbox Barmy

2012-02-13T10:53:00Z

On Sunday the 12^th Feb Tollie Red Kites and the Easter Ross Wildlife Trail held an event up at Tollie as part of the BTO’s National Nestbox week. I have to report that a hammering great time was had by all, and the small bird population in the Black Isle area is now better off by an increase in available housing by a thumb flattening 25 new houses. More information can be found here www.bto.org/nnbw/index.htm on the BTO website, including plans to make your own birdbox. Along with the hammering there were games and Kite based activities and of course the Kite feeding, the Kites gave a good show, even though none of the birdboxes were for them. Here is an image taken by Allan Adam on Sunday, proves that Kites don’t mind noise.

Since my last blog Kite numbers have remained at between 8 and 14 birds coming in to feed in the afternoons, with some of the best activity happening after 3pm, though birds can be seen at any time during the day, if fact one day last week 11 kites were reported up at Tollie at 11am. We have been getting a lot of photographer activity too, perhaps we should start a camera and lens list as the variety of equipment seen at Tollie is vast. More and more photographers are starting to post images on here or send them to me to be posted, I’ve also set up a Wing Tag Gallery, so we can get pictures of any identifiable tags posted. Most photographers I know don’t like tagged birds, but it’s an important way for us to tell if the birds are still alive, so please post them in the gallery, we also need to know the date and location, the galleries are not just exclusive for Tollie photos.

Another shot by Allan Adam is this female bird from 2010 that was perched in a tree way out towards Knockfarrel, this is the first time this bird has been seen since in was tagged on the 8^th June 2010, so please keep the tagged bird photos coming.

Wanderings, Ramblings and Hopefully Bramblings

2012-01-19T14:14:00Z

On a recent trip down south I managed to spot over 30 different birds during the journey, this included a few surprises such as Barn Owl and Peregrine Falcon. In addition to these birds I also managed three mammals, Red Deer, Fox and a Stoat resplendent in its white coat, a first for me. This got me thinking that if I can spot all this whilst driving, safely I might add, how much can we see up at Tollie when equipped with binoculars, scopes and time. I would like to think we could get the birds list in to three figures for the year, as for the mammals, invertebrates and amphibians let us see what turns up and this can set the bench mark for future years. I am hoping to start work on the wildlife garden in the near future and looking into the possibility of a pond, which I’m sure will all help to encourage the wildlife.

Now that I have rambled on about my wanderings, what about the Kites. Numbers of Kite visiting Tollie have continued to increase slowly, as have the numbers of buzzards, Crows and Ravens. We have also had some good sized flocks of Fieldfare and of course the resident GSW, chaffinches, Greenfinches and Tits. Further out from Tollie, Whooper Swans, Geese and several large flocks of Pigeons can be seen. Some Kite roost monitoring has been taking place and we have two birds that have been spotted down in a roost on the Aberdeenshire/Angus border. One with wing tags Blue/Pink 0, AKA Professor Feathers, this was the bird that bred in the area last year with an Aberdeen male. The other bird was tagged blue/blue 92, apart from rhyming, this birds also has a bit of a tale to tell. It was found under its nest in quite a weak state, after being taken home and looked after by a member of staff it was returned after a week of TLC to a new nest where it was successfully fostered by birds there. Of the Satellite tagged birds we are still receiving data and the birds are moving around the area dodging the weather and trying to stay warm.

Now the Bramblings, quite simply, I’ve never seen one and it’s about time I did, so please let me know if you see any so I can race along and finally put a tick against its name in my book.

Just in case you have forgotten what the look like.

I make that 14 on the list already, 15 when the Brambling turns up.

I shall leave you with a question

What is the smallest Finch?

King Eider at Tollie?

2011-12-19T13:57:41Z

King Eider at Tollie.

I thought that would get your attention, sadly the bird failed to turn up, might have something to do with the distance we are a way from the sea, however I did meet the man who took this amazing photo of the King Eider in Burghead harbour. Thanks goes to Allan Adams for allowing us to use his photo. A visit to Burghead is a must if you wish to go and try to better this photo, I believe the King Eider has also been spotted from our reserve at Culbin Sands in past years.

Photography is proving to be a popular occupation up at Tollie and given my background, RAF photographer for those who have not been bored to death by my many tales, one I am keen to promote. We have already trialled a photographic hide at the site. Whilst it proved that better images of the birds would be possible, it did put the birds off from visiting the table. I will over time look for a better solution and eventually a more permanent arrangement. The fact that three of the birds regularly feeding are untagged birds is also popular with the photographers. I know that it is good to get photos of untagged birds, it is always good to get details of any bird tags you see, even away from Tollie so if you see any and are able to get a positive ID please let us know, photos of any quality depicting tags would be good, post them on the photos page. Here are some details on wing tags and if you look at the photos page you will see an example of a bird with tags.

Wing Tag Details

In order to facilitate various monitoring and research programmes, wing tagging is now carried out, at some level or other, on all reintroduced populations of red kites.
In 1998 a national coding scheme was introduced which allows red kites to be identified at various levels depending on how well the birds are seen.
The colour of the tag on the birds left wing denotes the area in which they were marked/released and the colour of the birds right wing tag denotes the year in which it fledged.
In addition, each tag bears a tag code, which may be a letter, number or symbol. The colours of the tag and its code together allow a bird to be individually identified.
These sightings are extremely valuable in being able to piece together information on the the day to day life of kites in the wild.

First record whether it is the bird’s left or right wing that you can see and make a note of the base colour of the tag e.g. Left Blue. Almost all the birds will have a blue left tag as this is the identifying colour for North Scotland, right wing colour changes each year and identifies the year the bird was marked.

Now record any number, letter or mark you can see on the tag and describe the colour. On blue and other dark coloured tags, letters and numbers are invariably white. Whilst light coloured tags have black letters and numbers. Symbols such as $, %, £, #, ? and & have been used, less frequently but follow the same rule. There are other markings to look out for such as single spots, double spots, diagonal bars, horizontal bar or bars, inverted triangles, etc., these can be of a variety of contrasting colours.

Finally, there should be a terminal colour bar at the bottom end of the tag, which normally indicates the colour of the tag on the other wing. It is equally important that this bar is looked for and its presence or absence (as in 2010 in North Scotland, when both tags were the same colour) recorded. Do not forget to describe the colour.

Record your sightings in sightings book or pass details to a RSPB staff member.

Bird numbers are continuing to increase, so the feeding spectacle gets better. We now have a sizable number of corvids coming to the table to add to the Red Kite, Buzzard mix, so the Kites are really busy defending their dinner. Last week I saw both a male and a female Hen Harrier in the Tollie area so I can confirm the rumours that there was one in the area, we just need to confirm the Merlin sighting now.

This will be my last blog of the year so I will close it by wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and should you go to Tollie over the Christmas period please take care on the track if there has been any snow or freezing weather.

More Tales from Tollie

2011-12-09T11:14:08Z

Weather, weather and more weather, that’s been the story of Tollie this week, we’ve had everything apart from warmth, I’m glad I dug out the big boots and woolly vest last weekend.

However, this weather has not put off the birds coming to Tollie with an increase in all the main players and good displays by the Kites, especially if a sneaky Buzzard should try and get a feed from the table. I’ve been seeing a few flocks of 30+ Fieldfare in the trees and fields around Tollie, or perhaps it was the same flock a few times, either way they are nice to see, though it’s their ‘Chacker chack’ call that usually first alerts you to their presence. Chacker chack, now that brings back memories of Friday afternoons when I was a lad.

Most of our satellite tag birds are still knocking around the area, and the one that was down in Peebles last week is now on the way back north and is at the moment in Angus. Our colleagues at Argaty have sent a photo of one of the Kites from north Scotland feeding down there; it’s always nice to see what they are up to.

We have also been getting up to three untagged Kites feeding at Tollie, these birds are very popular with photographers, so we have seen an increase in them too, and to help them we have cut more holes in the viewing wall and at better heights, so you no longer have to be very tall or very small to use it.

That’s me for this blog, I’m going to attempt to put some photos on, so if you don’t see them you will know I failed miserably, but they will be available on the photos page.

One final word, should you visit Tollie during the bad weather please take care driving and walking the snow does get very deep up there. If the track gets too bad I will be closing the Visitors Centre down (we do still feed) a sign at the entrance to the track will let you know if this has happened.

My First Blog

2011-11-30T15:50:23Z

As you will have noticed by now the Eyes to the Skies website has not been updated as much as we would have liked since the end of summer. The Eyes to the Skies project is coming to an end and there have been some staff changes, that is why it has been a little quite there of late. Fear not, the legacy of the project will continue through the Red Kite feeding station at Tollie and we will continue to work with some of the local schools to spread the word about the kites in the north of Scotland. We have two new areas on the main RSPB website, a page for Tollie Red Kites in the main reserves area of the website and this community area, where you can post your photos, comments and questions. Eventually the Eyes to the Skies website will close and all the information will be moved across to these two new areas.

Enough about that, what about the birds! I hear you cry. We have continued to monitor the satellite tagged birds throughout the year and I can report the birds have been moving around the area. The good news being that one of the birds tagged in 2009, a female who goes by the name of Professor Feathers, successfully bred, though she had to go all the way to Angus to find a suitable mate. They raised one chick, but I hope there will be more to come. None of the other 2009 birds bred that we know of and the 2010 birds were still a bit too young to have bred this year. More birds were tagged this year so we will be able to report on their progress in time, though at this moment one is near Peebles whilst the rest have stayed closer to home.

At Tollie, the number of Kites coming to feed through the summer dropped off, as expected, but we did have one regular bird, a 2009 male with blue and pink wing tags with an inverted black triangle came to feed most days, along with a few occasional feeders. He soon earned the nickname ‘Old Faithful’, it would be nice to think that he was checking the site out for a prospective breeding area for next year, let’s hope he is successful in attracting a mate. Numbers are now increasing for the daily feeding sessions, and in addition to the Kites we are getting Buzzards and Ravens showing up, so some good aerobatic displays can been seen.

We managed to put a camera on to a Kite nest this year, albeit a little late in the season, the pictures were transmitted live to the North Kessock Tourist Information Office and the cafe at Tiso Outdoor shop in the Longman estate, Inverness, what more could you ask for, a new pair of walking boots, a nice cup of tea and Kite chicks. We hope to repeat this for next year but getting the camera in place earlier.

Well that’s enough from me for now, I will continue to keep you all updated through the blog. This is my first ever blog, so please be gentle with your comments. A blog this week, last week I downloaded my first app, whatever next a hoodie!