Davide Scridel, Research Assistant with RSPB Scotland, gives us an update on his research work in the Outer Hebrides.

Look what the wind blew in...

It is nearly a month since I started here and I have now completed the first round of visits to each of my 1x1km2 survey sites surveying for twite. For the majority of the time the weather has been quite dramatic. Low temperatures and strong gusts of NW winds up to 50 mph have on the one hand slowed down surveys but on the other, they have provided the opportunity to see unusual and very rare sightings of wildlife.

Forced by strong winds, thousands of migrating pomarine and long-tailed skuas have been recorded by dedicated local birders/volunteers and RSPB staff, particularly on the NW side of the Uists where the RSPB Balranald reserve lies. These "pirates of the seas" are famous for their habit of stealing much of their food from other seabirds, a behaviour known as “kleptoparasitism”.

Records show that this could potentially be one of the largest counts of migrating skuas in the last decade, with counts +2400 birds recorded at the most westerly point of North Uist. Alongside this, the Western Isles are also one of the best places to seek exciting rarities. This spring was no exception with short-toed lark, citrine wagtail and Harlequin duck being found and drawing the attention of many birders.

Unfortunately there was not much time to chase all these incredible sightings, but I had to make some spare time to see one of my favourite birds in, appropriately, a near-blizzard- a Snowy Owl.

Despite these “Icelandic/Scandinavian invasions”, while walking along the survey transects the only thing that was reminding me that spring had actually started, was the occasional crex-crex of the Red-Listed corncrakes proclaiming their territories in patches of tall nettles.

The other sign of spring – much more relevant to twite ecology - is the presence of the first scatter of dandelions in the landscape and the twites seem to have noticed them as well. A peculiarity of this passerine is that they utilise seeds of wild plants to feed their chicks and from previous studies we know that dandelion makes up most of the diet of early broods.

Given this very cold spring, my impression is that the initial blooming of this plant is restricted to the warmest and sheltered areas of the islands, particularly around rural areas and some coastal sites. It is probably not by chance that the majority of my twite sightings have coincided with these two habitats.

To me it seems May has been a month of transition for twite, with sightings of winter-like flocks of 60+ birds, to the first breeding pairs possibly synchronised with the first seeding of dandelions. Too early to say for sure but hopefully this national survey will answer some of the questions that I keep wondering while walking through these stunning landscapes!

Read Davide’s previous blog here:

Island living