Birdbox Barmy

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.