Newsletter No 6 summer 2016
Scottish Wildlife Trust, Callander Local Group
including villages fromDoune to Lochearnhead

Those who read our annual newsletter may notice that it is later than normal this year. January is always a busy time so we have decided to tie it in to the Financial year that also aligns better with our winter programme of talks. Do you read it? Any suggestions for future issues? Anything you would like to share?

We are grateful to this year’s speakers who have covered a wide variety of topics; 40 years of birds in Scotland, Otters, RSPB’s All Nature Programme, John Muir Trust, Dave’s Close Encounters with Wildlife, Tree Threats and Diseases and Salmonid movements in our local rivers. The season finished with the AGM and members shared experiences of Galapagos, Bengal Tigers and Grey Whales. It has been gratifying to see attendances averaging 27, making meetings self-supporting sowe can keep entry fees low. Any suggestions for future topics and/or speakers would be welcome.

Unfortunately, for the second year, the ‘Birds of Braeleny’ walk was cancelled due to very wet and windy weather.We’ve decided to organise future such walks at short notice so make sure we have your e-mail address. In July & August we continued ‘Balsam Bashing’ by the river Teith in Callander, spurred on by the success of previous years: the battle continues with sessions on 24 July and 21 August 2016.

In 2015/16wedonated £400; £200 to Callander Primary School to support a trip to Jupiter Wildlife Centre, £100 to SWT’s ‘Help our Children Grow’ appeal and £100 to SSPCA.

Despite a another wet and windy day, our 2015 fund-raising bottle stall, plant sales and street collection raised over £500, giving us a healthy balance and enabling increased donations in 2016/17.

We will be holding this year’s fund-raising in Ancaster Square, Callander on 27 August and need your support; can you help on the day and/or make a donation to the Bottle Stall? Tell people to come and buy.

Local Sightings & wildlife news

Over the last couple of years, Mike Hawkins has been a volunteer with Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels project with a camera trap monitoring peanut feeder boxes in woods around Callander. With much wildlife being very shy or nocturnal, many of us never see what is on the doorstep. Photos in this newsletter show what is out there; red & grey squirrels, pine martens, badger, fox, roe and red deer and numerous woodland birds: jays learned to push up the front of the feeder box to let out the peanuts! The increasing number of pine martens is believed to support red squirrels by deterring greys from moving in to an area and a new project from Aberdeen University will include survey data from Callander Woods.

There have been other sightings of badgers by SWT members in our area, both live and as road casualties, around Strathyre, Callander and Doune areas. Are they becoming locally more common?

Red kites continued a modest population increase in 2015 with 87 pairs located in central Scotland, an increase of three over 2014. However, nest productivity was far lower with only 76 or so young reared, around 30 fewer than the previous year, probably attributable to poor spring weather. In January 2016 a winter count of kites at their roosts found similar numbers of birds roosting at Argaty (35 – 40) but a further 160+ were found at other sites in the central Scotland area.

Twenty three pairs of osprey reared 36 young during 2015 in the Loch Lomond, Trossachs and Stirling areas. Four of these chicks were fitted with satellite transmitters with one individual recorded in Ireland, one in Spain and one in Senegal. Extra effort was made to search for golden eagles as 2015 was a national survey year for this species. Seven breeding pairs were located with four of these rearing five young between them (thanks to Central Scotland Raptor Study Group for the data).

Hopefully, many of you will have seen recent TV programmes starring our local eagles and ospreys.

In 2015 the barn owl population in Clackmannan and Stirling areas increased by 5 pairs but dropped in other parts of the region, resulting in an overall reduction from 59 to 55 pairs. 2014 had been a very good vole year resulting in high fledging rates of 2.9 young per breeding pair and a high number of owls must have survived the mild winter. However, the vole population crash in 2015 resulted in a drop in productivity to 1.78 young fledged per breeding pair.On a positive note, as the vole population is due to be on its cyclic rise over the next 2 years so the barn owl numbers should also rise, hopefully reaching or even surpassing in 2017 the high population levels reached before the severe winter of 2010/11. Providing of course we do not experience another epic winter! Early indications are that there are signs of an increase in breeding pairs for the 2016 season. Although it is too early to determine productivity as most birds are still on eggs it islooking good!

In the plant world, primroses have given an excellent display this spring, blooming from January to June.

Local botanists would have liked the start of summer grazing along the Braeleny Road to be delayed for two weeks to encourage an increase of butterfly orchids and other plants. However, this has not been agreed by NPA and the grazier so no changes are to be made.

Restoration of Little Leny Meadows to a wet hay meadow, increasing plant species and associated insects, birds & bats is part of the £1.5M HLF funding won for Callander. The development phase over the next year will define more details to confirm the full funding.

Getting involved.

‘Citizen Science’ is an increasingly popular term for volunteers’ help in Conservation projects. Even if unable to ‘get stuck in’ to practical tasks, everyone can contribute vital information with minimal effort by reportingsightings, sometimes even dead animals.The list of websites and contacts has been included in previous newsletters is now available on our page of the SWT website Please help by reporting your sightings eg squirrelsor just let one of us know.

Keeping in touch

E-mail is the most efficient route for contact so if you’re not already on the circulation list or have changed your e-mail, please contact Lesley on to be added. It will not be shared and will be deleted immediately on request.

Also, please spread the word about SWT; if every member recruited one more that would be fantastic.

Please come along and join us at future meetings and events. They are advertised in the SWT Events Leaflet, our page of the SWT website, local posters and five local news magazines.

Kevin Duffy (Chairman)Lesley Hawkins (Secretary)

Tel: 0776 6725392Tel: 01877 339080

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