Rare bird having blind chicks

By Joe Stenson -

April 1, 2016

ONE of the rarest birds in Scotland is producing chicks with “lethal blindness” as a result of inbreeding.

There are only 60 breeding pairs of red-billed choughs in Scotland – nesting on the remote Hebridean islands of Colonsay and Islay.

The birds are remarkable for their brightly coloured crimson bills and their mischievous acrobatic behaviour.

But new research by the University of Aberdeen – published in the Journal of Animal Ecology – has revealed that newly-hatched birds are being born blind due to inbreeding on the islands.

The study shows that 3% of chough chicks born in Scotland every year since 1998 are now born blind.

29 “nestlings” – young birds that have yet to leave the nest – have been hatched blind by nine pairs of parents since the first case was recorded in 1998.

The chicks are otherwise healthy and survive in the nest when they are fed by their parents.

But once they leave the nest they are unable to care for themselves and die.

As a result the paper refers to their impairment as “lethal blindness”.

And – according to the research – the parent pairs which are hatching blind chicks are even breeding more than their healthy counterparts.

Read on ...

Bed time snacks help declining bird numbers

By Nicky MacBeath

A tasty bed time snack is helping prevent the loss of one of Scotland’s rarest resident breeding birds.

Populations of the red-billed chough, which lives on the islands of Islay and Colonsay, have been in serious decline for several years resulting in the bird being given amber conservation status by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

Last year only 39 breeding pairs were counted on Islay compared to 95 breeding pairs in 1986.

Conservationists from the island and Aberdeen University noticed the problem seemed to be a poor survival rate for young choughs, with few birds managing to survive the two or three year period between leaving the nest as fledglings and becoming adults.

To try and help Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) has been working with the Scottish Clough Study Group and local farmers to provide additional food for young birds.

For the last three seasons the young birds have been given a nutritious mealworm snack at their pre-roost feeding areas before they go to their communal roosts for the night.

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