Saving common scoters in Scotland

This is a common scoter video.

From the RSPB in Britain:

RSPB battles to save the not-so-Common Scoter

Last modified: 04 February 2011

The RSPB is often associated with campaigns to save some of the most charismatic Scottish birds – whether it is ospreys, sea eagles or capercaillies. But for Dr Mark Hancock, an ecologist with RSPB Scotland, few species can match the attraction of the common scoter, one of Scotland’s less well-known birds.

“The common scoter is a great bird and the more you get to know about them the more you grow to care for them. In a nutshell, scoters are chunky diving ducks that like eating molluscs. Mostly they live at sea but in the spring they come inland, to breed in the most dramatic of places – remote lochs in the wildest parts of the Highlands, like in and around the RSPB reserve at Forsinard Flows. Mind you, to study them you haven’t to worry about tramping into the wilds and contending with the attentions of thousands of midges and mosquitoes. In fact, the aquatic young stages of some of these flies are important scoter food.”

Creating a safe haven for salmon, birds and water voles in North of Scotland: here.

What’s going wrong for Scotland’s capercaillies? Here.

Rare Oriental Turtle-dove spotted in Oxfordshire garden – BBC News: here.