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Loch Garten Caperwatch: any sightings this year? (1 Viewer)

A

Alcina

Melkorendil
The Caperwatch has now been up and running for over a week, and as usual the RSPB haven't mentioned it on their Loch Garten blog. It occurred to me it might be useful if people who have attended the Caperwatch report here each day on their luck, either positive or negative, to give birders attending Scotland later in the spring an idea of how likely they are to succeed.

So, have you attended a viewing this year? Were any Capers showing?
 
Alcina said:
The Caperwatch has now been up and running for over a week, and as usual the RSPB haven't mentioned it on their Loch Garten blog. It occurred to me it might be useful if people who have attended the Caperwatch report here each day on their luck, either positive or negative, to give birders attending Scotland later in the spring an idea of how likely they are to succeed.

So, have you attended a viewing this year? Were any Capers showing?
Click to expand...

I have been to the Caper watch about ten times during short breaks in Speyside over the past six years and have seen Caper once.
I really think the RSPB should be doing more to enable keen birders to see them. The Caper watch is very unsatisfactory, yet everywhere you go round there you see signs warning you not to look for Capers and go and see them at Loch Garten. As if.

Steve
 
Know 1 was briefly seen . Flushed by a deer on first day of caperwatch .was in the main centre in afternoon of that day .complete rabble walked out after 5 minutes
 
Surely a better arrangement cold be arranged. somewhere capers can reliably be seen to stop people looking for them
 
JIM J said:
Surely a better arrangement cold be arranged. somewhere capers can reliably be seen to stop people looking for them
Click to expand...

My point exactly. When you drive from Leicestershire to northern Scotland to enjoy the local birds for a few days it is more than frustrating to get up at 05.00 to stand in a crowded hide looking at little more than a distant Osprey and glimpses of the odd Redstart. That's when someone does not stand in front of you or block the viewing slots - which are not very well designed by the way RSPB.
On a quiet morning last year (a white-out at the end of April) one of the staff there - maybe a volunteer, not sure - said they could take us to see Capers no problem but would then have to police whichever site they chose to keep birders and especially photographers away once the site inevitably leaked out.
I am not going to go looking for Capers where I am asked not to, but I would like a realistic chance of seeing one. I have happened upon females twice, including one perched on an electricity pylon, and seen a male just once, at the Caper watch a long time ago. Maybe this year............

Steve
 
Are Cappers REALLY that hard to see? (As opposed to getting full frame filling photos of males with spread tails)
I've seen them in flight on numerous occasions and by the roadside on numerous Scottish trips...and have seen them frequently from the main hide at Loch Garten even during the afternoon (though admittedly partially obscured)
Is a new viewpoint needed because people want a chance to see Capper (not tough)...because people want to be guaranteed a sight of Capper at a particular place and time (a "stakeout") so they can move onto the next thing or because people want great photos of Capper for their blog?
 
Jasonbirder said:
Are Cappers REALLY that hard to see? (As opposed to getting full frame filling photos of males with spread tails)
I've seen them in flight on numerous occasions and by the roadside on numerous Scottish trips...and have seen them frequently from the main hide at Loch Garten even during the afternoon (though admittedly partially obscured)
Click to expand...

All I can say to that Jason is that you have been a lot luckier than me or most anybody else I have spoken to.

Steve
 
Steve Lister said:
All I can say to that Jason is that you have been a lot luckier than me or most anybody else I have spoken to.

Steve
Click to expand...

We too have seen more capers when not looking for them - by the roadside or just on the edges of the forest. Not talking about in the depths of the countryside, but on semi-main roads. And perched on tree branches. I wonder how many of them we've missed in the past, before we realised they actually perched in trees!

Sandra
 
I'm heading up there 1st week in May and have decided to go to a caper watch just to stand a chance of seeing one. Have to admit the thought of standing in a crowded hide is not something I'm looking forward to!

Presumably there's as much chance of seeing one wandering around the forest as there is in the hide then?
 
Craig H said:
I'm heading up there 1st week in May and have decided to go to a caper watch just to stand a chance of seeing one. Have to admit the thought of standing in a crowded hide is not something I'm looking forward to!

Presumably there's as much chance of seeing one wandering around the forest as there is in the hide then?
Click to expand...

Hi Craig. I was there at the beginning of May last year and missed one be 10 mins. The hide had very few people in it at all. I'll be there again on May 4th this year so hopefully it'll be second time lucky.

Rich
 
At least the RSPB don't charge non members of the RSPB for Caperwatch, unlike during the day for viewing the Ospreys and I say that as a life member of the RSPB.
Ian.
 
ClarkWGriswold said:
Hi Craig. I was there at the beginning of May last year and missed one be 10 mins. The hide had very few people in it at all. I'll be there again on May 4th this year so hopefully it'll be second time lucky.

Rich
Click to expand...

There the day before which is unfortunate - wouldn't have minded meeting a fellow BF member.
 
I presented myself at so-called Caperwatch this morning bright and early to enquire as to The Truth. Apparently one brief sighting on the 2nd April has been the ONLY one this year. I for one won't be wasting any more mornings going back.

I also learned something else from the staff member present. Apparently if news of a caper gets out and birders start to know where one is, the RSPB catch the bird and move it tens of miles to another part of the species 'range. This isn't an unsubstantiated rumour or hearsay. A uniformed RSPB employee told us about how daunting it was to try to capture birds; when asked why the Royal Society for the Prevention of Birding did this, he gave the answer above.

I always knew the RSPB disliked birders, and does everything it can to prevent us following our hobby (after all, families with screaming kids pay more). I didn't realise they hate us enough to move a declining Schedule 1 bird from its chosen territory, which presumably the bird itself judges suitable, to another area which they guess may contain what a caper requires, if it can manage to get a territory in edgeways...
 
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