V 14 No.4 - The Scottish Ornithologists' Club

194 A. Watson & R. Rae
S8 14 (4)
suitable ground. Has bred on a Sutherland
hill once since 1980. In one day, R.R. saw
five pairs on a second hill, and he has seen
two cocks on a third. Max. 5, est. 20+ .
Shetland and Orkney. A pair was in
suitable habitat in Shetland in July 1974
(Scottish Bird Report). Max. I, est. 1+.
Southern Uplands. In July 1978, R.
Mearns found an adult with a big chick on
a Dumfries-shire hill. Since then, birds have
been seen almost annually in early May,
perhaps mostly on passage. R. Mearns saw
eight on a Kirkcudbright hill on 7 May 1981,
but none there in July 1981. On Kirkcudbright
hills in the first week of May, M.
Marquiss has seen two birds once and single
birds thrice, all at high altitude; of the three
places, one had grass, one moss
Rhacomitrium lanuginosum, and one eroded
peat. Max. I, est. 2 + .
Argyll. Bred in 1982 and 1983 (Thorn,
1986). Max. 1, est. 7+.
Hebrides. Some Dotterel sites in
Sutherland and the West Highland
mainland are so near the coast that it would
not be surprising if birds bred occasionally
in the Hebrides.
Habitat
The highest nest seen was at 1300 m in the
Cairngorms, and the lowest summering
birds were in Sutherland down to 300 m.
Most Dotterel in the Cairngorms massif
breed above 900 m, but a few on exposed
ridges and lower hills down to 600 m. East
of the Cairngorms and Lochnagar, short
vegetation grows at lower altitudes; most
birds there breed lower, often down to
700 m and in two places down to 570 m.
Watson (1966) wrote "occasional birds,
especially cocks, sometimes live for several
weeks on areas where no breeding has been
recorded"; two such observations were at
650 m and 700 m in Glen Esk (Nethersole­
Thompson, 1973) on grouse-moor hills
in 1958-59. From greater experience of
Dotterel later , A. W. thinks these birds had
run off their eggs on seeing his dogs; he has
seen breeding birds in all these places since.
Nethersole-Thompson (1973) described
the chief breeding habitats in Scotland.
Here we give new observations. We have
seen Dotterel in summer on many low hills
on grouse moorland in the east Highlands,
and have found nests or young on 12 of
them. Most of these hills had short, windclipped
heather Col/una vulgaris with some
lichen and bare gravelly patches. On four
low haunts the birds summered where deep
peat had eroded to reveal gravelly ground,
sparsely covered with short heather,
crow berry Empetrum spp. and grass.
R.R. saw an adult, which was probably
breeding, on a man-made bare patch at 630
m in Strath Don; peat removal for fuel had
exposed a gravelly mineral soil with some
short vegetation. A cock had chicks at 670 m
at another such place in Strath Don. Also,
on four hills from north-east Perth shire to
Strath Don we have found nests on exposed
low ridges where heather regeneration after
muirburn had been slow. At one such place
in Strath Don, R.R. saw a nest at only 570 m,
and at another in Kincardineshire a pair has
been seen at 450 m. Furthermore, Sim
(1903) noted Dotterel breeding in the 1800s
on low hills in two Donside parishes, and
referred to them breeding on "elevated
moors" in a third and abounding on
"mountains" in a fourth (in fact, low hills
in both cases).
As the number of such places in the
Highlands is large, Dotterel may be more
widespread and abundant than we have
estimated. Any large-scale survey should
include such places.
Breeding success
Table I gives 14 reasonably good samples
of 10 or more birds. The mean from the 14
totals was 0.51 young reared per adult,
including adults with no young. Dotterel on
schist hills reared more young per adult than
on the nearest granite hills with a sample in
the same year (Mann-Whitney U = 0, n =
4 & 4, one-tailed P = 0.014). This was
noticed earlier on A.W.'s study areas (Watson,
Bayfield & Moyes, 1970). Nethersole-