A year in the life of...

Ok, so it's been a fairly long time since my last blog post, but in my defence, I'm lazy! And also have been pretty busy recently. Which I know is no excuse really, so I thought I should bite the bullet and do a quick update blog to get you all up to speed. The longer I wait, the more stuff I have to update you all on! It's a bit long, just to warn you!

2016
Job Update:
My contract got extended for a year until the end of March 2017! Yay! Clearly I can't be doing too bad of a job or they would have just got someone new so that's reassuring :) 2016 was a busy year work-wise though, lots of surveys to be done, reports to be written, and lots of forest plans and funding applications to read through and comment on! 

This year my boss and I worked to implement a few changes to the lek counts as we've now both got experience of the stressful, busy time that is the lek count season. We put some trail cameras out at lek sites to see if these would allow us to remotely monitor some of the smaller leks that are harder to survey. These weren't too successful though, as they just can't get a good enough view of all birds at once, especially if the lek isn't quite where you think it is... Another thing we trialled was installing bioacoustics technology (that's microphones to you and me) at a few leks. Luckily, an ecological consultancy with much experience of this technology came up and installed the devices and have analysed all of the recordings for us! These were semi-successful in that they found out some more information about timings of leks etc that we didn't know for certain before and had previously only guessed at, but we're hoping to get some more detailed information from these recordings; specifically, the number of individual calling males would be great! But we've been told this is super time-consuming to analyse the data in this way and they're doing this for us for free, so we may not be able to get this data, although it would be great if we do! 

The biggest change we made to lek counts though was to get more staff involved! Previously lek counts and cold-searches (to find the leks) have only been carried out by the Capercaillie Team (2 people) and a few other trusted and well-trained people from private estates/Forestry Commission Scotland; all trusted surveyors with many years of experience of counting capercaillie on their sites. Which is all well and good, and it's extremely helpful that these people carry out surveys on their sites (seriously, can't thank them enough!) but my boss and I visit approximately 50 leks on top of this, in the space of about 2 weeks, and it is very difficult to visit all of these leks within this key time period. Ttime is super tight, we work everyday for those few weeks, and there is absolutely no spare time to re-survey any leks at all, so each just gets counted once and that's it. So if we visit a lek just before the peak time or get a low count because of weather conditions, we don't have time to go back and try again; not very accurate. This year, we decided to mix it up a bit and see if we could increase our coverage and accuracy. We recruited the help of other RSPB Scotland staff as well as SNH and FCS staff (who are partners in our roles) to get involved and help us out. This was pretty time-consuming in Feb/March and it took a lot of effort to organise everyone and train them to accurately survey capercaillie without disturbing the birds. It was quite a stressful time, but it was definitely worth it in the end! Due to the help of these wonderful people we were able to cold-search a wider area (and even found a developing new lek!) and were able to count 12 leks a second time, something which has never been managed before (as far as I'm aware) and helps to make our lek counts more accurate! Winner! We're hoping that these same staff who are now trained to safely and accurately survey capercaillie leks will be able to help us out again in 2017, which will help to streamline the process and will hopefully allow us to continue to increase the accuracy of our counts! Result!

I also got involved with capercaillie brood count surveys this year, which was great! Brood counts are done with highly trained dogs and their handlers, plus extra people (like me) to make up the numbers. We all walk in a line through the forest and the dogs find any broods that are around. It's very important the the dogs are highly trained for this specific sort of survey method, as we don't want to lose any precious capercaillie chicks to untrained dogs. Also, this is the reason we don't want members of the public letting their dogs run off through the forest in the breeding season, and why was want dogwalkers to stick to the paths, where chicks are less likely to be hiding. Dogs eat things, it's a natural instinct, but we don't want them eating capercaillie chicks! You can help capercaillie in Scotland by keeping your dog on a lead from March-August and sticking to proper paths and trails through forests. 

Brood counts were great (but hard work!) and I even got to see a couple of well-grown capercaillie chicks, a first for me! Literally just a couple though, as 2016 was yet again a bad breeding season for capercaillie; the second poor breeding season in a row. The cold,wet weather that we experienced in early June would have hit them hard, as this is when the newly-hatched chicks are roaming around with their mummy hen. It's easy for them to get wet and cold, and it's harder for them to find insect food when it's raining. If the poor weather continues for a few days in a row, it can cause chicks to die as they just can't dry out or can't find enough food to sustain them. Capercaillie chicks grow very quickly and need a lot of high-quality protein (in insect form) to achieve this. 2015 was also a bad breeding season for capercaillie, but we're hoping that 2017 will be better. Finger's crossed everybody.

Life Update:
Bit of a hectic year for me, life-wise! I've ended up having to move house twice this year!! I was in a shared house at the start of the year but the owners decided to sell it so I had to move out of there, which was unfortunate as it was a really lovely place! So after that I moved into a nice wee flat just down the road from the previous place, where I was living with one other girl, my landlady. I probably should have noticed the warning signs: she wanted no references, no deposit, and outright refused to give me a contract/lease of any sort! So maybe this one was my fault, if I'd realised how crazy things would get (she banned me from using many things like the washing machine, shower etc because HOW DARE I think I can use the things I pay to use!!), I probably wouldn't have moved in there. So I moved out of that place in August and instead moved across town to live in my friend's one bedroom flat which she rents out. As luck would have it, the previous tenant was just leaving, so I was able to move in pretty much straight away! It's unfurnished, but I had some furniture from the previous flat (the bedroom was unfurnished, another warning sign perhaps!) and people  kindly donated their old/unwanted furniture to me, so I did pretty well out of it in the end! Long may it continue!

In other news, I went to the doctors and was told I was anaemic, yet again (insert eye-roll here) and once again was told it was just because I'm vegetarian. I asked if there was any other possible cause as I've been anaemic for at least 10 years now and I've never been offered a solution or a believable cause. Anyway, long story short, I got a blood test for coeliac disease (an autoimmune condition where your body hates gluten), which came back as 'extremely positive'. Slightly concerning. But they can't just diagnose coeliac disease from the blood test, so I was sent off for an endoscopy but was told it would be months before I got an appointment and to eat gluten free in the meantime. Not easy for someone who survives on cake! Anyways, I eventually got my appointment through for early January 2017, and had to start eating gluten again for 6 weeks beforehand, which meant I could have the most gluten-filled Christmas of my life! Yay! Made me feel pretty shit really, but I had to eat it, for science! AND there was a chance it was my last gluteny Christmas, like, EVER(!!!) so I just went for it. See 2017 below for results!

Also: CRAFTS. I seem to have gotten more into crafty things this year, I don't know why. I've always loved making things, ever since I was a kid, but this year I've stepped up my game. I guess it's just because I know I'm going to be in the same place for a little while, which makes it easier. So I've been decorating candles (and myself!) with henna (and sometimes glitter), I've been drawing lots of mandalas, decorating little wooden hearts, I made a rug from old t-shirts which were too destroyed to give away, I've decorated some glass jars for utensils etc, and colouring all the colouring books I can get my hands on! So now I have many candles, hearts etc that are just sitting in my house, see my Facebook page or messgae me on here if you might be interested in buying one, they'll just sit in a darkened cupboard otherwise, poor things. Some photos below.

Stormtrooper candle

Elephant candle

Coffee jars

Stag heart

2017
So the big news of 2017 is that I have been diagnosed with coeliac disease...yay? Kind of yay, but kind of boo. Basically, this just means that my body hates itself and if I eat anything with gluten in it (i.e. anything tasty and awesome: bread, cakes, pastry, biscuits, cereal, and loads of other random foods that they sneak gluten into for no apparent reason) then my body goes mental and attacks my insides and I feel awful and sick and get horrible stomach pains etc. I had the endoscopy in early January, which was horrible. Awful. So so so so bad. I swear the sedation did nothing and the throat spray burned but didn't prevent the sore throat I had for a week afterwards. Really hope I don't ever need another! I got my results through just last week, which said that yes, I do have coeliac disease and my life will never be the same again. The good news is all I have to do is cut out gluten (easier said than done!) and then I'll be a-okay :) The bad news is, I want ALL the tasty gluteny cakes! But cutting out these foods will make me better, and is the only treatment for coeliac disease, so we'll see how it goes, I'll keep you posted.

I'll never be able to eat this sort-of delicious-looking, slightly OTT on the food colouring rainbow cake :(

In other news, I for some reason am taking part in a bird race with some other folks in the office. Which is cool and all, I don't really do much birding and I don't ususally keep lists so it will be nice to keep track. However, this is mostly because I'm a rubbish birder! I'm doing ok so far (I think) but we'll see how it goes. I've been posting updates on Twitter, so follow me on there (@SarahBirding) if you want to keep track of how i'm doing! Highlights so far: hawfinch (a lifer for me!), American wigeon, and of course capercaillie! It just wouldn't be the same without those big black turkeys :) 

I think that's all so far, check back soon for (hopefully regular) updates of my weird life!

I am now a featured blogger!

Just a very quick post to say that I am still alive and will do an update this weekend if I can!

Also, I was recently asked to produce a short blog post for the Scotlands Natural Heritage (SNH) blog, called Scotlands' Nature. It's all about the important national survey of capercaillie that's currently taking place in Scotland right now, to see how the population is doing. It's just gone live today so check it out! Here's the link.

After the dust has settled...

It's now the end of May and I have been in my new role as Capercaillie Project Assistant for nearly five months now, a busy few months indeed! My first few weeks invovled getting to know the role and all of the beautiful conifer forests that I would be spending most of my time in, then came the survey work. 

Surveying for capercaillie is a bit different to most other bird surveys, in that you actually don't see the birds that often. Mostly, my survey work at the beginning of the year involved a lot of walking around forests and looking for capercaillie poo, feathers, footprints, dust baths, or any other signs that they have been using an area. Once we know where they're using, we can survey the birds! Of course, since this project has been going for many years now, we're fairly sure that we know all of the areas that have any serious activity going on in them, but you never can be sure until you've checked... Anyways, for the first month or so of my contract, this is what I was doing -  walking around forests that have birds in, looking for areas where the activity it centered, so that we can come back and survey them in the lekking season, when cocks do a little display dance to attract in hens to mate with.

Capercaillie droppings

For capercaillie, the lek season doesn't last long at all. Black Grouse, for example, will lek for a couple of months, allowing each lek site to be counted multiple times, at least twice. Capercaillie on the other hand, lek for a couple of weeks in April. So we have to survey (an co-ordinate others to survey) all of the leks in Scotland in the space of just a few weeks. And within those weeks there is a peak of activity when all of the hens come down from the trees to be mated, before going off to nest. Unfortunately, there just isn't enough resource to visit all leks within the peak, let alone twice! But they do all get one count, and this, combined with other survey data, is good enough to get an idea of the size of the breeding population. 

Lovely bit of Scots pine forest

The lek surveys are pretty intense, having to fit so many surveys into such a small window is not easy! So we have to search the forests before-hand, so that we know we're going to the right place when it comes to the lek surveys and we don't waste valuable time wandering about. In addition to this, the birds only display very early in the morning, so our surveys involve hiking into the forest, camping overnight in a hide (pretty cold in early April!) and getting up at the crack of dawn to survey the number of males displaying and the number of females watching this display. This all requires special licences from SNH, as capercaillie are a Schedule 1 bird and highly protected under law from any disturbance while displaying, nesting, or with chicks. We take every precaution possible to ensure that the birds don't know we're there, as we want them to have a successful breeding season! So after the cocks have finished displaying, we pack up, search another area, and set up the hide again in a different forest ready for later that night! Very intense, but worth it to know how these birds are faring.

One benefit of lots of late nights and early mornings is seeing the sunrise through the trees

That's all over now, and currently I'm working to collate all of the data from these surveys, a rather large task! Once we've got the data in we can compare it to previous years and see how the birds are doing. In addition to this, I'm visiting forests that have had capercaillie in the past, or new forests that may become suitable habitat in the future, to see if birds are starting to use and re-colonise these areas. There's a lot of woodland to check though! And hopefully there will be even more areas of forest in future years as people continue to plant up areas. Capercaillie are big birds, and they need big areas of forests (preferably Scots pine) with lots of blaeberry and boggy patches in order to survive. If we want their numbers to increase, we need to increase the area and quality of suitable habitat!

I do get to visit some beautiful places

Although the lekking season is over for the capercaillie, it doesn't all end there. The hens should be on nests now and are very vulnerable. Even after the eggs hatch and they can move away from the nest, the hen and her chicks are vulnerable to predation, bad weather, and human disturbance. Human disturbance is a major issue that we're trying to tackle through education and information, ensuring that signs are put up in capercaillie-sensitive areas asking people to stick to the paths and keep their dogs on leads. Dogs can kill capercaillie adults and chicks, and with such a small population, we need every bird we can get! Hens can get separated from their chicks if flushed from the ground by a human presence, and won't come back to chicks if you're still in the area, making them even more vulnerable. So if you're out walking in the forests up in the Highlands (and let's face it, why wouldn't you be?), please keep to the paths and keep your dogs on a lead, and adhere to all signs regarding capercaillie. And if you see any capercaillie poo or any birds, please report it!

All in a day's work for CaperGirl!

My Next Adventure...

Yep, it's official, starting next week I'm off on a new adventure! I'm travelling back up to Inverness to become the Capercaillie Project Assistant until March 2016! Mega news! I'm so happy to have gotten a full 12 month contract, a big achievement for someone that has just worked seasonally in nature conservation so far. This contract is a joint post with the RSPB, FCS (Forestry Commission Scotland) and SNH (Scottish Natural Heritage), so it should give me loads of awesome experience and connections which will definitely help me to progress in my career with the RSPB, so yay me! Click here to find out more about this joint project to conserve Capercaillie.

A male Capercaillie, resplendant in his beautiful plumage, dancing at a lek to attract females

This role will mostly involve surveying lekking (displaying) male Capercaillie, advising landowners about the management of their land for Capercaillie, and counting how many chicks they manage to raise! For those that don't know a Capercaillie is a big, black, beautiful grouse, male shown above. They are found across Europe but in the UK they are limited to Scotland. They went extinct in the UK in the 1700's due to the felling of Scotland's native pinewoods, but were reintroduced in the 1800's after more forests had been planted. The population boomed as birds spread into the suitable habitat, but numbers soon decreased again as demand for wood increased, especially during the wars, and their habitat was once again destroyed. By 1999, only 1000 birds remained. Their numbers have increased since then due to targeted management of Scotland's forests by the RSPB, FCS and SNH. However, the population is still struggling to increase as Capercaillie need large areas of woodland for feeding and breeding. They really like native Caledonian pine woods (the kind of forest that used to cover most of Scotland) but this has mostly been cut down and replaced with more profitable plantation woodlands, which require specific management to be suitable. They need lots of Blaeberry to eat and Heather to hide in, plus boggy areas for the chicks to feed in, so their management can be quite complicated. This is why they have become restricted to a just few Core Areas in Scotland, with the majority found around the Cairngorms National Park. Due to their low numbers and the small areas of suitable habitat, these birds are still at risk of becoming extinct in the UK for a second, and possibly final, time. It is because of this that the RSPB, FCS and SNH are working together to survey and monitor Capercaillie throughout the year and increase the amount of suitable habitat so that these birds can flourish once more.

Blaeberry, also known as Bilberry, the Capercaillies favourite food

The surveys for these birds seem to mostly take place at dawn, as this is when the males get together and dance and sing to attract in the females, so it sounds like I'll be spending a lot of nights camping out in hides so that I can count the birds at dawn! Most people seem to think I'm crazy to want to camp overnight and get up super early to count birds, but I can't help it, I just love it!

Hopefully I'll manage to get some photos as good as this!

I'm not particularly organised right now, but I've found somewhere to live up in Inverness, in a very nice new build house with two housemates who both seem lovely. It's warm, it's got internet and TV, it's got people, it's out near the countryside in easy access of walks, and generally just seems like a nice place to live so I'm happy with that! I may have to get a bike, but that's no issue. I'm slowly working my way through a long list of things to do before I officially move up there next weekend, so wish me luck!





A Small Tribute to a Wonderful Nana.
I started writing this blog for my nana, to keep her up to date with all of my adventures as I travel around for conservation jobs. She got my grandpa to print off each new entry so that she could read them and show them around half of Bolton by the sounds of it! She was always interested in what I was doing and was really supportive of my choice to go running off across the country to do a job that I love. She's an amazing woman and I wish she was here to follow my next adventure. You will always be in my heart.

My beautiful Nana, you will always be missed.