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!

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.

Yorkshire Photo Blog

So I've decided to do something a bit different today - as I am now back home in Hertfordshire and have decent internet access - a photo blog! And here it is, a description of what I've been up to in Yorkshire over the winter, told through the use of my own lovely photographs!

When I first arrived, there was little water on the lagoons, creating great conditions for wading birds such as Ruff, Curlew Sandpiper and Redshank to feed on the small invertebrates living in the mud

Stray/injured/lost birds are often brought into the RSPB, and this young Gannet, named 'Captain Beaky', was no exception. He came down in strong winds and was too weak to fly off, and was brought to us. So we cared for and fed him until he was strong enough to be released at the seaside.

A view of one of the pools maintained for breeding Bitterns to fish in. We spent a great deal of time creating 'Blue zone', an edge habitat between the pool and the reedbed where insects congregate and provide food sources for reedbed birds and fish.

Cleaning out and repairing the 70+ nest boxes that are maintained over winter each year for the large population of Tree Sparrows to nest in come spring. Tree Sparrows are similar to the more common House Sparrow, but don't like human company as much and tend to nest away from people.

Typical view out in the reedbed when cutting the plots of reed. We cut over 5 hectares (5 football pitches) of reed over the winter to create a mosaic of different habitats across the reedbed, creating better conditions and more insects for Bearded Tits to feed and breed. After a week or so of cutting, it became a bit of a maze out in the reeds, and I managed to get lost more than once!

Out in the reedbed, following behind the Softrak as it does it's thing, cutting paths and plots in the reedbed, creating a lovely mosaic of habitats to keep the reedbed in tip top condtion.

Putting up some new lines of fencing out in the reedbed to replace some old fencing and control where the ponies can get to, ensuring that no part of the reedbed gets too munched by them! This was a long, difficult job, but actually one of my favourites!

And here they are! The beautiful boys themselves, doing a great job of munching the reed on the edges of the lagoons, creating edge habitat which is good for all the birds, mammals and beasties that live in the reeds.

The massive tidal surge on 5th December resulted in a rather muddy, sticky reserve, with rubbish, reed litter, and mud covering everything. The clean-up operation took about 3 weeks, but we managed to re-open after Christmas.

The paths and hides (see next photo) got totally covered in mud and silt, which we had to scrape off with massive snow scrapers, shovels, and stiff yard brushes. We scraped off a layer of stone and spent some time drying out and scrubbing hide floors, but we got it to a decent condition in the end!

The good thing about the tidal surge though, is that it brought a lot of water onto the reserve, filling up the lagoons and re-wetting the reedbed and the grazing marsh, helping to create good conditions for the breeding season and attracting in a lot more ducks and geese!

The mud and silt on the paths also allowed animal tracks to be seen more clearly, including those of weasels, badgers, foxes, deer and birds of all shapes and sizes

You do find some odd things washed up in the reedbed...

Things were back to normal after Christmas, and we spent some time cutting up some of the coppiced wood from last year and stacking it up for use as firewood! The driftwood that was washed up came in handy too!

We also spent some time clearing up the yard and the area around the workshop and office, in preparation for some improvements, which involved removing some trees, bushes and old fencing, and just generally tidying up the space!

As well as spending time at Blacktoft Sands, I also visited the RSPB reserve at Fairburn Ings, where I saw a lovely range of ducks, geese, woodland birds, and even a few Kingfishers! Well worth a visit.

A view of sunset over one of the lakes at Fairburn Ings.

In addition to all of the practical work, I also helped out with people engagement, including writing out information boards to go along the nature trails to the hides! Of course, the picture isn't by me - far too good to be my work!

So here is the result of the new Softrak reed cutter/bundler - giant bales of reed! The plan is to use these reed bales to create little logs of reed which can be burnt on a fire as part of the biofuels project mentioned in my earlier post.

So there you go! A brief round-up of some of the habitat and site management things that I got involved with whilst volunteering up at Blacktoft Sands over the winter. I really enjoyed my time working on this site, especially as it's so different to what I've done previously! But at the end of March I'm heading up north once again, this time to Perth (the one in Scotland, not Australisa!) to survey a wide variety of bird species across Perthshire! I won't be based at a reserve this time, I'll be moving about all over the place, surveying wherever the birds are! I'll have my own flat and I'll be given a car to use to get around, plus I'll be getting paid! Hooray! So wish me luck for the season ahead!

Quick Update

Hi everyone, just a quick update while my internet's working (not working well enough to upload photos at the moment though). So I've been volunteering at Blacktoft Sands RSPB reserve in East Yorkshire for about 5 months now and I'm coming up to the end of my time here, but I've enjoyed every minute of it! I've gained a lot of experience in carrying out practical reserve maintenance and habitat management work, which should really haelp me to get a permanent job at some point in the future.

So what exactly have I been doing? Well, the main part of the habitat management work here at Blacktoft is that reed cutting. Every year the team here have to cut large areas of the reedbed to keep it at it's best for birds an wildlife. Reedbed specialists like Bearded Tits like to have a variety of different ages of reed - thick, tall, older stands of reed for nesting in, and open, shorter, younger areas of reed where they can easily catch insects for food. Cutting sections of reedbed is also good for the Bitterns that nest here in the summer, as they like to have short, wet areas and open pools where they can fish, as well as taller, thicker stands to nest in. It's also good for insects as we create 'edge' habitat which invertebrates love to hang around in, as do fish, increasing the biodiversity of the site. Cutting the reed creates a 'mosaic' of different micro-habitats within this habitat so dominated by one species, with a benefit to the birds and wildlife that make their homes here. 'But surely that's unnatural, cutting big holes in the habitat' - Well, yes and no. While it's true that we use machinery to cut these plots within the reedbed, this is a task that would have been completed by cattle, horses and other herbivores before humans came along, but it's impractical to have huge herds of ponies, deer, goats etc roaming across the reserve, so we have to use machinery to create the same effect. We do have 4 Konik ponies here, doing a great job of creating edge habitat around the lagoons and pathways through the reedbed, but it's a big job for four ponies so we have to help them out a bit. Click here to read more about the reed cutting and why we do it at Blacktoft.

'What do you do with all the cut reed? You can't eat it like ponies do!' No, we can't, so we have to figure out something else to do with it. At the moment, that's burning it. We heap it into big piles and burn it all away. Pretty inefficient really. However, the Blacktoft team are working to figure out something better that we can do with it - we can compress it into blocks and use it as fuel. This is a very ambitious project and one that promises a great solution to this problem with the cut reed, and would prevent us from burning in the reedbed, generate some income for the charity, and make the whole process carbon neutral! And they're having a lot of success! It's looking like this will be a real solution in the very near future, so watch this space! Please click here to read more about this project on the reserve blog!

In addition to this, we've been doing a lot of fencing work (especially after the flood in December ripped half of them down!), cleaning and repairing nest boxes for the coming season, installing electric fences, felling trees, clearing vegetation, maintaining the hides and paths, and much much more! And there's more reed cutting and some coppicing lined up for the coming month, so there's always plenty to do! I'm really enjoying my placement here (despite the lack of income) and I feel like I've learned a lot about practical conservation work, as well as seeing a lot of new birds, and it will be a shame to leave. Unfortunately though, I can't afford to be volunteering forever so I'm back on the jobs market once more! I've had a few interviews and been close to getting a couple of jobs, but no success yet. I'm still applying though, there's a lot of jobs coming up this year, so I've still got some hope! Wish me luck!

A Wetland Wonderland

People often ask me what it’s like to work on a nature reserve and live in a remote area ; ‘How do you get shopping?’, ‘What do you do for fun?’, ‘You’re  living so far from civilisation, there’s not even a STARBUCKS near you, how do COPE???’ and ‘Do you really like living alone? I mean, you’re so ALONE, so lonely and alone. All ALONE.’  are just some of the questions I deal with on a regular basis. But really, it’s not as bad as everyone seems to think it is! They see that I’m in the frigid north and assume it’s just me and the polar bears for miles around, living in a bleak, sunless wilderness, suffering through grey days and greyer nights, with no hope of brighter days to come. And yes, it is getting colder, winter is coming, but it’s not so bleak as you might think. The reserve here is lovely, and I really do enjoy being surrounded by countryside! I much prefer rolling green hills, farmland, woodland and lakes to the depressing urban jungle that defines our towns and cities across the land, with their towering buildings, rat-infested parks and  rubbish tips, where the streets are paved with dog poop. I enjoy the quiet relaxation of the countryside, its peacefulness and the friendliness of its residents. And that’s exactly what I get in my current role! Don’t get me wrong, it is nice to spend some time in our towns and cities, meeting up with friends, going out clubbing, shopping, drinking, eating out, and generally being a bit more classy and whatnot, but I’m very glad to get away from it all by working outdoors in these lovely remote places.

The loveliness of rural life

‘So what’s so great about this nature reserve?’ I hear you cry. Well, it’s just a bit different from everywhere else that I’ve worked before really! Whereas the reserves I was working on in Orkney and the Farne Islands are seabird reserves, tall cliffs covered with nesting seabirds and smelling a bit fishy, with some nice vegetated bits and lots of nice birds and wildlife a bit further inland, and Loch Ruthven was a large loch surrounded by woodland and heathland, Blacktoft Sands is basically one big reedbed with lots of pools, big and small, throughout the reeds. It’s set in between two rivers, the Ouse and the Trent, jutting out into the channel where the two rivers meet to form the Humber, surrounded by Scunthorpe, Hull, York, Leeds and Doncaster. My nearest town is Goole, an industrial little place known mostly for it’s part in the ship-building industry, and I regularly spy ships coming up the Ouse, past the reserve, past my house, and on towards Goole. Which is slightly surreal actually, as from street level it looks as if the ships are carving their way through fields… Anyway, the reserve is pretty big, although only a small area is open to the public, as the majority of the reserve is reedbed. Despite that though, there are 7 bird hides, each one looking out onto a different pool, with different birds on each, except Ousefleet hide, which looks out onto the grazing marsh, a drier bit of land that’s grazed in by cattle and used by breeding waders and wintering wildfowl.

Here’s an aerial photo of the reserve, showing the rivers, the pools that the hides look onto, the areas where the reeds have been cut, and the extent of the reedbed.

A typical view from one of the hides

Some lovely trees as well

The reserve is best known for the Marsh Harriers which breed and over-winter in the reedbed. They have been very successful over the past couple of summers, but over winter they get large numbers of these beautiful birds of prey roosting in the reeds overnight, along with a few Hen Harriers too. These birds have come in from the continent and need a nice place to sleep for the night, and where better? They all start arriving as the day turns to dusk, with as many as 30 Harriers seen in the sky at once, then one-by-one they drop into the reedbed to have a little sleepy – a wonderful sight to behold! The roost is only now beginning, with about 8 Marsh Harriers and 2-3 Hen Harriers seen coming in to roost recently, but these numbers will build as winter deepens, with the chance of seeing Owls as well! What could be better?  But during the day, there’s a wide variety of waders, ducks, geese with Bearded Tits, Reed Buntings and TreeSparrows flitting about, and Redwings and Fieldfares passing by overhead. I’ve seen a nice variety of birds since I’ve been here, and I’ve only been here a month!  I think some of the winter birds have been the nicest birds so far – Whooper Swans and Pink-footed Geese and Brent Geese. But the waders have been great too and I’ve learnt to recognise a few species that I couldn’t identify before, which is always great!

In addition to all of this though, we’ve also got four lovely Konik ponies. These are an ancient Polish breed of horse, much better adapted to life in a wetland environment than most other breeds are. They are used in Poland to graze and manage the large areas of reedbeds, as they are happy to wade around in water and are less susceptible to getting foot problems from spending a lot of time in water – a big problem for some breeds. They are hardy little guys, and they love to eat the reeds, so they are helping to manage the habitat here! They eat the reeds back and help to create pathways through the reeds and shorter areas of reeds that many reedbed birds and wildlife like to feed and shelter. The Koniks are here for three years as part of a wider project to find ways to manage the habitat more naturally. Most of the habitat management work that goes on here is done by machinery, such as brushcutters. Plots are cut in the reedbed each year on a rotation so that each area is cut every few years. This helps to provide a mosaic of habitats, with areas of younger shorter reeds for birds like Bitterns to feed in, as well as taller, older stands of reed for birds like the Bearded Tit to nest in. In this way, we can keep the reedbed at its best and provide habitat for all of its residents!

A very nice photo of a very photogenic Konik pony. Unfortunately not one of my photos though!

This photo shows some of the plots where reeds have been cut in previous years, and the ditch that feeds all of the pools.

This reed cutting work will be continued again this year, as this is what me and the team will be doing for a lot of the winter, creating a more varied habitat for the reedbed residents, both the permanent and over-wintering ones. In addition to this we’ll be carrying out a few more habitat management and maintenance tasks to keep the reserve looking its best, so both people and wildlife can enjoy this wetland wonderland!

A Yorkshire Lass

Unfortunately I wasn't able to find a paid conservation job for the winter, despite applying for several! It’s a very competitive career, especially in the winter as there are far fewer jobs than there are in the summer and almost all of the jobs that come up involve a lot of practical work, which I just don’t have a great deal of experience in! Practical work on reserves is habitat management work, which can be anything from painting hides to building fences to digging ponds, cutting down trees or cutting back heather and gorse. The type of task really depends on the habitat on the reserve, and each reserve is different depending on what species it focuses on, but with all reserves the vast majority of habitat management work takes place on reserves over winter, as there are no birds breeding then. I have gained some experience in practical work by volunteering with the Box Moor Trust and other organisations but the fact is there are just a lot of people out there with more experience than me in this area. I would have loved to have stayed in Orkney over winter, but there just isn't a lot of habitat management work that they need to do up there, and they have the necessary staff to complete the tasks that they do have.

So, what now? If you can’t get a job because you have no experience, how do you get the experience? Well, the answer is volunteering. I managed to save up enough money whilst working in Orkney this year and last year so that I can afford to volunteer for six months. It’s going to be tight, as I don’t have a lot of money, but I should be able to just about do it! So I got in contact with the volunteering department at the RSPB and they set me up with a lovely Residential Volunteer Intern placement at their reserve at Blacktoft Sands in Yorkshire! I moved up at the end of September and will stay in this placement until the end of March or until I find a paid job elsewhere. It’s a pretty good deal really – I get a house where I don’t have to pay rent or bills, I get to experience life in a part of the country that’s new to me, and I get a lot of good practical experience out of the deal, which will really help me to find a permanent job or a job over winter next year! Plus, they are going to train me up a bit! I’m being sent on a brushcutter course later this month, where I’ll learn to safely use a brushcutter (like a strimmer but with big metal blades on the end instead of the plastic string) and I’ll get a certificate to prove it! I’m also being sent on a Child Safety and Welfare course, but that sounds less fun; no machines to play with on that course. So all I really have to pay for while I’m here is food and any trips that I want to take on my days off, a pretty good deal really!

I’ve been here a week now and really enjoying it so far, but they’ve kept me pretty busy with building fences, installing barriers, cutting down trees, chopping firewood, and several inductions. Only one hiccup so far – I accidentally cut down the wrong trees! Luckily, it’s not been too much of an issue, and I have since cut down the correct trees, but still felt pretty silly cutting down the wrong ones! I’ve also been trained up to do some visitor work, which should be good. Lots of membership stuff and showing people the birds – which are mostly waders, ducks and Marsh Harriers here, a bit different to Orkney, so I’m definitely learning some new birds! The staff are all lovely here and I’m also working with (and living with) the short term volunteers, who come and stay at Blacktoft for a week or two and do pretty much all of the same things as me! The house that I’m living in is pretty nice too – it’s a two storey semi-detached house in a little village about a mile from the reserve. Big kitchen/dining room, and the living room even has a TV! The luxury! Now I just need to find a bike that I can fit on (#shortpeopleproblems), and then I can get around the local area and even start cycling to the reserve every day instead of getting a lift – I WILL get fit!

Anyway, I’m really enjoying my time here so far, and really looking forward to finding out what else is in store for me here. I don’t have Wifi here though, so I have to use the office computers to use the internet, which means I won’t be updating this blog as often as I would like, but I’ll try to update at least once a month! And hopefully I won’t make any more big mistakes – next time I’ll make sure I’m definitely cutting down the right trees! Photos to follow in the next blog!

End of Season Round-up!

Well, that's it now, the breeding season is over and I'm no longer in Orkney. So how did the season go for our breeding birds? Well, in short, it wasn't great. Due to the cold weather lasting throughout May and well into June, many of the seabirds were late to start nesting, and we saw fewer pairs returning to the cliffs to nest this year; this may be because the adults weren't able to find enough food over winter and were therefore in too poor a condition to breed this year, or it could be due to other circumstances - the large wrecks of seabirds over winter may have had an effect. Whatever the reason, they didn't do so well. However, some others did do fairly well, so here's a quick species-by-species run down. I monitor the seabirds in 7 plots along the cliff face on the North Hill reserve, and the following results relate to those 7 plots.

Only 1 pair of Kittiwakes attempted to nest this year. However, this pair didn't complete their nest and laid no eggs. No fledged young were seen around the cliffs on Papa Westray at all this year, so it is likely that none fledged at all from anywhere along the cliffs. This is a species that has declined massively in the past 10 years or so due to the lack of food availability - they need Sandeels to be close to the water's surface in order to feed, but due to climate change there are fewer Sandeels at the right depth for these birds.

Kittiwakes on nests

Guillemots also did badly this year, with no chicks fledged from the 78 nesting pairs that I monitored. This was mainly due to high levels of predation of Guillemot eggs and chicks by gulls and skuas, although lack of food almost certainly played a part. Fewer birds returned to nest this year, which is always an issue for Guillemots as they adopt a 'safety in numbers approach' - cramming as many nesting birds onto the breeding ledges as possible to reduce the chances of predation. But as Guillemot numbers drop, protection from predators drops, and so the number of fledged chicks drops.

Guillemots with chicks - not a common sight on Orkney this year

Razorbills fared slightly better though, with 5 chicks fledged from 27 pairs - very similar numbers to last year, showing that their choice of nesting spot (within small cracks in the cliff face) is beneficial to prevent predation of young.

Razorbill pair with egg

Shags did well as they always do, and had the highest productivity (number of chicks fledged per pair) of all of the breeding seabirds this year! From 9 nests, 13 chicks fledged! Shags tend to do much better than other species as they eat a wider variety of prey, they can dive quite deep to catch their prey (up to 45m!) and they defend their nests quite viciously so predators ususally go for something a bit easier!

Shag on nest

The Gannets nesting on Noup Cliffs also did quite well this year, with the number of nesting birds increasing to 673, with 464 chicks fledged! Gannets are our largest seabird, and they will eat anything they can find, diving deep if necessary, so they usually do better than our other seabirds!

Gannets nesting on Noup Cliffs

Fulmars are another species that usually do well as they spit horrible smelly fishy oil at any predators that get too close to their nest, but this year and last year they have shown very poor productivity. Only 6 chicks fledged from 137 nests this year - a terrible result. We think this might be due to the Ravens that have moved to the cliffs on North Hill predating the vulnerable chicks whilst the parents are away fishing, but it could be due to poor weather conditions when the chicks are small , or due to the lack of food around Orkney and Shetland. Research has shown that some of the Fulmars nesting in Orkney will go as far as Norway to get food for their chick! A long journey indeed!

Fulmar nesting on Papa Westray

Great Skuas are one of those Marmite birds - you either love them or hate them. Personally, I love them! They're such beautiful birds with so much character! But I do understand why some people don't like them - they are a big predator of our other nesting seabirds. However, they only predate the seabirds as they can't find enough fish to feed their chicks, so they have to resort to taking the eggs and chicks of other seabirds in order to raise their chicks. It's a strategy that works! From 24 pairs, 17 chicks fledged! And as there are only about 10,000 nesting pairs globally, about 60% of which nest in Scotland, I call that a win!

Awwww! Cute Great Skua chick on North Hill

Unfortunately though, our other skua species, the Arctic Skua, did not do so well. They are one of the species predated by Great Skuas as well as gulls, and they have been declining for some time now. This year we had just 17 pairs nesting and no chicks fledged, giving the first year of zero productivity since they first started nesting here.

Unfortunately I seem to be unable to get a decent photo of an Arctic Skua, so I've taken this one from a Google search.

Arctic Terns also had a very bad year due mostly to the poor weather at the start of the season. They didn't start nesting until early June this year, and only 2 colonies laid eggs. Most of these nests only had 1 egg however, a sign that the adults were in very poor breeding condition (most likely due to a lack of food over winter and before breeding), as they didn't have the energy to produce more than one egg - they usually lay 2 or 3. They are also predated by both Arctic Skuas and Great Skuas, and probably by the gulls as well. They didn't manage to fledge any chicks this year, the fourth year in a row with no fledged Arctic Tern chicks.

A beautiful Arctic Tern

It's not all doom and gloom though! Black Guillemots showed an increase in pre-breeding numbers, and with further study we will be able to relate this to the actual number of breeding pairs. The population of nesting Dunlin also increased to their highest number in the past 10 years, and the small colony of Sandwich Terns on Papa Westray (the only colony in Orkney as far as I'm aware) raised between 16-18 chicks from 20 pairs! Twite also did very well, with most pairs seen with chicks later on in the season. The pair of Golden Plovers did well too and managed to raise 3 healthy chicks, so it looks like the cold, wet season was good news for our breeding waders!


'So what now?' I hear you ask, 'You're finished in Orkney, where are you jetting off to next!?' Well, at the moment I'm back at home while I sort things out, buy some new equipment, catch up with family and friends, and apply for jobs! But hopefully at the end of September I'll be going up to Yorkshire to stay at Blacktoft Sands RSPB reserve as a Residential Volunteer! I'm going up there this Friday to check it all out and see what the reserve is like. I know they have a few other people that they're talking to but hopefully I'll get the placement! It's not paid, but I get free accommodation on the reserve, my travel will be paid for, and I'll get loads of useful experience which will help me to get a paid job next winter! So wish me luck!

P.S. - A massive CONGRATULATIONS to my best friend Connie who got married last weekend! You look amazing in that dress, I'm so happy for you both! :D