Good Times!

Quite a lot has happened since my last update, as the one that I did in between didn't actually post online... Never mind. I have now finished my job up in Perthshire and am back down south once more! I absolutely loved the job in Perth though, I got to see some amazing places and monitored some beautiful birds! In the latter half of the job I was mainly focused on wader surveys, counting the number of breeding pairs of Oystercatcher, Lapwing, Curlew, Redshank and Snipe across several different locations to see how the breeding populations have changed inTayside since 1992. The outcomes of this were pretty much what we expected with decreases seen in the number of Lapwing and Redshank, although Curlews actually increased in some areas which was unexpected as they are known to be decreasing on a national scale. The number of Oystercatchers increased in many areas, whilst Snipe were up and down across the sites as they are known to be difficult to survey with any accuracy. But overall, a pretty good season for these birds, with chicks and fledged young seen across several of these sites!

However, I think one of the big highlights of this role was surveying breeding raptors. This is something that I had done before in small doses but never quite to this scale, covering large areas of land and monitoring the nests of any raptor species that I came across. It seems to have been a fairly good season for most raptors too, with many of the nests that I was following fledging chicks. I really enjoyed all of the raptor work that I did but I think my favourite was monitoring a pair of nesting Merlin on one of my sites. They proved to be quite elusive at times but I did eventually find the nest with 3 healthly young chicks, all of which fledged successfully! I was also able to help with ringing three Peregrine chicks in a nest that I was monitoring, applying little radio tags so that they could be followed throughout their lifetime - an amazing experience!

Merlin chicks!

Peregrine chicks being ringed

As well as all of this, I also had the chance to visit another RSPB reserve up in the far north of Scotland this year to help out with the monitoring of the seabirds that breed on the beautiful Priest Island. The island is host to a variety of habitats, from heathland to bogs, and rocky caves to boulder beaches and scree, but there is one seabird that can nest in any of these conditions - the Storm Petrel. It is a tiny black and white bird, about the size of a sparrow but it spends it's entire life out at sea, only coming ashore to nest. These tiny birds nest in burrows and will make a burrow anywhere they can - in crevices between rocks, in cracks in the underlying peat, and even in old rabbit burrows. As they are so small they are very vulnerable to predation and can only nest in areas where there are no ground predators such as rats, although predation from other birds is still a possibility so they only come out of the burrows at night, with the adults switching over incubation duties every few days. Priest Island is a haven for these birds as it has no ground predators and is host to one of the largest Storm Petrel colonies in Britain - making it an incredibly important place for nature conservation. It is a SSSI and an SPA, giving it legal protection and it is managed by the RSPB who visit the island every year to survey these birds as part of an on-going study into their survival and breeding success. In addition to this, once every five years the RSPB surveys the breeding population of the Storm Petrels across the island to see how they are doing.

Priest Island

View across Priest island

I went along to help out with this five-yearly survey. This involved camping out on the island in the only spot where there are none of these birds nesting and going out each day to survey a different area of the island. We didn't do any surveys at night as we didn't want to disturb these birds or prevent them from re-entering their burrows. The survey itself involved playing a tape of Storm Petrel calls and counting how many birds sing back to the tape, announcing their territory. However not all birds will respond all the time, so we had to use study plots to calibrate these results. At no point did we try to catch the birds or find the burrow entrances as we wanted to cause the least amount of disturbance possible whilst surveying them. This is all part of a long-running study with very experienced staff and I'm very happy that I got to be a part of it! I'm not sure of the final numbers but I'm hoping that the population of Storm Petrels on this island is remaining stable or increasing, despite some issues with habitat destruction caused by visitors to the island knocking down walls where these birds breed, or disturbing the birds in the breeding season. However, a recent paper on the subject shows that they may be declining at this site - you can read the abstract of this paper here.

Another big plus of my job this year was that it was based near the city of Perth, providing me with easy access to supermarkets, shops, restaurants, cafes, pubs, clubs, a cinema and much much more! So I was able to have a bit more of a social life which was very enjoyable! I even went rock climbing a few times with people from the office (even though I'm a bit rubbish!), as well as meeting up with them for drinks and clubbing, hill walking, and I even managed to get to yoga a few times. Pretty good going really! We also took a team trip to the Isle of May to visit the lovely seabird colony there, climbed Ben Vrackie as the leaving do for the summer staff (i.e. me!) and I helped out the Orkney Seabird Heritage Project by making a paper mache Arctic Tern!

Rock climbing in Dundee

Beautiful sunny day on the Isle of May!

The seabird colony on the Isle of May

The team at the top of Ben Vrackie! Not my photo but I thought it was too great not to use it! Hopefully I will be forgiven.

Alex the Arctic Tern, now all the way up in Orkney for the Heritage Project, which will be coming to Edinburgh at some point I think. Check the website for more info.

So what now, you ask? Well at the moment, not a lot. I'm back home, looking for jobs and hoping something good comes my way and taking the opportunity to relax a bit whilst I sort stuff out for going to Mauritius. Yes, that's right, MAURITIUS! I've been accepted to volunteer with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation (MWF) for six months starting in January, where I'll be helping out with the seabird project - you can find out more information about this project here. It sounds like it's going to be an amazing experience, and everyone that I've spoken to that's volunteered with MWF previously has really enjoyed it and highly recommends it! So I've put in my application for a visa/work permit and am now just waiting to hear if it's been accepted before I can book flights and insurance and sort out everything else. It's not paid, but I'm really looking forward to it and all the more reason to find a job in the meantime! Watch this space!!

I had a great time on holiday in Mauritius a few years ago and I'm really looking forward to going back!

A Season of Surveys

Well, it has been a long, LONG time since I last posted anything! I've been keeping very busy up here in my new job in Perthshire (although I guess it's not that new any more, since I'm more than halfway through my contract!), but it feels like only a few weeks since I started! How the time does fly. This role is pretty much a bird surveying role, which often seems to involve lots of early starts and late finishes, as the birds that I'm surveying (and pretty much all birds, in fact) are most active at dawn and dusk. So I've been up with the dawn and asleep after dark, working some strange hours, with a bit of a break in the middle! I'm definitely enjoying it though and I've seen some beautiful birds and amazing sights! Unfortunately my camera's been playing up a bit (think I've dropped it a few too many times) so I've not taken as many photos as I would have liked, but here's a bit of an insight into the wide variety of survey work that I've been doing for the past few months, with a few photos here and there.

From the day I arrived I've been thrown into fieldwork, checking out sites, calling landowners for permission to survey on their land, and counting nesting birds! The first birds on the list were Black Grouse. Not quite so well known as the Red Grouse (also known as the Famous Grouse), which are shot regularly on sporting estates. Black Grouse are also classed as gamebirds and have an open season for shooting, although it is illegal to shoot them in the breeding season. However, as Black Grouse are declining in numbers across the country, very few estates actually shoot these birds. In early spring, the males (or cocks) gather in groups (called leks) to do a little dance and attract in the females (or hens), and this is how we survey them. The RSPB works closely with the Perthshire Black Grouse Study Group to survey as many Black Grouse leks as possible each year. These surveys involve a pre-dawn start, arriving at the lek site before sunrise to count the number of displaying males. But despite the early starts, these were definitely my favourite surveys, it was so amazing to see these birds in all their dancing action! I love it when they wiggle their little white powder-puff tails!

Searching the hills for lekking Black Grouse

4 lekking male Black Grouse, taken through a telescope in the rain so not the best quality photo!

As part of this role I've been given a licence by SNH (the environmental government organisation in Scotland), which allows me to monitor breeding raptors. Most birds of prey are Schedule 1 species, which means they have the highest level of legal protection and a licence is required to go anywhere near these birds in the breeding season. You may have heard about the struggle that Hen Harriers face in the UK due to illegal persecution, but other raptors are persecuted as well, including Peregrines, Buzzards, Red Kites and more, often by sporting estates, which want to stop these birds from taking the Pheasant/Grouse chicks on their estate so that they can raise lots of adult birds for the shoot. But not all estates are like this. Many sporting estates are happy to have these raptors on their land as it shows that they have a healthy ecosystem. The Langholm Moor Demonstration Project has shown that raptors can live and breed successfully on shooting estates without having a negative impact on grouse shoots, so it is possible for the two to work in harmony. The RSPB work closely with raptor friendly estates, and part of my role involves surveying raptors and monitoring any nests that I find to see how well they are doing. I've also been checking out lots of potential nesting sites for Peregrines, as part of a national survey organised by the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) this year. Hen Harriers and Peregrines are beautiful, amazing birds and I'm very lucky to be monitoring these and other birds of prey.

Sitting above the low-lying clouds, surveying for Hen Harriers and other raptors

Visiting some beautiful places looking for nesting Peregrines

The other big surveys that I do are lowland wader surveys. This involves walking through lowland farmland areas and recording any breeding waders that I see or hear, especially displaying birds, as well as any nests, eggs or chicks that I find. These surveys have to be carried out within 3 hours of dawn or dusk, so more early starts, but I do love my job so it's worth it! Especially when I find eggs or chicks! And there have been quite a few chicks around this year! I'm looking at 5 wader species; Oystercatcher, Lapwing, Curlew, Redshank, and Snipe, and surveying the breeding success of these species.

Beautiful sunset after surveying waders

One of my wader survey sites

Lapwing nest

Curlew nest

Lapwing chick!

I'm also surveying Black-throated Divers, and I'll be surveying a few other species in the coming months, so I've still got a way to go yet but I'm loving every minute of it! I've even managed to have a bit of a social life! It's much easier to go shopping or go out on the town when there's an actual town nearby! But more on that later...

P.S. Happy Father's day to a wonderful dad!