The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology has been receiving reports of an Atlantic puffin wreck (multiple unusual deaths) on the east coast of Scotland and the north-east of England.
It appears that, while the exact causes of these deaths are currently unknown, the birds have died of starvation, unable to feed in the recent bad weather and strong easterly winds. This incident is likely to be the biggest ‘wreck’ since 1947 and research will be done this summer to see how it affects the northern colonies of puffins. Numbers of guillemots and razorbills have also been picked up after, presumably, suffering the same fate. The RSPB have added that as we are fast approaching the start of the seabird breeding season, where tens of thousands of seabirds return to their colonies to raise their young, the recent events could have an impact on the success of this year’s puffin breeding season. Puffins are already suffering population declines.
No reports of a puffin wreck have occurred in the lower regions of the species range, and the Channel Islands have not received as much bad weather as the north of the UK.
Although the puffins arrived back on Burhou, Alderney, later this year than last, a good number were recorded by the remote camera (see Living Islands Live). It is unlikely that the wreck will affect Burhou, but in the event that anyone does find any dead puffins washing onto shorelines in the Channel Islands, particularly Alderney, please report them immediately to ecologist@alderneywildlife.org. Thank you.
This survey aims to establish the number and location of breeding pairs of selected bird species within the BIRDS ON THE EDGE project area i.e. the Island’s coastal land. We will set out to do this in several sections of the coastland and will start with the north-west coast from L’Étacq to Sorel Point. Data collected will not only allow us to map the most important areas on this coast for the focal bird species (see Birds) but can also be used in future studies on population trends.
We cannot expect to look at all possible bird species so will concentrate on the following ones:
Linnet
Stonechat
Skylark
Common whitethroat
Dartford warbler
Meadow pipit
Jackdaw
Raven
Peregrine falcon
Kestrel
We will also restrict the survey to a narrow strip along the coast as we already know that none of these birds, except the kestrel, nests further than only a few metres almost, inland from the coastal cliff path. The widest area of habitat suitable for these species is at Les Landes as they do not breed in developed or farmed land. It is likely too that a very high proportion of Jersey’s entire breeding population of several of these species is restricted to the north-west coast.
Methodology
The number and location of the chosen bird species will be established by using information provided through existing ongoing surveys including the Farmland Bird Survey transects at Sorel Pont (two transects), Crabbé and at Les Landes (two transects) and the BTO Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) squares in the area.
The gaps in the study area between the transects and BBS squares will be surveyed by a team of volunteer observers co-ordinated through the Société Jersiaise Ornithology Section. The observers will record the location of breeding pairs and breeding behaviours such as singing, territorial displays, nest-building and food delivery to the nests by direct observation from the coastal path. Each observer will be given maps and a handheld GPS so that they can mark the location of each observation. In many cases more than one visit by different observers might be needed to confirm the location and status of the breeding site.
Results
This quick, easy and enjoyable bird survey will give BIRDS ON THE EDGE invaluable data for producing maps showing the location of each of the most important bird species and numbers that we can compare with repeat surveys over the years. We will also enlarge the survey to cover other stretches of the coast in the next few years.
If anyone is interested in contributing to the survey by spending an hour or two on our beautiful coastline watching the birds please make contact through this website.
BIRDS ON THE EDGE is delighted to announce that the first red-billed choughs have been introduced to the temporary aviary at Le Don Paton, near Sorel Point, on Jersey’s north coast. The four birds currently residing in the aviary arrived from Paradise Park, Cornwall, by air (although not under their own power) on Thursday, 14th of March. They were initially taken to Durrell Wildlife Park for medical checks and fitting of transmitters and identifying leg rings. The choughs were accompanied by David Woolcock from Paradise Park who helped settle the birds in.
One of the choughs, George, will not be released, due to a permanently injured leg. George has been introduced in order to help habituate the new arrivals by example, due to his familiarity with people and routines. Choughs are intelligent birds, and it is hoped they will mimic George’s ‘trained’ responses, once they see him obtaining food in return for desired behaviours. George’s training has been modified to accommodate his physical limitations and can be seen on video here with his former keeper, Sarah Jayne Gribben from Paradise Park who got him to the level he is at now.
The birds were introduced to their temporary accommodation later on Thursday, and are settling in well, despite the wintery conditions in the Island differing slightly from those in Cornwall, which unlike Jersey, saw no snowfall. They are currently held under in-situ quarantine conditions, in accordance with States of Jersey regulations. A further three choughs from Durrell Wildlife Park will be moved to Le Don Paton in around a week. These slightly older birds also came from Paradise Park initially, and have been on display to the public at Durrell for around twelve months.
The project partners, Durrell, National Trust for Jersey and the States of Jersey Department of the Environment, would very much appreciate your cooperation in urging the public not to approach the aviary, or disturb the birds in any way whilst they are acclimatising. The aviary can be seen from public footpaths and National Trust land. Choughs are sensitive birds, susceptible to stress. The current residents are shy and as yet, not orientated with their surroundings. The success and timing of the project is dependent on happy, healthy birds being released in the best possible condition. We would greatly appreciate your understanding on this matter.
BIRDS ON THE EDGE is very grateful to Paradise Park for their continued help with this project and to Waddington Architects for designing the aviary and helping it through the planning process. We remain grateful too to everyone who attended the Sunset Concerts in 2012 and generously provided the funds needed to pay for the aviary. Colin Stevenson, Gregory Guida and the trusty Navajo flew the birds in from Cornwall and even had to clear snow from outside the hangar in Jersey in order to fly out!
A new study in North America has identified acutely toxic pesticides as the most likely leading cause of the widespread decline in grassland bird numbers in the United States, a finding that challenges the widely-held assumption that loss of habitat is the primary cause of those population declines. Download the study for free here
Although this study focusses on the situation in North America it does state that: Common agricultural birds are in decline, both in Europe and in North America. Evidence from Europe suggests that agricultural intensification and, for some species, the indirect effects of pesticides mediated through a loss of insect food resource is in part responsible (for declines).
The scientific assessment, which looked at data over a 23-year period (1980 to 2003) has just been published. The study looked at five potential causes of grassland bird declines besides lethal pesticide risk: change in cropped pasture such as hay or alfalfa production, farming intensity or the proportion of agricultural land that is actively cropped, herbicide use, overall insecticide use, and change in permanent pasture and rangeland.
“What this study suggests is that we need to start paying a lot more attention to the use of pesticides if we want to reverse, halt or simply slow the very significant downward trend in grassland bird populations. Our study put the spotlight on acutely toxic insecticides used in our cropland starting after the Second World War and persisting to this day – albeit at a lower level. The data suggest that loss of birds in agricultural fields is more than an unfortunate consequence of pest control; it may drive bird populations to local extinction,” co-author Pierre Mineau said.
Many grassland bird species have undergone range contractions or population declines in recent decades. In fact, analyses of North American birds indicate that these birds are declining faster than birds from other biomes (a situation mirrored in Europe). Habitat protection has long been considered a central pillar in efforts to stem the decline of grassland bird species.
“We are still concerned about loss of habitat in agriculture, range management, and urban development,” said Cynthia Palmer, manager of the Pesticides Programme at American Bird Conservancy. “This study by no means diminishes the importance of habitat fragmentation and degradation. But it suggests that we also need to rein in the use of lethal pesticides in agriculture, and that we need to be especially careful about any new pesticides we introduce into these ecosystems such as the neonicotinoid insecticides. It reminds us that the poisonings of birds and other wildlife chronicled a half century ago by famed biologist and author Rachel Carson are by no means a thing of the past.”
The study found that lethal pesticides were nearly four times more likely to be associated with population declines than the next most likely contributor, changes in cropped pasture – an important component of habitat loss associated with agricultural lands. The publication says that “…..large quantities of products of very high toxicity to birds have been used for decades despite evidence that poisonings were frequent even when products were applied according to label directions.”
The authors argue that only a small proportion of total cropland needs to be treated with a dangerous pesticide to affect overall bird population trends. Pesticide drift from croplands is also affecting birds that favour the adjoining grasslands.
The study found that declines of grassland birds were much more likely in states with high use of toxic insecticides lethal to birds. The current study relies on pesticide data from the 1980s and early 1990s, a time when organophosphates such as Diazinon and Chlorpyrifos, and carbamates such as Carbofuran and Methomyl, were still largely in vogue. Since that time, a new class of insecticides, the neonicotinoids, have soared to the top of global pesticide markets. Unfortunately, a major toxicological assessment soon to be released by American Bird Conservancy puts to rest any notion that birds and other organisms will fare much better under the new pesticide regime. Neonicotinoids have also been implicated in declines of bees – see the latest RSPB statement on use of these pesticides here
Since the first International chough workshop (Choughs and Land Use in Europe) in 1988 there have been regular meetings to discuss all aspects related to the biology, ecology and conservation of the red-billed chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax). The species is a valuable indicator of sustainable agricultural systems and the connection to traditional farming methods. The red-billed chough is a species with an unfavourable conservation status on a global level, being listed as endangered in several countries including Portugal. In this context, after the 2007 and 2010 International Chough Workshops (in Glasgow and La Palma, respectively), Vila Real (North Portugal) is playing host to the 4th International Chough workshop on 10-12 October 2013. Two days of workshop will be followed by a day’s excursion.
As underlined in previous meetings, there is still a priority for chough research to understand the influence of the land-use/land-cover trends on the species’ distribution, taking into account on-going landscape changes, genetic diversity, fragmentation and isolation of peripheral populations. At these meetings all specialists agreed to further advance knowledge on the chough populations outside Europe, such as those in Asia and Africa, due to their particular threats and conservation requirements.
Although a considerable amount of information has been compiled and discussed at previous workshops about the chough ecology, all colleagues that are interested in choughs are invited to participate and share their expertise in the 4th International Workshop on the Conservation of the Chough.
The Workshop will be held at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD) in Vila Real, northern Portugal. Everyone interested in attending should complete the automated registration form to confirm your participation. The submission deadline for contributions is 31 May, 2013. The organisers look forward to hearing from you.
Our Sept Îles correspondent Regis Perdriat from the LPO Station at Île Grande in Brittany reports that the choughs are still out on the islands. The last 3-4 surveys, have seen the choughs feeding on the same islet (the circle on the photos). The red spots show some of the places where the three birds were found before now. The choughs were even observed to chase away a raven that came around to have a look.
The single, unringed, chough that visited Lundy Island in the UK’s Bristol Channel is still present on that island too. Read updates here
Although many of us provide food for garden birds, especially in winter, we are still in the early stages of understanding how this might affect wild bird populations. One possibility is that winter food enhances birds’ ability to invest in future reproduction. However, it is likely that the exact nutrition a bird receives from supplementary food will be important and a new study has shown exactly that.
In a three year study of woodland blue tit populations, researchers examined the consequences of providing different winter food supplements for egg production. Their results showed that providing fat alone resulted in reduced egg quality in early breeders. This suggests that females which utilised a fat-rich diet in winter were less able to acquire some of the important resources needed to form yolk during egg production. However, the addition of vitamin E to the fat mitigated these affects because, as an antioxidant, vitamin E provides protection after eating fatty foods.
As urban land cover expands, gardens are expected to play an increasingly important role in the conservation of biodiversity. The provision of food for garden birds has been thought likely to benefit this objective although there is limited evidence of its ecological impacts. More generally, food provision has also been applied as a conservation tool to manage endangered populations. This study is the first to suggest that there may be problems. Yet at the population level, these were mitigated by the provision of fat together with vitamin E. Therefore, care must be given to the nutritional composition of foods. Whether winter food for garden birds is considered to be beneficial or harmful may depend on whether effects are interpreted at the level of individuals or populations. If provisioning enables certain low-quality individuals to breed, when they might otherwise have died or survived only as non-breeders, this would clearly enhance their lifetime reproduction and may in fact boost the overall population size. Further work is needed to see how winter feeding may be used to benefit wild bird populations in the future.
These findings suggest that birds require a balanced diet, much like we do, to aid their reproduction, and it underlines the importance of considering the nutritional value of provisioned foods.
The journal British Birds has published an updated estimate of bird populations in Great Britain and the UK. This follows previous estimates published in 1997 and 2006. There are now thought to be about 84 million breeding pairs of birds in the UK. The ten commonest species contribute 57% of this total, with wren alone providing one in ten of the country’s breeding birds (with 8,600,000 breeding territories). In all, 23 species exceed one million breeding pairs. The individual population estimates come from a wide variety of sources, many from extrapolation of previous estimates by recognised trend measures, others from new surveys and novel analytical approaches developed since the last report. Despite the exceptional level of detail available for some species, many gaps in our knowledge remain. Recommendations are made in the report to allow a continuing improvement in our understanding of the numbers of birds in GB and the UK. There are many opportunities for volunteer and amateur birdwatchers to make a significant contribution.
Although the figures do not include birds from the Channel Islands the species that BIRDS ON THE EDGE are concerned with are in the list (2006 figures are in brackets):
Peregrine 1,500 pairs in UK and Isle of Man (1,283)
Atlantic puffin 580,000 breeding pairs (580,799)
Turtle dove 14,000 breeding territories (44,000)
Cuckoo 16,000 breeding pairs (9,600-20,000)
Red-billed chough 930-940 individuals in UK and 450 individuals in Isle of Man (total 1,360-1,367)
The 12th Great Garden Bird Watch takes place this weekend, Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd February
Islanders are urged to become involved in monitoring bird life in the Island. The event is coordinated by Action for Wildlife Jersey in conjunction with the Jersey Evening Post (JEP) and all data received will be passed on to La Société Jersiaise to add to their records and included in BIRDS ON THE EDGE bird monitoring analyses. Data from past years’ surveys were included in the 2011 assessment of our birds that became the Island’s first bird redlist The Conservation Status of Jersey’s Birds which can be downloaded here.
How to enter the survey
Watch the birds in your garden for any period between
8 am and 11 am on either the Saturday or the Sunday. Note the highest number of each species of bird that you see together at one time during that period – not the total number which enter your garden over the period of the watch. Survey forms and a handy identification guide will be published in the JEP on Thursday the 31st.
Completed forms can be posted in or delivered to the JEP or there is a convenient form for submitting records on line here.
Two populations of an animal which thrives on two UK islands are to be removed. These are populations of invasive brown rats which are accused of threatening the future of several species of locally rare seabirds.
The human inhabitants on one of the islands, St Agnes, have been consulted and they have given a unanimous go-ahead for the rat clearance on their remote homeland and the neighbouring isle of Gugh.
The Scillonian archipelago plays host to breeding populations of 14 seabird species (approximately 20,000 birds) but for years one of the major threats to the mainly ground-nesting birds has been rat predation of eggs and chicks. England’s only colony of storm petrels is said to be at risk from the rats, as is the local population of Manx shearwaters – for which the UK has a global responsibility.
The project aims to protect and restore the seabird population on the islands, which declined by almost a quarter between 1983 and 2006. Such birds are far outnumbered today by the brown rats which, according to a feasibility study, have a total Scillonian population of more than 34,500. Around 3,100 rats reside on St Agnes and Gugh, which happen to be close to the seabird breeding isle of Annet.
Julie Love, of the Isles of Scilly Trust said that “the feasibility study showed that rats can swim across from St Agnes and Gugh to Annet,”, “they eat both the eggs and the fledglings – in fact rats are even known to eat the rare Scilly shrew.”
David Mawer, the Isles of Scilly Trust senior conservation warden, added: “Seabirds already attract visitors to Scilly, and this project and the clever use of technology can reveal more of their fascinating lives, whilst leaving the seabirds free from unwanted disturbance.”
The rat-removal operation will take place in winter months and use special bait stations to prevent poisoning of non-target species.
Tony Whitehead, of the RSPB which is involved in the project, said “It is worth bearing in mind that it’s ten years this year since we removed rats from Lundy – with a resultant increase in seabird numbers. The Manx shearwater numbers there are now up by 250%”.
“This is part of a global push to restore island seabird populations from the teeth of invasive species,” he added.
Read more on the Isles of Scilly Seabird Recovery Project read here and details on the rat eradication here
For a detailed account of the rat eradication programme on Lundy Island dowload Conservation Evidence paper here
Press release from Alderney Wildlife Trust
