Observing Raptor nests - Buzzard

 There isn't much more exciting for a birder than discovering a nest and none more so than a bird of preys.

This year on my patch I have identified a Buzzard nest. A pair of Buzzards have nested annually on my patch for the last 20 years at least, but identifying the exact location has always been an issue. Buzzards are cunning birds and between late January and early May will build a series of nests across their territory. I have recorded them building such structures over the years but the trick is that they only lay in one of them and until this year it was never in one I had found.

Chick - about 10 days old (struggling to hold head above nest rim)

Early this season as the leaves were still starting to burst I noticed a large nest in the cleft of a tall willow tree. I marked it as promising but was unsure whether it was a sparrowhawks. Over the weeks I kept an eye on it and slowly I noticed that there was often a lone Buzzard nearby, either in the tree itself or in a tree beside it. I began to suspect it was the Buzzards. This was confirmed on the 2nd June when I was able to spot a chick in the nest. Since then there has always one of the parents sat on a nearby tree and this week I got a better look at the chick.

Chick about 20 days old. Chick able to hold itself upright

Watching nests comes with a lot of responsibility. All nests are protected law (Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981) and it is illegal to disturb them or take eggs. The baseline rule is that nothing that you do should risk the chicks in the nest or run the risk of disturbing the parents such that they abandon the nest. The BTO as part of their Nest Record Scheme (NRS) have an excellent Code of Conduct but I would suggest that  unless you are taking part in the NRS or some other sanctioned survey that you avoid getting close to any nest especially  when so many of our breeding birds are in trouble.

To safeguard my buzzards I have made sure that if I am checking the nest that I do not get any closer than 70m and if I can see nothing I move on. Although I use social media I have not revealed the nest location in anyway such information will only be shared with the NRS.

One of the Adults standing watch in a nearby tree

At present I have only ever seen a single chick in the nest. The average clutch size is 2-4 eggs but mortality can be high. Clutch size and survivability for my buzzards is probably most likely relate to food availability. Buzzards success has been linked to rabbit abundance and my patch has very few warrens in the area. Sheep pasture is also a favourite hunting ground of which there is 21 ha close by. It is my suspicion that these buzzards are taking mostly birds and could account for the distinct lack of breeding Great Spotted or Green Woodpeckers or even sightings of these birds for the past month.

Looking at the chicks rough size in the first picture I took I would estimate  the on the 2nd June the chick was 10 days. From this we can broadly extrapolate the following:

1st Eggs laid                     = 15th-17th April

Estimated Hatch Date      = 23rd May

Fledging Date                  = 2nd-28th July

Dispersal from Territory   = 21st August

These dates line up with the average dates listed in studies conducted by the Scottish Raptor Monitoring Scheme and in the text, The Birds of the Western Palearctic.

I will continue to monitor the nest carefully and hopefully see what prey is being brought in. Hopefully once it fledges and moves away from the nest I will be able to go closer and try and find any pellets under the nest to analyse contents.

Hawker Deliberation - Identifying similar dragonflies

 Dragonflies and damselflies can seem rather overwhelming to identify at first glance. They maybe bright and beautiful but they are fast and flighty. 

There are several excellent guide books out there and I have used these and photographs to identify the species. This is great when you get a good look but often it is fleeting or you are unable to take a photo for later analysis, it also hinders swift recording in the field.

Flight characteristics and behaviour can be diagnostic, the size and patrolling nature of the Emperor dragonfly (Anax imperator) make it undeniable.

The brown body and amber wings make the Brown Hawker (Aeshna grandis) easy to spot, but the other Hawkers and Chasers are very similar.

It was the discovery of a new species on my patch - the Hairy Dragonfly (Brachytron pratense) that led me to consider the similarities between 4 species of dragonfly. The Hairy Dragonfly, Migrant Hawker (Aeshna mixta), Southern Hawker (Aeshna cyanea) and Common Hawker (Aeshna juncae).

All of these species except for the Common Hawker have been recorded on my patch and so I lack a suitable picture but I believe it is possible to identify these species just by observing their thorax, something that is more readily seen in flight through binoculars or fleeting glimpses when settled.

The markings on the side are very diagnostic for the Hairy Dragonfly and the Southern Hawker whilst the Migrant and Common Hawker are very similar, however if we also look at the top you can distinguish these two species.

The migrant lacks any marking to the top of its thorax whilst the others all have two parallel bars. These bars are not identical, Hairy Dragonflies are broad, the Southern Hawkers are more tapered on the top edge and the Common Hawkers bars are very thin and narrow.

The combination of the top and back of the thorax aid in ID and if you can make quick field notes it should help you identify these species more easily in the field.

If and when I get a good picture of a Common Hawker I will update the photos in this post.

Cull of the Wild by Hugh Warwick: A book review

 

It is rare for me to find time to devour a good non-fiction book. Away from work, I like to consume historical epics and high-concept science fiction, but this Easter I put aside my Conn Iggulden and Stephen Baxter to indulge myself in controversy. Whilst not employed as such I am at heart an ecologist, one admittedly with a zoological bent, but one who revels in the complexity of nature and enjoys exploring the intricacies of what lives where, how, and why. Inevitably, my assorted studies and thoughts have led me down some treacherous paths and forced me to address some thorny issues. Culling in the name of conservation is one such polarising issue and is adroitly addressed in Hugh Warwick's latest book, ‘Cull of the Wild - Killing in the Name of Conservation’ out now from Bloomsbury.

Many readers and wildlife enthusiasts may be familiar with Hugh's extensive work with hedgehogs, it was his popular book ‘A Prickly Affair’ that elevated his fame as a wildlife writer, but his environmental credentials extend much further than just our humble hedgehog. Hugh has degrees in Science and the Environment and Wildlife Management and has been part of both academic and grassroots research. As a researcher and science communicator, he has a wealth of contacts and can boast many luminaries among those that he can call upon. Were Hugh not down to earth one may take some of his references in his book as salacious name-dropping of those in the conservation world.

Previously Hugh’s work has focused on his beloved Hedgehog, biogeography, and the connection between people and animals this time however he has spread his wings into a more controversial area. In ‘Cull of the Wild’ he skilfully explores with great nuance the polarising problem of culling one species to save another. Through his exploration of a wide range of case studies, Hugh identifies the core issues and viewpoints and identifies the wider implications and concerns for nature conservation as a whole.

It is easy to assume from the outset that Hugh is an anti-culler someone opposed to such 'evil' machinations but as an author and an explorer he displays a fair-minded approach to understanding the issues and problems at hand even when the intended targets are his beloved hedgehogs. I would have to characterise Hughs's approach as one of caution, an awareness of the need but an uncomfortableness of the methods.

To tackle the issue of culling in its breadth Hugh takes us around the world identifying conflicts, tragedies, and most inspiringly hope. He examines the plight of nesting birds whose eggs are devoured by rats, stoats, and hedgehogs. He explores the decline of the red squirrel in the UK due to its US cousin invasion and on a larger scale, the ecosystem-shifting introductions of mammals to New Zealand, a place where no such taxa evolved. Each chapter is based on a particular problem and how culling is being employed to fix that problem and he questions those running the culling programs and those who are opposed, non-judgementally with a desire to understand. Hugh uses his own confusion and apprehensions over the rights and wrongs to have meaningful conversations about conservation.

Hugh writes boldly and with an abundance of charm, his prose, whilst simple are functional and informative, with little hyperbole. He quickly highlights a point, provides the evidence, and attacks it from multiple angles with an uncluttered open mind. His work is eminently accessible, he defers from excessive technical language and where it is employed it is defined clearly. Like any good popular science book this is one that you do not need your own degree in science to understand or enjoy, if enjoy is the right word. The books heavily morbid focus is self-referenced several times, this is not a light read but it is fascinating, and it is a discussion we need to have.

I have written about culling issues myself, like Hugh I am torn by the practicalities and the morals. I know mink are not endemic be the UK. I know they decimate water voles, and I know that if I were ever to hope to see 'Ratty' on my patch then the resident black mink would need to die. I am also abundantly aware that the black mink I see on my trail cams has its own intrinsic right to life, and that its behaviour is fascinating and enjoyable to watch. It is not his fault he is in the UK; he is just doing what mink do, survive.

The same is true of the Grey Squirrel, it poses an existential risk to the native red squirrel. I have seen red squirrels in Scotland, they are endearing and wonderful and feel quintessentially British. Their grey squirrel is like the stereotypical American is loud and brash, confident, and bold. It is easy to imagine this invader bullying our native shy ‘Squirrel Nutkin’ into obsolescence, but this is not the case, it is the squirrel pox that the grey carries that is the problem. Perhaps, this virus should be the true target of a cull? It is in this section that Hugh highlights a key point in this debate, for many their neighbourhood squirrel that visits their garden or lives in their park is the only mammal most are likely to see or interact with. British wildlife, given how we treat them, tends to be shy and secretive and without regular contact with nature how can we expect the public to invest in species and habitat protection. Here lies the rub, how do we quantify the benefits and costs of such measures? Can you put a cost on a person’s interaction with a wild animal?

In another section Hugh sensitively tackles the issues surrounding trophy hunting and other such measures that generate income for conservation. Conservation has often been forced into biting the bullet and stretching its morals to get the job done. The phrase ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ is particularly apt. Poaching of lions is illegal and risks the species survival but in areas where lions are over abundant, they allow trophy killing and use the money to fund conservation in areas where they are struggling, a devil’s bargain or a necessary evil? His examination of these thorny topics opens a whole can of worms and raises questions that I am not sure we have answers to or even willing to admit that we need to have the debate.

Is it morally right to ever all a species? Does one species have more right to exist to than another? Who decides and how what a native fauna looks like? Throughout the took Hugh explores these questions. I would not say he fully answers these but perhaps asking them is enough for now.

It has triggered in me deep thought over the issue of culling and challenging my own morals. My general view is one of regret, a weak response I know. Sometimes it is necessary to cull and rightly this leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but Hugh’s book has challenged why I think that way and crucially highlighted to me a much bigger problem with nature conservation. Change is a natural part of life. Ecology is fundamentally a complex web of change, evolution, adaption, and balance. Life exists in a dynamic equilibrium, a term I leaned in my first university lecture by my ecology professor. Conservation at least in the UK seems to be more about stasis, ring fencing and protection, enshrining a pre-industrial ecology. It is necessary but ignores the nature of ecosystems and how species change and adapt over time. The problem is that this change, human led change is faster than the natural mechanisms can cope with. Extinction is natural, species come and go, thousand of species prior to mans arrival lived and went extinct or in many cases evolved into new species its just that our effects on the environment are so great and fast. Conservationists recognise this and want to mitigate this effect but is it a fight we can win?

What the book stirred in me is the wider implications of conservation and the existential issue of where humans sit in the hierarchy of life. All too often we place ourselves in the superior position, by dint of our dominance, self-awareness, and brain power. We decide how this world should be organised and run. We do this because we are the dominant species of this time and have the ability. Should our intelligence give us carte blanche to ride roughshod over fellow species, fellow mammals, fellow apes! This is heavy stuff and whilst Hugh touches on this philosophical angle he is more focused on the practical aspects and wrapping morality into that.

The last gem that I drew form the book was that culling was rarely the root problem, it was a technique that was employed to tackle a single issue, sometimes to protect a single species. As you read though Hughs accounts of the various case studies it becomes abundantly clear that may of the problems is rooted in habitat loss and fragmentation. The biggest issue facing the target species is primarily loss of its home. By forcing species in to smaller and smaller patches that are other overly fragmented means that they become more sensitive and vulnerable to the danger presented by other species that then need culling. Ultimately, we need to treat man as part of the ecosystem not apart from it, understand what that means and stop moving species around the planet no matter how good an idea it might seem to be at the time.

In the end ‘Cull of the Wild’ is a thought provoking and necessary book that I would urge all conservationists and those with an interest in wildlife to read if only to understand the complexities of conservation in the modern world, it should be on the curriculum of every conservation course. Only through understanding and asking the hard questions can we as a body move forward, long may Hugh present us with such cogent analysis and at the end of it all is culling justified – I just don’t know, my confidence is shaken but there is hope for a more holistic way of doing things but that needs more than just conservationists, it requires us all to understand, sacrifice and prioritise.

 Cull of the Wild is available from all good bookshops.

 

 

 

Dead Duck - Food for someone

 When you are an avid patch worker you might assume that things become stale, but the reverse is true. I have been visiting and recording wildlife on my patch since 2002 and recording them on Trail Cameras since 2016. Ecosystems are dynamic places constantly changing and all the hours I have spent down there have barely scratched the surface of animal behaviour.

Whilst out changing out my memory cards on Friday morning I came across the carcass of a bird. It was close to the bird feeding station and not far from the backwater. At first, I thought it was a crow but as I got closer, I could see it was a duck, one of the domestic hybrid Mallard that frequents the river. On closer examination, I could see that it was lying on its back. The head seemed to be missing and the breast muscles had been eaten away on either side revealing the keel.  There was very little blood suggesting that it had been dragged to this location and the remaining meat was still fresh and red, there was little smell and no decomposition. There was a general carpet of some down and feathers that looked pulled rather than plucked. I reckoned it had been killed that night or early in the morning.

Who was the culprit? I had two animals in mind straight away. The way the bird had been eaten so neatly suggested a mammal predator. Avian predators such as buzzards would hold the prey down with their talons and rip the meat free from the carcass creating jagged tears, additionally, they tend to pluck birds leaving discarded feathers with intact shafts, foxes by comparison bite through the feathers. My number one suspect was an otter. It could easily have taken a duck sleeping on the backwater or from the undergrowth and then dropped it here.

I knew that my Mostela camera wasn’t catching much footage so I relocated this camera to watch the carcass to see what appeared later. I left the camera in place until today (Sunday) and returned to collect it. The duck was gone, and I had 839 photos and videos to examine.

To my delight, my suspicion was confirmed. The first interest in the carcass was an otter arriving at 21:06 (The mostela camera was 1 hour ahead). It went directly to the carcass and began feeding. It sat comfortably pulling chunks off and gulping it down with slappy chops for initially 8 minutes before something spooked it and it dashed away. It almost immediately returned settling in to feast for a further 4 minutes before slinking off. It returned at 23:58 and spent a further 4 minutes eating. This meant that it spent in total, 16 minutes eating and seemingly enjoying its meal.

To see a full 11 minute video click here

With the otter gone a wood mouse appeared (3:25 am) and pottered about for 8 minutes.

Daytime on the 16^th of March brought a woodpigeon and blackbird that seemed unfussed by the carcass. At 19:15 a fox appears and casually starts to feed. It feeds on the main carcass and around it until 19:21, at this point, it picks up the remains and drags it off. I suspect it took the remains to cache it somewhere. I doubt the carcass was picked clean and so there was still food available that it could access later. This suspicion is validified somewhat by its return 10 minutes later whereupon it continues to scavenge any and all scraps still available. It did this sporadically leaving and returning until 20:41 and then again in the early hours of the 17^th.

For a full video of the fox click here

I want to go over the footage in more detail to make sure it's the same individuals and comment a little more in the eating habits of the two species. As you can see the otter tends to settle down comfortably to eat. It rips chunks from the carcass and devours them with large bites. The fox however acts more like the scavenger it is. It doesn't seem to settle as well, preferring to stand and feed. It keeps a wary eye out and varies its feeding from the caracss to remains scattered across the site.

GardePro Wildlife Cameras - Are they any good?

 

This winter’s heavy rain and inevitable flooding have proved costly to my wallet and my camera-trapping project. The once-in-a-25-year flooding took out 3 of my good trail cameras. Cameras I believed would never be touched succumbed to the deluge, the one in the mostela actually floated off and into some undergrowth.

In all my years I have been camera trapping I have always invested in Bushnell Cameras, which I have found to be the most reliable for long-term studies. They are not overly battery-hungry and have great resolution. The electronics work well, and they have few malfunctions. As a backup, I have trusted Browning, which are solid and reliable and within the same price bracket as the Bushnell’s. I have experimented with LTL Acorns, which are on the lower end of the price range but found them not worth the price. Their electronics were temperamental, and the image quality was not as good as the Bushnell’s or Browning’s.

Replacing my damaged cameras was going to prove costly and unfortunately, repair was not an option. River water damage by direct immersion is not great for circuit board survival and the repair shop I sent it to was unable to save either of the two I sent.

Eventually, I decided to go against my instincts and have a look at some of the low-end mass-market models from less well-known manufacturers. After a bit of searching on Amazon I landed on a make called GardePro and in particular the A3S model. This camera costs as little as £80. It was a gamble, surely something so cheap couldn’t match the Bushnell’s.

The A3S model takes 32-megapixel images and 1296p video, with up to 100 foot no glow Night vision and 0.1s motion detection. In comparison the Bushnell’s I normally use take 30-megapixel images and 1080P at 60 fps with 80-foot no glow night vision and 0.2s motion detection. Both operate on 8 AA batteries and take standard SDHC memory cards.

So, after 2 weeks in the field, how does this model hold up?

Not bad. I am quietly impressed so far by this brand. The boxing is simple and functional, and the instructions are on par with what is usually shipped these days. On first impression, the build quality does feel cheap, something about the feel of the plastic and its strength. The buttons are large and the feel of the interface again seems cheap however one cannot fault its performance so far.

What makes GardePro better than Bushnell is the inclusion of a playback function on the screen, this enables me to check in the field very easily the operation and placement of the camera. I would not say that the battery life is much different from the other models and the image quality is excellent, as is its detection abilities.

You can see from the footage here that the images are crisp and the videos clear.

Daytime:

Night Time:

I am very impressed by this new manufacturer, it's early days as to their long use, but GardePro has certainly got me out of a hole and allowed my project to continue with minimal financial impact. This is a brand to watch.

GardePro - Website

Buy from Amazon

Gorillas and Deer - Habituation as a tool for conservation

 This post is an amalgamation of two previous posts one on habituation and one on Virunga. Virunga was a powerful 2014 British documentary directed by Orlando Von Einsiedel that focused on the work of park rangers in Congos Virunga National Park and in particular the struggle to protect mountain gorillas. The habituation post related to my gradual acceptance of my present by the resident Doe and her two young females that have developed this year. Today I had my most intimate and relaxed encounter with them. They allowed me to sit some 40 metres away and grazed naturally mostly at ease, exhibiting natural behaviour. These two disparate things coalesce when considering another recent documentary, Silverback.

Silverback is a documentary by wildlife cameraman, Vianet Djenguet. The explores the themes surrounding the work of conservationists in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the Congo and their aim to habituate eastern lowland gorillas for tourism.

Through Vianet we are introduced to the dedicated rangers on the ground, the scientist managers, and the gorillas themselves. Conservation in Africa is difficult and complex, no one can deny the pressures on the local Congolese people living in a war-torn country and often this brings them into conflict with the local wildlife, poaching, and the bush meat trade are particularly disturbing but as a country develops most damaging is the loss of primary forest to make way for cattle, crops and development. The plan, which is already in action, is to habituate gorilla families so that tourists can safely be taken to view them. This tourist trade would provide valuable revenue to fund conservation measures like protecting land and show the local people the value of conserving wildlife around them.

Vianet joins the rangers for 3 months, during which they spent each day with a family of gorillas led by a Silverback called Mpungwe. Vianet started off wholly engaged in the project but slowly came to doubt the merits of the initiative as the knowing doubt that was in the back of my mind the whole time came to the fore.

There is considerable merit in the concept of involving local people in the management of their natural resources and given that all the people shown were from Congo exemplified this and removed any suggestion of the ‘white west’ dictating what the former colonies now do in their own country, but that is a whole other kettle of fish and a debate best saved for another time and place.

Mpungwe was a somewhat aggressive gorilla, but perhaps no more so than would be expected from someone who had lost his parents violently and is disturbed each day by a camera crew, and, here is the crux of habituation, the individual needs to be receptive and have the correct temperament. Mpungwe was not the first gorilla to be habituated, there had been successes elsewhere in the Congo but he seemed wholly unpredictable and unsettled by the whole affair for the techniques to be effective. Whilst there did seem to be some progress, a begrudging tolerance perhaps, Mpungwe seemed unable or perhaps more accurately unwilling to totally accept the presence of humans around his family.

To persevere with the attempts at habituation, which is where the programme left us, risks causing Mpungwe more stress. Doctors live by the Hippocratic Oath, to first do no harm something that Ecologists and scientists should also live by even if it isn't codified in the same way.

Towards the end of the film Vianet seemed to be having second doubts, he acknowledged Mpungwe's discomfort and wondered if this was too high a price to pay. It's a valid point just as the technique of habituation is for tourism, but there is certainly an ethical line that needs to be explored. All of us need to rationalise how far we should go to safeguard a species. How far is too far and who decides?

I am uncomfortable with the concept of habituation, for me, it leads to a change in natural behaviour and desensitising a creature to man can be dangerous, this is less of a problem in this country with my deer per se but where active hunting is a problem then it could be deadly.  For my deer I want them to remain wild, and whilst some habituation makes it possible for me to observe them closer and get some great pictures anymore would be unjust and unfair, for Mpungwe it is much more complex, the rangers of Kahuzi-Beiga are trying to save a species and in the modern world that requires compromise. 

Pelagic Publishing - A Book Review

It's been a while since I have done a book review and so when I got a new wildlife book for Christmas and then decided to get a few more I thought I would like to look at Pelagic Publishing’s Data in the Wild Series. 

 Pelagic Publishing is fast becoming one of my favourite conservation publishers. It was founded in 2010 and has a steady output of conservation-focused texts that lean towards the practical application of ecology. 

 The internet provides us with a wealth of up-to-date information but nothing beats the ability to hold a book in your hands and browse the information. Statistics for Ecologists Using R and Excel and Community Ecology – Analytical Methods using R and Excel are two books that benefit from having a physical quality. When learning new software or manipulating your data in a spreadsheet it is so much easier to refer to a textbook than to constantly flick between a bewildering number of windows containing webpages, adverts, and YouTube clips to achieve your aims. Both these books explore simple and complex ecological themes providing step-by-step ways in which R or Excel can be used in analysis. Just from using these books I have managed to get a grip on R and can generate several statistical tests and output graphical representations. The books are backed up by trail data sets and web links marrying the physical with the virtual. 

 The other two books I have in the series are Measuring Abundance and Camera Trapping for Wildlife Research. The latter, I got a while ago and have helped shape and develop my ongoing camera-trapping project. Both books collate up-to-date information on their topics with relevant case studies and useful coding for use in R. In terms of level, the books are certainly not for the novice reader, you need an understanding of ecological theory and knowledge of mathematical notation and application. The books assume that you have this background and do not go far to explain in depth what the measures they are describing merely how to calculate them. 

Data in the Wild is an indispensable series for practical ecologists who are engaging in research. It helps focus on how projects are set up and aids in the analysis of data collected and presented. Pelagic Conservation Handbooks are a welcome addition to wildlife management and are a concise guide to habitat assessment and practical methods of management. I currently own the Woodland Survey Book which has helped me analyse and survey the woodland on my patch and as an extensive user of QGIS I am waiting with bated breath for their upcoming title, QGIS for Ecologists due this June.