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Citizen Science

2/18/2018

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Last week it was the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust's Big Farmland Bird Count, which started five years ago; now about 1000 farms around the UK take half an hour to participate. Similarly in January half a million people took part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. These are exciting citizen science initiatives, engaging people with birds that surround them every day at home and work, and involving them in data collection that is potentially very valuable to conservationists.
 
For the fifth February running we walk round the same two fields at Broadwell on the Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire border. I am joined by Doug, the new farm manager, and Annabel, one of the owners. The fields are typical of the area, one arable and one pasture, bordered by the village, a lane, a stream and an old fishpond, with mature hedges and a game strip. I shut my eyes and call out what I can hear-greenfinches on song flight, a chaffinch by the pond, a couple of robins and a dunnock, a mewing buzzard, rooks at their nests and jackdaws around the church tower. Annabel has logged seven species on her clipboard before we see a bird. As usual we choose a time when the forecast is mostly clear, but soon the wind gets up, the sky darkens, hoods go up and we are in the middle of the day's only squall. As we reach the game strip birds are sheltering silently, and the next few minutes of our half hour produce only a few wind-blown rooks and a blackbird cackling its alarm. It soon blows over and small groups of linnets, chaffinches and yellowhammers spurt up into the hedge in front of us. A couple of egrets fly into the grass field, and a red kite slowly flies across it; now common birds, thirty years ago scarcely any farm in the country would have hosted either. The sun peeps through and skylarks start to sing - like many specialist farmland birds their fortunes have gone the other way.

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We record 32 species, exactly the same as last year. Compared with data for three previous years, constants include the month and the route walked, and the number of species recorded always hovers around 30. Variables include time of day, weather, and numbers and identity of birds seen; only 14 species appeared in all four years. This year bullfinches and greenfinches are up, but reed buntings are absent - two years ago there were 30. Strangely there are no pheasants or grey partridge, though a few days ago there were several near the feeders in the game strip. Perhaps it is the wind, and the data suggests we see more gamebirds when we count later in the day. The total number of species for the four years is 43. I can list at least another 17 that use the area in February which have not appeared on any of the counts-a walk here at dusk might produce three species of owl, and kingfishers flash past occasionally.
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Do these inconsistencies make the exercise less valuable? I don't think so. New technology means that large-scale citizen science can often be more reliable than professional surveying, which comes with its own limitations, such as the availability of surveyors and the funds to pay them. 
If you like the idea of participating, the British Trust for Ornithology runs valuable volunteer surveys. These feed into E-bird, is a global project run by Cornell Lab of Ornithology that provides data for many conservation initiatives. You don't need to be perfect to contribute; the more data they have the easier it is to identify mistakes. And there is help: Cornell's free photo identification app Merlin produces extraordinary results even with European birds. Apps to identify bird vocalizations are some way behind-birds do not always sing identical songs so it's not like Shazam. Planet Birdsong is working to produce mobile based games that address this-we'll be carrying out more trials at The Wild Watch this spring. 
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Dogs and Birds

2/13/2018

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The Cairngorms National Park and RSPB Scotland have asked me to propose ways of improving public engagement with capercaillies - magnificent turkey-sized grouse - which have declined from over 10,000 pairs in Scotland in the 1970s to no more that 700. There are various reasons for the decline, but in their remaining stronghold on Speyside the main threat is public recreation.  It is known that capercaillies avoid displaying, and therefore mating, within 250 metres of paths regularly used by dogs.
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​While waiting to see if the funding comes through, I've been thinking about the broader issue of the effect dogs have on wildlife. I doubt my January walks around Eilean Shona in the company of BeBe (left) inconvenienced wildlife much. However in spring when there are breeding ringed plovers and oystercatchers on the beaches, a single dog running along the shore at high tide might easily disrupt a pair, or several pairs. The dilemma is whether to ask dog owners to keep their dogs on leads on sensitive beaches in the nesting season; or would such restrictions put people off booking and send them on holiday elsewhere?

At Conon Bridge I walked with Flora, (right) a venerable springer. Hedges around her owner Lizzie's house are full of protected yellowhammers and tree sparrows, who coexist fine with Flora; she generally takes no notice of sheep, who quickly get used to her, and shows surprisingly little interest in large flocks of pink-footed geese that graze the stubbles. But if she senses a hare or a pheasant she off, doing what she has been bred to do for generations. The northernmost capercaillies in Scotland are in woods a few miles away; I wouldn't walk her there, or let her off her lead on a grouse moor.

​Research suggests that in cold weather globally endangered curlews use up an extra 13 per cent of their body resources each time they are flushed.  A friend who runs an Estate in Yorkshire with a resident population of curlews tells me of dogs racing around the valley bottom in freezing conditions, 500 metres away from their owners, repeatedly putting birds up and preventing them from feeding. 
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The consequences can easily be imagined. Notices displayed in capercaillie territory convince 80 per cent of dog owners to walk on non-sensitive paths; however the other 20 are enough to cause major disruption, and they can only be influenced by personal contact from onsite wardens. A few owners refuse point blank to change their behaviour; occasionally the only effective action is prosecution.

​My latest companion was Ria, a lurcher in Suffolk. She senses game at a distance, and if she smells a hare she forgets herself completely. We played cat and mouse with the geese on the mere, which retreated to the other side when she appeared. I soon realized I had to keep her on a lead; the geese sensed this, and as soon as we retreated from the shoreline they swam in close and taunted her. For once I was closer to wildlife for having a dog with me, and Ria sportingly posed with the geese to commemorate the occasion.
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If you walk a dog regularly I'd love to hear from you. How much would you like to know about the effect your dog has on wildlife? To what extent are you happy to adjust your dog walking habits? Please feel free to use the comments box, or e-mail me privately.
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Inside a murmuration

2/4/2018

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Everyone marvels at stunning photos and videos of murmurations, the evening pyrotechnics of starlings gathering to roost. People flock to see them at Brighton Pier, Minsmere, Gretna Green and Avalon marshes. In Denmark murmurations can involve a million birds.
We admire these huge gatherings from a distance; however this week on a byroad in Lancashire I found myself bang in the middle of a feeding flock of at least 10,000 starlings. With my new found enthusiasm for social media, I rummaged for my i-pad, wound the windows down and snapped away; birds were everywhere, birdshit covered the car, and quite a bit splashed the upholstery inside. Every shot was different and interesting; I narrowed down to a dozen or so and posted a gallery on facebook. In case you saw them I've uploaded different ones here. 

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The gallery got plenty of likes, and a few comments: "Wow", "Nice pics", "That’s my neck of the woods what you doing up there?". James, a farmer friend wrote "Alfred Hitchcock?" and Mary, an American friend replied "Too Alfred Hitchcock", reminding me that not everyone likes starlings; historically they were unpopular; many farmers and Americans regard them as pests. 
​Until the industrial revolution starlings were patchily distributed in the UK. There was a breeding population in the South, boosted in winter by migrants from the continent, and another, larger subspecies was endemic to Shetland, Fair Isle, St Kilda and the Outer Hebrides. Starlings were absent from Ireland and much of Scotland. After 1830 changes in farming practice caused a population explosion, and they became regarded as vermin. My grandparents' generation regarded a murmuration as something ugly and sinister. Starlings can be useful to farmers-my flock were probably feeding on invertebrates that farmers can do without, but flocks can also consume huge amounts of grain and fruit. Since the 1960s numbers have declined by over 80 per cent in the UK, mostly because intensive farming does not provide enough invertebrates for many parents to raise their young.
​In 1890 about 60 starlings were released in Central Park, New York, part of a mission to improve American culture by introducing every bird species mentioned by Shakespeare. Their descendents form almost half of the world population of 300 million birds, and over 1.5 millon are culled as agricultural pests in some years. They are not, however, to be found among the gulls and crows in Hitchcock, as they only reached California after The Birds was released in 1963.
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Viewed in good light, starlings' iridescent plumage can be stunning. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is their songs, and their amazing mimicry. They have long been popular as cage birds-Mozart composed with one on his desk for three years, and they threw ideas back and forth. He wrote a moving obituary to the bird, which no one took seriously till recently. Starling songs are fast, high and not loud, so difficult to hear clearly; however nowadays technology enables us to slow them down and the complexity and creativity of each song is astonishing. Some years ago I transcribed one such song, and orchestrated it for human musicians; it takes a minimum of thirteen virtuosi playing out of their skin to get anywhere near the complexity of the one bird. Follow this link to hear the the bird, including imitations of chicken, goat and gull, and a synthesised recording of the transcription-it's avant garde but Stravinsky would have been proud of the structure and how the imitations are integrated into the texture.
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Getting up close

1/29/2018

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​My first blogpost has had 405 views, which is encouraging, and one comment, from my friend Thomas Urquhart in Maine, who asks "What are you actually doing?!" I'll try to explain:

I was invited to Eilean Shona (see the last blog) by the owner, Vanessa Branson, to survey the birdlife and look into running some birdsong activities there. The quid pro quo for the trip was that while I was there I would post regularly on social media. She wanted three instagram posts per day. This didn't sound like me; I've always enjoyed other people's snaps, but felt I was missing the moment if I was stuck behind the lens. However, I wandered around the island with my i-pad and posted pictures of the constantly changing colours; to my surprise I enjoyed it.

After leaving the island I kept posting, but felt the need to include pictures of birds. To get acceptable images with i-pad you have to get within a couple of feet of your quarry. I picked an inquisitive looking nuthatch as my first target. I moved some garden furniture out of the way and pulled my car up against the fence near the bird feeder to serve as a hide. I sat motionless, window open, back twisted, i-pad raised for action, and waited for the bird to pluck up courage to take a sunflower seed eighteen inches away from me. Time passed. Through the corner of my eye I could see the nuthatch watching the car from bushes a few metres up the fence, so any sudden movement would be fatal. At first other birds kept their distance, but eventually coal tits started to flit to the feeder, each visit only lasting a second or two; soon after came blue tits, then after much nervous chattering and whirring of wings, great tits. I photographed them all. After 45 minutes of expectant discomfort (for both of us I suspect), the nuthatch flew in.

I love the idea that anyone with a mobile phone and a little patience can take decent photos of birds. People fear that devices take us away from the natural world, but we can use them to enhance our relationship with it. Birdsong is very hard for humans to understand without some help; that is the point of the Planet Birdsong initiative. On Shona we talked about the pressure for "digital detox" to be the selling point for recreational experience of the wild; yet it can be just as transformative to slow down and immerse ourselves in the myriad details of nature that escape us in our busy everyday routines, using all of the wonderful resources now available to us. For me the key is for each of us to develop the right dialogue between our own intelligence and AI.
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What made me start this new blog? Vanessa was hosting a writing retreat while I was there. Twice a week writers would emerge from their far-flung cottages to share extracts from their latest work. A skinny-dipping cranial osteopath, with an infectious sense of new-found freedom now that her children are grown up, read enigmatic tales about unresolved family mysteries; a Hong Kong Banker's ex-wife told stories about Hong Kong Bankers' wives, extolling the joys of extreme plastic surgery (she's spending a whole month in a remote cottage by the sea without electricity- it's heroic!); Vanessa read movingly from her forthcoming memoirs. All I came up with was a little piece for the Eilean Shona visitors' pack, which became last week's blog; however I caught the storytelling bug so now I'll post a story about birds once a week.

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Birds on Eilean Shona in Winter

1/24/2018

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I'm cosily installed by the fire in a cottage on Eilean Shona off Ardnamurchan, a 2000 acre island where I am on a winter retreat. I look out over the waters of the South Channel of Loch Moidart towards the imposing 14th century ruin of Castle Tioram. This panorama is the backdrop for a steady stream of avian comings and goings; through binoculars I sometimes see a flock of rock doves, wild cousins of the feral pigeons found in cities, wheeling around the ramparts of the castle; on the water are small parties of red breasted-mergansers, raffish males leading dowdy females, sometimes a solitary goldeneye, once a male eider; occasionally a peregrine dashes across, hoping to surprise a dove or a duck. Jet-black shags dive, then fly off to dry their wings on the rocks. One afternoon a handsome great northern diver worked its way along the channel, spending almost as much time under water as on it. In the evenings the imposing form of the resident juvenile sea eagle (they are sometimes known as flying barn doors) wings its way across on its way to roost. The constantly changing wave patterns occasionally break to reveal the rounded head of a passing otter. Angular herons from a nearby heronry stalk the shallows, keeping an eye open for sea eagles, who regard them as both food and competition.
 
The magnificent 19th century plantations provide refuge for many of the island's small birds. Blue tits are concentrated in a single mobile flock of 100 or so, frequently joined by great tits, goldcrests, coal tits (already breaking occasionally into their see-saw song); a variety of other birds seem to tag along loosely for security, chaffinches, blackbirds, song thrushes, a few redwings from Scandinavia. Inquisitive robins fly over to investigate you, dunnocks and wrens skulk in the undergrowth; jays announce your arrival with raucous screeches in the gnarled oaks. There are other, more elusive flocks around-it is worth getting to know the wheezing call of siskins and the rattling of redpolls if you want to see them. Once over the wind I heard the "chup-chup-chup"s of a group of crossbills, but could not locate them. The island's resident pairs of great-spotted woodpeckers are most easily found by following their their far-carrying "tchick".
 
On walks there have been periods of sunlit stillness, the air full of the exuberant piping of oystercatchers and the mournful song of curlews, punctuated by the deep croaking of ravens; at other times the wind blows up and it is hard to imagine how birds can survive-we almost tripped over an unfortunate heron which seemed to be giving up the struggle. At this time of year there are few birds on the windswept tops, just a few wisps of meadow pipits and the odd woodcock, for whom even when it blows a gale the west coast is mild compared to their frozen breeding grounds in Russia. Large numbers fly over the North Sea on full moons in November and December, and slowly work their way westwards in search of milder air. There has been a big freeze inland while I am here, and today on a path through boggy woodland I put up a dozen woodcock, where last week there were none. When I emerged into the open the young sea eagle flew straight over my head, checking me out and causing the hinds on the hill to freeze.
 
Eilean Shona's birds do not always give themselves up easily; however, over time the island gives up its secrets, and after almost two weeks I am still adding a new bird or two to my list nearly every day.
 


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    Welcome to my blog, where I write about stories and experience that have something to do with birds. I'm also posting regularly on instagram @cowdrey.peter

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