What seabirds can tell us about the tide

Date:  November 29, 2018

Source:  European Geosciences Union

When the UK's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) set out to tag razorbills, their aim was to track their behaviour and movements along the coast of North Wales. The tag data revealed that, at night, these seabirds spent a lot of their time idle on the sea surface. "We saw this as an opportunity to re-use the data and test if the birds might be drifting with the tidal current," says Matt Cooper, a Master of Oceanography graduate from Bangor University in Wales. It turns out they were, according to a new study led by Cooper that shows the potential of using seabirds to measure ocean currents. The results are published today in the European Geosciences Union journal Ocean Science.

Using seabirds to tell us about the tide could be especially useful for the marine renewable energy industry. Generating tidal energy requires detailed knowledge of current speeds. Scientists and engineers traditionally measure tides by using radar or deploying anchors and buoys with scientific instruments. However, these scouting methods are challenging and expensive. If tagged seabirds could provide tidal data over a large area, they could help identify sites that would be good sources of tidal energy.

Read on 

Tagging the elusive White-headed Duck

14 Nov 2017

Danara Zharbolova and Alyona Koshkina from our Kazakh partner ACBK tell us about their first attempts to catch and tag the elusive White-headed Duck with geolocators out on the lakes of the Central Kazakhstan.

The White-headed duck Oxyura leucocephala, with its long tail (often cocked vertically) and striking blue bill, is an unmistakable sight – if you are actually lucky enough to spot one out in the wild. European populations have markedly declined in the last 10 years due to habitat loss, making this famously elusive waterbird even more of a rarity. It is classified globally Endangered by the IUCN Red List. Due to its furtive behaviour and rarity, this species has not been studied extensively. In recent years, BirdLife and several of its partners have been working to change this. In 2015, the White-headed duck was selected as one of sixteen iconic European bird species for the EU-funded LIFE EuroSAP project which aims to address population decline on a continental scale. SEO-BirdLife Spain, together with AEWA (The African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement), has been coordinating efforts to identify threats and conservation measures to feed into a revised International Species Action Plan.

At the same time, BirdLife’s Kazakh partner ACBK (Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan) has been working to learn more about the migration of the Central Asia population which nests mainly in Northern and Central Kazakhstan and the steppes of Southern Russia.

Read on  

RSPB tags rare geese at Ynyshir reserve due to decline

By Steffan Messenger BBC Wales Environment Correspondent

16 January 2017

Electronic tags have been fitted to one of Europe's rarest birds to understand its dramatic decline at a Powys reserve.

The RSPB estimates the population of Greenland white-fronted geese at Ynyshir has fallen by 83% since 1990.

The research project is being funded by Welsh Government.

It comes after a decision by ministers in August not to implement an outright ban on shooting the rare birds caused controversy.

Their movements will be monitored in real time, helping the charity and other partners to understand their needs and put conservation measures in place.

It is hoped the scheme will contribute towards international efforts to boost numbers of the threatened species.

The global population of Greenland white-fronted geese is estimated to be 18,879 - the lowest recorded since spring 1985 - and a marked decline on the last estimate of 20,797 in spring 2014. 

The birds, which breed in Greenland, migrate in spring and autumn through south and west Iceland to wintering grounds in the British Isles.

The majority head for Ireland and western Scotland.

Continued

Turtle Doves tagged by RSPB to reveal migration secrets

Posted on: 31 Aug 2016

Six European Turtle Doves are being satellite-tracked from their breeding grounds in Britain to their wintering grounds in West Africa to better understand why the population is declining so rapidly.

The scheme parallels the British Trust for Ornithology's Common Cuckoo tracking sheme which has resulted in many revelations about the species' migration strategy and survival rates. It also comes hot on the heels of news that funding for the Countryside Stewardship scheme which has helped turtle doves in the recent past will remain in place for the next couple of years at least, after a guarantee by DEFRA.

According to the recent UK Breeding Bird Survey, the number of European Turtle Doves has declined by 93 per cent since 1994. Last year, for the first time, the RSPB revealed the complete migration route of a satellite-tagged British breeding turtle dove named Titan, which provided valuable data in the conservation fight to help save the species from extirpation from the country.

Titan’s satellite signal was lost earlier this year when the bird was in Mali, and now the RSPB in partnership with Operation Turtle Dove (OTD) are following six more.

Read on  

Little bird, big journey: A tagged Georgia shorebird flies 60,000 miles

Posted: January 27, 2016 - 10:22pm  |  Updated: January 28, 2016 - 5:22am

By Mary Landers

A shorebird nicknamed Postel, tagged on the Georgia coast in 2012, flew nearly 60,000 miles before his tag stopped transmitting in late November.

The whimbrel, which returned to the coast each spring over the three and a half years its satellite tag was active, has already given scientists insight into the importance of Georgia’s seemingly lifeless sandbars and spits.

Postel was captured in the marshes of St. Simons Island near Postel Creek in May 2012 by a team of biologists, including Tim Keyes of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

They caught Postel in a snare and immediately fitted him with a tracking device. The satellite tag comes with a tiny solar panel and a whip antennae. Weighing just a third of an ounce, it attached to Postel with a figure-eight harness that looped around each leg.

Read on ...

Young hen harrier which was fitted with satellite tracking tag dies

STV 

10 November 2015 13:41 GMT

A young hen harrier which was fitted with a satellite tag as part of a project to track the rare birds has died.

Holly, who was tagged by the RSPB, left her nest in August this year and the device allowed bird lovers to track her movement around Scotland online.

The nest Holly hatched from was located on high security land at the MOD's Coulport facility, and she was initially tagged in June with the assistance of the MOD Police.

The RSPB announced on the project's website that Holly died. Though experts have yet to recover her body the circumstances of Holly's death are not thought to be linked to wildlife crime.

The Hen Harrier Life+ project aimed to gain a better understanding of the threats facing hen harriers. Illegal hunting and poisoning is preventing a recovery of the rare birds' population, which stands at around 662 breeding pairs across the UK.

A spokesman for the RSPB said: "At the moment we're speculating it's natural causes.

"Quite often young chicks tend to be more vulnerable to predation. It may itself have been preyed upon by a larger bird."

Holly's nest was featured on BBC Scotland's Landward programme in June, and she was named after a member of the production team.

Read on ...

Hen harriers tagged to better understand the threats they face

As a part of the RSPB’s Hen Harrier LIFE+ Project hen harriers have been electronically tagged enabling conservationists, and researchers to gain a better understanding of the threats these rarest and most threatened birds of prey face.

The tags transmit locations of the harriers on a regular basis, and members of the public along with scientists will be able to follow the movements of two individuals on a new website launched earlier this week. However, there will be a two week delay in the position information that will be available to the general public for security reasons.

Continued ...

Twitcher's double 1,500 miles apart: Birdwatcher tags same blackcap during Portuguese holiday weeks after he spotted bird close to his Staffordshire home

Dave Clifton had tagged the small bird near his Staffordshire home

Weeks later on holiday 1,500 miles away in Portugal he captured same bird

Mr Clifton was part of a group catching migrating birds to check tags to see where they had flown from in Europe while making their way to Africa

Chances of catching the same bird twice are almost incalculable 

By JAYA NARAIN FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 00:28, 25 November 2014 | UPDATED: 00:29, 25 November 2014

A British birdwatcher enjoying a sunshine holiday in Portugal thought he was experiencing a case of deja vu when he captured a tiny bird.

When Dave Clifton examined the identification ring on the leg of the blackcap he thought it bore an uncanny similarity to the one he had ringed weeks earlier.

But that was 1,500 miles away close to his home Staffordshire and the chances of capturing the same bird twice are almost incalculable.

Read more:

Tagged Amur falcons return to India's Nagaland

10 November 2014 Last updated at 09:24


By Amitabha BhattasaliBBC News, Calcutta
Millions of Amur falcons, flying from Mongolia to South Africa, stop in India's Nagaland every year

Two of the three Amur falcons tagged with satellite tracking chips last year have returned to the north-eastern Indian state of Nagaland.

The birds, which come to roost every year during their flight from Mongolia to Africa, are back at Doyang lake.

The return of the chipped birds has given scientists valuable details about their journey to Africa and then back to their homeland in Mongolia.

The falcons travel almost 22,000km (13,670 miles) every year.

Amur falcons are the longest travelling raptors in the world and come to Doyang every year in their millions.

Forest officials say the birds are yet to be located, but satellite data shows their presence in the area.

The two falcons - named Naga and Pangti - have returned to Nagaland almost after a year and even though their location is not known yet, "a small ceremony was organised to mark their return", Nagaland's Principal Chief Conservator of Forests M Lokeswara Rao told the BBC.

Continued ...

Macaroni penguin populations under threat from other seabirds

The greatest threat to declining macaroni penguin numbers in the South Atlantic island of South Georgia, have been found to be the seabird giant petrels who prey on the chicks and fledglings

Led by researchers from the British Antarctic Survey, the team of scientists been fitting tiny electronic tags to adult and fledgling macaroni penguin since 2003. Then, using an electronic scanner placed at the entrance to their colony, they have been recording each bird’s identification number as it came and went, over a period of ten consecutive breeding seasons 

Lead author Catharine Horswill, from BAS, says:

“Penguins are facing rapid changes in their environment, but at South Georgia, in the southwest Atlantic, we found compelling evidence that predators are the most important factor influencing the survival of chicks as they leave the colony for the first time. This is a big leap forward as we had no idea that predation could be such a strong driving force. Knowing what drives survival rates of penguins puts us in a much better place to predict how these populations may change in the future.”

Continued

Golden eagles tagged in Scotland

April 2014: Two golden eagles have been tagged in a new satellite project run by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) so there can be greater understanding about the birds’ behaviour.

Two fledgling eagles were fitted with satellite tags, one in the Cairngorms Highland National Nature Reserve (NNR) the other on Rum NNR. The tags will record the birds' movements on a daily basis.

"There can be few more awesome sights than seeing a golden eagle in flight and this project will allow us to learn more about golden eagles and their behaviour," Chris Donald, South Highland area operations manager, explained.

"We know that wildlife tourism is worth more than £115 million a year to the Scottish economy and is associated with almost 3,500 full-time equivalent jobs. This project will help shed some light on the movements and behaviour of what is a fascinating species.

"Satellite tags are useful in letting us catch a glimpse of their movements and the maps of these will be updated on a weekly basis and posted on SNH social media outlets to promote interest in our suite of National Nature Reserves and golden eagles."

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/Golden-eagle-tagged.html

Satellite tagged osprey disappears over Malta

BirdLife Malta appeal for information about "missing" satellite tagged Osprey

September 2013. A juvenile Mediterranean Osprey fitted with a satellite tracking device in Corsica as part of a project studying the dispersal and migratory movements of these protected birds of prey has gone missing after arriving in Malta.

BirdLife Malta ornithologists have been helping researchers from the project to reconstruct what happened to the young bird using data downloaded from the tracking device via the Global Position System (GPS) satellites used to "communicate" with the bird.

The sophisticated tracking devices used in this study not only allow researchers to see where the bird is, they also measure and record physiological data such as body temperature, giving a much more detailed picture of the bird's behaviour and physical condition.

Corsica to Sicily to Malta to death

The GPS track shows that the Osprey flew south after leaving Sicily, arriving in the Malta Freeport area in the south of the island, where it roosted overnight, possibly on top of a ship or a crane.

The next morning, the bird left its roost just before 7am, heading north in the direction of Delimara, shortly after which the signal from the tracking device was lost. The bird's body temperature at the time of last signal indicates that it was alive up until communication was lost.

Notorious for illegal hunting

Nicholas Barbara, BirdLife Malta's Conservation Manager said, "The picture that emerges is very clear. Delimara is notorious for illegal hunting, with numerous reports every year of protected birds, including Ospreys, being shot from the peninsula or from boats close to the coast. It seems likely that this Osprey suffered the same fate and was shot at some time after 7am."

Continued

Nightingales' tags reveal habitat change on migratory routes

The decline of the nightingale in the UK could be due to changes in its habitat along its migratory route to Africa, a study has shown.

Last year Anglian Water and the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) fitted 10 birds at Grafham Water in Cambridgeshire with tracking devices.

Seven birds have come back with data about their 3,000 mile (4,828 km) journey to Senegal and The Gambia.

The tracker information will be fully analysed by the autumn.

A BTO spokesman said nightingale numbers had dropped by more than half since 1995, with only 6,000 singing male nightingales remaining in the UK.

Initial findings from the geolocators show the birds, which weigh about the same as a £2 coin, make the six-week journey to Africa via northern France and Spain to Gibraltar.

They then fly along the African coast to avoid the long flight across the wide, dry Sahara Desert.

Continued

Cuckoos return to UK

First cuckoo

April 25th, 10.32am. We just heard a cuckoo outside the Wildlife Extra office in Herefordshire. Having followed the BTO cuckoo migration all the way to Central Africa and back, we were surprised to hear a cuckoo here in Herefordshire as as yet, as far as we know anyway, none of the BTO cuckoos have made it back yet, and at least one is still in Africa.

Click here for the latest BTO cuckoo update. 

Has anyone else heard a cuckoo yet?

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/heard-a-cuckoo.html

Blow for Egyptian vulture conservation as tagged bird is poisoned

Balkan Egyptian vulture conservation

April 2013. In 2012, an Egyptian vulture was found suffering from poisoning. The bird was cared for and recovered, and was fitted with a satellite tag before being released. He had recovered well enough to migrate all the way to Chad where he spent the winter.

In spring of 2013, he returned to the Balkans to breed, but, tragically, he was poisoned once again, and sadly this time he didn't survive. He was found dead in Greece, just 200 kilometres from his breeding grounds in Bulgaria, along with another Egyptian vulture that had also been poisoned, probably when eating a carcass that was laced with poison to kill foxes or wolves.

Heavy blow
This is a heavy blow against the efforts to save this species from extinction in the Balkans and Greece. In one single incident, we have lost 5% of the species breeding population in Greece.

Worryingly, this incident was only discovered as this bird was tagged and his location could be followed practically to the metre on a daily basis. The actual magnitude of the losses - of Egyptian vultures, and of many other endangered wildlife species, from the illegal use of poison is difficult to estimate due to its "silent killer" nature, but examples such as this speak for themselves.

The fight against poison is not an easy one as it involves a wide range of socio-economical parameters and certainly needs the joint efforts of all parties involved (livestock breeders, hunters, etc) with that of the public authorities at the lead. Unfortunately, this is not the case at the moment in Greece, where authorities together with society, seem to be indifferent to the problem.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/egyptian-vulture-conservatoin.html