Last winter wreaked havoc on our seabirds. The storms
wrecked tens of thousands of Puffins, Guillemots and Razorbills along the
coasts of Britain and mainland Europe. Losses have been high across the board,
and 2014 was set up to be an important year for the ongoing seabird research on
Skomer Island. Then the funding was cut. The Wildlife Trust immediately
responded with the Save Our Seabirds Campaign which asked you to help fill the
funding gap and ensure that 40 years of continuous seabird studies carries on
to shed some light on the effects of the winter storms on our breeding birds.
The recent visit from Gordon Buchanan of Springwatch will no
doubt raise awareness of the work on Skomer and of the plight of our seabirds,
especially the Guillemot. But we thought that our supporters might be
interested in what the research involves, who does it, and how. So we caught up
with some of our international team of researchers currently living on the
island.
Professor Tim Birkhead is one of the leading figures in
British ornithology and avian biology. He has been involved in Guillemot
research on Skomer since 1972 when, as a postgraduate, he took a job studying
the population for the Nature Conservancy Council. After a population high of
100,000 in the early 1930s, the Guillemot population on Skomer had crashed to
just 2000, and Tim was spending hours watching, ringing and studying
productivity in the hope of finding the cause of this change.
By the 1980s the Guillemot population was on the rise and
Tim set up a yearly study through Sheffield University to monitor the Skomer
population. We have one of the only increasing populations in Britain. While
the dramatic decline of Guillemots in Scotland and the North East of England
has been linked to losses of sand eels and changes in fishing practices,
Skomer’s Guillemots feed largely on sprats which remain abundant. Despite it’s
apparent prosperity, Tim is always quick to point out that more levels of legal
and physical protection are needed for Skomer’s bird population. While more
research is vital to shedding light on the complex interaction of seabirds,
fish stocks and the marine environment so that we can safeguard our Guillemots
from the fate of their North Sea cousins.
Working on her Phd, Elspeth Kenny is studying the
fascinating social interactions of Guillemots under Tim’s supervision.
Guillemots breed in some of the densest colonies of any bird, sometimes up to
70 in a square metre. This affords them some protection from predators, but
also has the potential to cause lots of squabbles between the birds during the
hectic time before eggs are laid. Social rules are needed to maintain a dense
and therefore safe and productive colony, and to make sure the birds keep their
breeding site from being taken over by other birds. It seems the social life of
Guillemots is a lot more complicated than it might appear, as they nest next to
their neighbours nearly every year of their 20 year life. One of the behaviours
being studied is allo-preening, the act of preening one’s neighbours which
helps to forge the strong bonds between a Guillemot, it’s partner and it’s
neighbours. The birds may well be as faithful to their friends as they are
their ledges.
So Elspeth wakes early every day and walks to her study
site. Her custom built bird hide was constructed with the help of one of our
volunteers, Howard, a retired carpenter. Built in a workshop, and designed to
be clipped together with no screws on site, the hide was a piece of flat packed
engineering that would have had Ikea’s design team turning green with envy. Now
rooted to a rocky ledge, much like the Guillemots, it allows Elspeth a unique
view into the private life of our birds, and will be her home from home for the
next three years.
Julie Riordan comes from Australia. I think it’s fair to say
that for the first month on Skomer she was constantly cold. Spring has finally
forced the damp winters’ air from the old farm buildings where the researchers
stay, and Julie is busy everyday now, monitoring the productivity of the
Guillemots at various study sites around the island. While Elspeth’s role is to
get know a few pairs of Guillemots relationships intimately, Julie has a wider
remit, monitoring population levels and taking the down the details of any
ringed birds. The BTO had large numbers of dead ringed birds reported (the
highest level of ring re-sightings of Skomer birds since the study began) over
the winter, a large proportion of which were female. How this will impact the
overall productivity of the seabirds after their stressful winter is one of the
questions Julie’s research hopes to answer. Once the Guillemots chicks have all
leaped faithfully into the sea after their parents, Julie will also be taking
flight, back to Australia.
Eslpeth's twitter feed https://twitter.com/ElspethKenny
Petition to reinstate fundingSave Our Seabirds
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