Today’s blog is the second in a series of three looking at the start up of the RSPB’s Centre for Conservation Science fieldwork season. This blog is covering the seabird monitoring taking place around the UK’s coasts amidst a cacophony of sounds, sights and smells. From kittiwakes to puffins, diving bonxies and guillemots, here’s what the team’s been up to.
Conservation Scientist, Saskia Wischnewski, is busy training the research assistants in tracking and tagging for the seabird monitoring programme. Saskia has been showing the team how to attach tags, and noose it, with help from a dog toy (pinched from her pup Aura) and a homemade feather vest © Saskia Wischnewski
Here’s one of our new research assistants, David Kinchin-Smith, looking for the first few guillemot and razorbill eggs at St Abb's Head © David Kinchin-Smith
Also at St Abb’s is Em Witcutt monitoring Guillemots © Ciaran Hatsell
Our new PhD student, Alice Edney is using novel technologies to monitor seabirds, currently focusing on time-lapse cameras and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). She will be focusing on puffins and is hoping to develop methods to improve measurements of puffin productivity. This photo was from when Alice was grubbing for puffin chicks and instead found the latrine!
A lovely selection of images by our Orkney seabird census team, Carmen Biondo and Imogen Lloyd, when doing guillemot surveys back in April. This is part of the upcoming seabird census run by JNCC and the other members of the Seabird Monitoring Programme.
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