This week's exciting blog from Conservation Manager, Stuart Benn.
First find your scoter
A couple of weeks ago I set out to do something that nobody has ever done before – catch our rarest duck, the confusingly-named Common scoter, on their breeding grounds in Britain.
Photo: Andy Hay
Recently, I blogged about Slavonian grebes and there are many parallels between them and the scoters. Both actually have names that reflect how the old British naturalists first encountered them: in winter – the grebes being thought to come from the land of the Slavs (the east) and the scoters forming large flocks at sea easily seen from land or ships. But, unfortunately, both are also now confined as breeding birds in the UK to the north of Scotland, depressingly rare, declining and in urgent need of a helping hand.
Consequently, the scoters have been the focus of attention in the last few years as part of a joint project run by the RSPB, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, and Scottish Natural Heritage. Lots has been learned but there are still plenty of unanswered questions – where do they nest, how many of the eggs and ducklings survive, and what are the reasons for failure. Which is where catching comes in – if you can catch a female and attach a tiny radio transmitter to it, you can begin to find out some answers.
Whilst trying something totally new is exciting, the downside is that there isn’t any experience to take advantage of. So, the team of Carl, Kenny, Norrie and I were long on ideas but short on proven methods when we took to the lochs of the RSPB’s Forsinard Flows Reserve which is about as far north as you can get on the UK mainland before you start paddling in the sea.
To cut a long story short, we tried all the duck-catching methods we could think of – swim-in traps, nets and taking to the lochs at night to dazzle the birds but, whilst we came within a whisker of success, we didn’t manage to catch a single one which is sometimes the way it goes. So, we’ll need to leave it another year before we can try again - armed with just as much enthusiasm but a whole load of valuable experience too. We’ll do it!
But that wasn’t the end of this year’s scoter activity. Traditionally, we count the breeding birds from land or by boat but this is a very time-consuming business and we are always on the look out for easier and more cost-effective ways of doing it. Which is why on Monday we took to the air on the most glorious day you could ever hope to see. One team had already counted the lochs the old way, we would count from the air, and aerial photos are also taken from underneath the plane and examined later to see if the scoters could be picked out. Crucially, each count is independent of the others so nobody knows what any other method found before they did theirs which allows a direct comparison of accuracy, cost and manpower.
Our aerial counts were pretty full-on with John, the pilot, expertly manoeuvring the plane through the hills and along the lochs - you needed full concentration to spot the scoters, count them and see if they were male or female. Which is why this wee video just shows the scene as we moved between the lochs – we were too busy counting otherwise!
So, which method was best? I don’t know yet as I don’t have all the counts back but I’ll let you know as soon as I can!