Reflections on the breeding season - Flamborough and Filey Coast pSPA Seabird Monitoring Programme 2016

We've been deafened by the crunching of numbers while the seabird monitoring team has been doing its stuff.  Now the final figures are in, Mike Babcock, our seabird research assistant, gives us the low-down of what's been happening on the nesting sites this season.

Over to MIke...

2016 has been a tricky season.  We had prolonged periods of high winds, especially Northerlies, at the end of May/beginning of June.  Sea fret was more common than in a typical year. All of this made both shore based monitoring and boat based colony counts more of a challenge than usual, but thanks to the efforts and good humour of the whole seabird monitoring team we have managed to deliver another successful season of monitoring.

Productivity

Overall, our data suggests that this was a relatively poor breeding season although some species, notably Gannet and Fulmar, maintained productivity levels from previous years.

Trends in productivity (number of fledged chicks per breeding attempt) at Bempton-Flamborough 2009 – 2016

To estimate annual productivity we monitor breeding attempts by most of the species that breed at Bempton –Flamborough. We don’t monitor Puffins since they breed in holes or cracks in the cliff face and we can’t see in (but we did count them this year – sort of – see below).

Individual species results for this year were:-

Fulmar (Bempton/Flamborough):  across 63 Apparently Occupied Sites, on the Reserve and at Flamborough Head average productivity was 0.59. We had fewer breeding birds on the plots this year but for those pairs that did breed productivity was slightly above average.

Gannet (Bempton):  across 265 Apparently Occupied Nests on the Reserve average productivity was 0.86. Our Gannets’ breeding success seemed unaffected by the weather, although there were reports of more than usual non-breeding pairs at Staple Newk.

Razorbill (Bempton/Flamborough):  across 383 AOS on the Reserve and at Flamborough Head average productivity was 0.50. Although weather may have been a factor the average this year was almost certainly affected by corvid predation on 3 plots at Grandstand on the Reserve – where we had regular reports of Carrion Crows taking Razorbill eggs. Productivity on those plots was very low.

Guillemot (Bempton/Flamborough):  across 322 AOS, on the Reserve and at Flamborough Head average productivity was 0.64.  Last year the mean of Guillemot plot productivity was 0.72; the 2009 – 2015 average productivity is 0.77.  As in the case of last year two of the plots on the Reserve seem to have been affected by prospecting Gannets, which may affect the average.

Kittiwakes (Bempton/Flamborough):  across a whopping 1019 AON, on the Reserve and at Flamborough Head average productivity was 0.52. My impression this season has been that a lot of Kittiwakes made a start on nests but then didn’t breed – possible because the bad weather meant that they struggled to get into condition. For the birds that did breed there were fewer reports of unattended small chicks and chicks dead in the nest.

Herring Gull (Bempton/Flamborough):  across 89 AON on the Reserve and at Flamborough average productivity was 0.70. We seem to have had fewer breeding birds on the plots this year and lower than average productivity – but who knows what is happening with urban breeders in Bridlington....

Study Plot Counts

Every year we count the number of individual Guillemot and Razorbill on 7 study plots on 5 different days during the first 3 weeks of June. During the same period we count the number of Kittiwake nests on 7 study plots on 2 different days.  The high count for each species is taken as a year to year index of possible changes in population. This year the study plot counts, at least for auks, don’t appear to have been affected by the weather. Attendance was reasonably high despite the weather discouraging cliff attendance, with the Guillemot high count and mean steady from last year and the third highest Razorbill high count (and highest mean of Razorbill counts) ever.  Kittiwake counts down on last year but not as bad as 2013 or 2009.

Land Based Guillemot and Razorbill Counts – Flamborough Head 

In anticipation of weather and sea conditions allowing us to complete boat/land based whole colony counts for Guillemot and Razorbill Keith Clarkson carried out land based counts of individual Guillemot and Razorbill on 39 cliff sections at Flamborough Head which can be easily counted from land (the whole length of the Flamborough Head and Bempton Cliffs SPA has been divided into 179 sections for the purpose of colony counts). These counts show large increases since the last land based Guillemot and Razorbill counts of these sections in 2008. This raises the intriguing question of whether these birds represent an increase in population or have been displaced by the continued expansion of the Gannet colony south from the high cliffs at Speeton – hopefully we will answer this question in the course of completing whole colony counts of Guillemot and Razorbill in 2017.

Puffin Count –Flamborough Head and Bempton Cliffs SPA

After the red-listing of Atlantic puffin we got some advice from Puffin expert Mike Harris about possible ways to count our cliff nesting Puffins; he recommended that we count adults staging on the sea and ashore several afternoons in the when there are large numbers of birds present during the pre-breeding season. In March 2016 the hardy RSPB Bempton Cliffs viewpoint volunteers were asked to inform staff as soon as large numbers of Puffins appeared staging on the sea. The first reports were in the morning of 22 March. Based on the advice received, Warden Dave Aitken and Site Manager Keith Clarkson walked the distance from the Lighthouse at Flamborough Head to the end of the Speeton Cliffs over the afternoon of 22 March and 23 March 2016. Approximately 2300 Puffins were counted. This count should not be considered to be a complete census of our breeding Puffins – it is intended to be an index which will be useful when compared further counts using the same methodology. However, the count does suggest that we have a breeding population of at least 1100 pairs.

Kittiwake Whole Colony Count

Our original intention of completing whole colony counts for Kittiwake, Guillemot and Razorbill scuppered by poor sea conditions and issues with boat availability, however Dave Aitken, Mike Babcock and Keith Clarkson did manage a whole colony count for Kittiwakes. This was a land and sea based count over several days in late May/early June. The results were as follows:-

 And suggest that the Kittiwake population has been stable since 2000.

Drone Colony Count Feasibility Study

A trial was carried out to determine the feasibility of using a drone to conduct a photographic survey of the whole colony.  The trial was funded by DONG Energy and carried out by their environmental consultants NIRAS with ground support from RSPB Site Manager Keith Clarkson and consent from Natural England. The drone used by NIRAS was a high specification octocopter capable of carrying higher quality photographic equipment than standard commercially available drones. The pilot maintained direct sight of the drone at all times to comply with CAA requirements.

The trial results were promising but NIRAS estimate that it would take 8-12 days to achieve full photographic coverage of the colony using a combination of land and sea-based drone flights.  A similar number of days are required for traditional count methods. Additional days would be required to count the birds in images captured by a drone, so at present drone based counts would actually take more time than traditional counts. In the future citizen science or image recognition software may change this.  Despite the additional effort (currently) involved, drone based counts have several potential advantages over traditional methods and we hope to do further testing

Thanks – and looking forward to 2017

A huge thank you to everyone involved in the Flamborough and Filey Coast pSPA seabird monitoring programme – it couldn’t happen without your efforts. Thanks are also due to the wider Bempton Cliffs team – all of the staff and volunteers who support our work and show such a keen interest in how each season is progressing. I really appreciate your interest and enthusiasm on those cold and wet days.

Next season the core productivity monitoring programme will continue and the current plan is to complete the first whole-colony counts of Guillemot and Razorbill since 2008. We are also hoping to develop our auk diet monitoring capability and to be able to continue drone testing as mentioned above.

Mike Babcock

Bempton Cliffs Seabird Research Assistant

November 2016