Our residential volunteer, Alice took a break from Burton Mere Wetlands last month to take on another short placement monitoring charismatic Manx shearwaters in Wales. Here's her account of an unforgettable experience getting involved with some lesser-known but vitally important conservation work to save our sensational seabirds.
Skomer is a beautiful island off the coast of Pembrokeshire, south west Wales. Owned and managed by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, it is well known for its wildlife and an estimated 360,000 breeding pairs of Manx shearwater make it their home. That is thought to be over half the global population, making Skomer one of the most important seabird breeding sites in the world.
I was lucky enough to be a part of the team to conduct the whole island Manx shearwater census. I had never taken part in a survey like this before so as you can imagine I was very excited and also slightly apprehensive of this new challenge and adventure I was about to embark on.
I would be staying for just over two weeks on the island. Myself, Sarah and Conor, the two other volunteers, arrived by a morning boat with the sea air in our hair. Skomer was calling and as we approached we got our first glimpse of the island and puffins flapping frantically around North Haven.
We all met in the warden’s house for our induction talk, to be shown how we would be conducting the survey and to meet the two other volunteers, Aude and Nicci who would be our team leaders.
We had a total of 288 survey plots to complete on Skomer and for one day we also had the exciting task of going onto a nearby island called Middleholm which is owned by the National Trust where we would do the first Manx shearwater census they’ve done there in 20 years! There were 12 plots to do on the island, bringing our total number to 300. Middleholm was a very adventurous day consisting of jumping on and off a boat and scrambling up steep heavily-burrowed slopes! It was a unique experience and it will be very interesting to see how the population is doing!
For each plot we had a centre point where we would survey within 10 metres using ropes, creating manageable segments to survey. The basis of the survey was each burrow we found we played a recording of a duet – male and female – Manx shearwater call, we played down each burrow for 10 seconds then waited for 10 seconds and recorded using clickers every response we heard.
We got to see so much of the island as the plot sites took us to every part, it felt like we got to know the island personally and within all the hard work we were doing we had some really special moments. Seeing my first short-eared owl and having it hunting right above us as we waded our way through the tall red campion was certainly unforgettable. The beautiful views from the coastal plots, looking out onto the vast ocean, hearing the activity of the seabirds and catching glimpses of gannets soaring elegantly past in search of its meal and out at various islands such as Skokholm, Ramsey and Grassholm which is the third largest gannet colony in the UK.
During my time on Skomer I was able to enjoy various bird and wildlife species; one of my most memorable moments was on an evening I went over to the Wick to watch the puffins at sunset. It was very special to be immersed in the puffins who were not at all bothered by our presence, and I became fascinated by them and their own individual personalities. Another stand out memory was getting to swim with them at North Haven one evening after the day visitors had gone which was another amazing experience. I was geared up in my wetsuit and snorkel gear (which I had never used before!) and it does appear I am not a natural in flippers and in need of some more practice.
In addition, on my two data entry days, I was fortunate be able to get out on the boat to do a seabird count with the warden and other volunteers who gave me some useful tips. It isn’t easy counting seabirds through binoculars whilst bobbing up and down but I really enjoyed it and managed to not get sea sick. On my other day I helped one of the researchers find pufflings (that’s a puffin chick!) to measure their wingspan and weigh them to see if they could be ringed and I was fortunate enough to be able to hold a beautiful baby puffin!. I also watched them ring some adults for their study, great to witness and to get a glimpse of how this type of research is conducted.
Another memorable moment for me was sitting on the edge of the island watching the sunsets being totally alone; disconnected from the outside world, you felt totally free. They were beautiful and it was moments like that I felt very lucky for the opportunity to be there and be involved.
Being on the island and doing the survey I was fully immersed in the action hearing the constant life of the seabirds like an orchestra playing from every direction: lesser black-backed gulls shrieking to protect their chicks; guillemot and razorbill colonies calling as they cover various parts of the cliffs in their colonies incubating their eggs; fulmar soaring and kittiwakes perched on their nests. I got to know the Manx shearwater call during the survey playing down each nest burrow, getting responses from either the male or female if they were with the egg and responded. They stay out at sea all day, returning to their burrows under the safety of darkness as they are extremely vulnerable on land to predation. I did get to go out one night and see the spectacle of all the ‘Manxies’ flying in, their calls filling the night sky everywhere you looked!
My time on Skomer was very special and something I will never forget, I met some amazing people, learnt lots and took a plenty away from the whole experience to help me develop my career. Working in the field as part of a research project was incredible, it was very hard work and there were times you were exhausted, smelly and dirty (you could tell which room us field workers were in!) but that’s all part of what made it so special and I wouldn’t change any of it. We were all very happy that we managed to complete all the survey plots and we will eagerly wait to find out what the results show about the Manx shearwater population on Skomer.
This placement with The Wildlife Trusts is a prime example of how the the RSPB works in partnership with other nature conservation organisations; we manage several seabird reserves and carry out other extensive work for seabird conservation. In fact it was research conducted on the RSPB’s Ramsey Island reserve that developed the new duet call method we used on Skomer, following previous methods using only a male call being questioned for their accuracy and response rate. The RSPB study showed that a playing both male and female calls into nests greatly increased the response rate, increasing the precision of survey estimates by up to 50%. For further information on this particular RSPB project, click here.