In the hallowed pages of these blogs, we often write about the practical work we are undertaking, but this is only half the story. We obviously spend a lot of time and effort managing the reserve to maintain and improve the habitat for particular species, but in order to judge how successful we are being we need to carry out surveys.
Spring is an important period in the survey calendar as breeding success is a useful benchmark in a variety of different ways. Birds in particular tend to have high powers of dispersal, meaning they can move to their preferred habitat and are relatively unimpeded by geographical and topological constraints. Selection of sites by breeding birds is first and foremost a good broad indicator of how well their ecological requirements have been met. Nesting attempts, hatching and fledging success further tells us how well the birds are able to find food for themselves and their young and how safe and secure they are from predators and disturbance.
On the Exe Estuary, we carry out a number of surveys, including looking for breeding birds, butterfly transects (where we walk a specific route and record observations along it), dragonfly transects and Lapwing monitoring of breeding success. In addition, we support a number of other surveys as a team, including this year the National Cirl Bunting survey which is specifically looking at how their range has changed since the last survey in 2009.
The data that we gather can be collated with data from other surveys and used to understand how well species populations are doing at local, regional, national and total levels. In doing so organisations can understand whether species and other super furry animals are declining or increasing and look at their range and distribution to understand how widespread or localised they are. Again, this helps to inform our conservation priorities and the development of management plans. In order gain this type of insight, surveys need to be conducted using the same methodologies to ensure that the data is compatible.
Knowledge is power, and having a good system and process to store, report and analyze all the data that is collected is important. It was with this in mind that a number of us from the reserve team attended a training session at the regional office in Exeter yesterday to get to grips with the Geographic Information System (GIS) used by the RSPB (known as Merlin). This will enable us to design and plan surveys, capture results and plot species records on maps stored in a central database available to the rest of the Society.
Storage of ecological data is also important for planning applications and development as it helps inform decision makers to the potential impacts of development at sites. Much of the data collected by various surveys and conservation charities is therefore shared and made available to County Recorders and the Biological Records Centre (BRC).
Surveying is a fantastic way to increase and challenge your natural history knowledge. Looking for particular species inevitably helps you understand more about their behaviour and habitat requirements. If you want to volunteer for the RSPB and have either some experience or interest in surveying, there are often opportunities available, check our volunteering web pages for details. There are also quick or one off ‘Citizen Science’ projects – including ourselves with the Big Garden Birdwatch which occurred earlier in the year, but also the British Trust for Ornithology, Butterfly Conservation and the Woodland Trust (amongst others) all operate mass participation surveying projects which you could get involved with. Alternatively you could register to record your sightings with the iRecord website ran by the BRC. It is a simple, but meaningful way to get involved and support conservation objectives.