Camera...action!

Just back from the Lochgilpehead where I spent a long weekend, along with 14 other colleagues from around the Trust, learning about the art of wildlife filming.  This is all part of a Trust-wide "Wildlife Watch" project, which involves training staff in the use of professional standard cameras so that we can capture broadcast quality footage of the amazing array of wildlife that can be found on our properties around Scotland.  Not only is the equipment top notch, but the training was second to none too.  Our teachers for the weekend were John Aitchison (picture top), his wife, Mary-Lou and their colleague Martin, all of whom work in the wildlife film-making industry.  All three have been involved in many of the documentaries that we have all marvelled over for many years.  An absolute privilege to work alongside them, and if we can come away with even a fraction of their ability, then we should get some great footage.

Georgia was also making movies last week, but she was on the other side of the camera gathering footage for her Educational DVD project.

And people say, "What do you do in the winter"!

No conferring?

November is conference month in the Trust.  Last week I was up in the Highlands at our Countryside Conference, and next week I will be going to Pitlochry for our Managers' Conference.  The Countryside Conference focuses on a different locality each year, and this year we were at Corrieshalloch Gorge and Inverewe.  A long way for us folks from the deep south to go, but as the Trust is a National organisation, there is no getting away from travelling. And, wowee, was it worth the trip! 

Corrieshalloch Gorge is the UK's best example of a box canyon, and has the third highest waterfall in the UK which was in spate on our visit, and is breathtakingly beautiful, especially in November, with the autumn colours (picture right). It is no wonder that it is so popular with visitors.  Inverewe is a property with hidden depths.  Most folk tend to think of it as a garden, a garden of note, but just a garden, when actually the property takes in an extensive area of woodland, hill and moorland (picture below left) supporting a huge amount of wildlife - otters and common seals being the highlight of our visit.

But we weren't just there for a jolly.  The theme of the conference was landscape level conservation (looking at the big picture rather than focusing in on the minutiae) and visitor safety in the countryside - issues common to all of the Trust's countryside properties. There must have been 80 or so staff there.  Most were countryside staff, but also staff from a wide range of other departments within the Trust, from Digital Media Managers to Health & Safety Advisers. And as always, the topics discussed were many and wide ranging.  Every year, I come away from the Countryside Conference feeling proud and privileged to be part of an organisation that looks after such amazing properties and employs such experience and knowledgeable staff.

Seabird Summary 2012

Fulmars (pictured left) – have not had a good year. We counted 133 nests, which is a decrease of 35% on last year’s count, well below the 10-year mean of 172 and about half of the 28-year mean. Although we weren’t able to carry out a formal study of fulmar breeding success, we only found 5 fulmar chicks that had reached fledging stage on the whole reserve.

Shags – well here, things looked a bit more rosy with 171 nests counted, an increase of 7% on 2011, and similar to the counts since 2005. However, this is below the 10-year mean of 192 AON, and well below the 28-year mean of 250 AON. Breeding success was down on last year (but last year was an exceptionally good year) but about the same as the 10-year and the 23-year means. Shags this year fledged, on average, 1.25 young per active nest.

Herring Gulls – have done OK this year as well, 266 nests counted which is above the 10-year mean, but below the 28-year mean of 354 AON.

Kittiwake – continue to have a difficult time of it. This year’s count of 4,314 nests is the lowest on record, well below the 10-year mean of 5,653 AON, and less than half the 28-year mean of 10,631 AON. However, to put it in perspective, although the number of kittiwakes has declined by 78% since the highest count in 1989, the counts since 2009 are now in the region of the counts from the 1950s. As far as breeding success goes, not as good as last year (but like the shags, last year was exceptionally good), with only 0.48 young fledged per nest. However, this is about the same as the 10-year mean, and only slightly below the 26-year mean.

Guillemot & Razorbills (latter pictured right) – we do not have the resources to count all the guillemots and razorbills every year, but we do count numbers on the same study plots every year so that we can compare whether numbers. This year guillemot numbers have decreased since last year, and are below both the 10-year and the 28-year means. Razorbill numbers are down on last year too, but are about the same as the 10-year mean, if below the 28-year mean.

Puffins – sadly for many, the puffin breeding numbers went down again this year from 7 birds ashore during the height of the breeding season (so probably with chicks in burrows) last year, to just 4 this year.

Keeping track...

For the second year in a row, our seabirds were the subjects of closer than usual study this year, with a small number of birds being fitted with electronic tagging devices. This year it was the RSPB undertaking the work as part of their Future of the Atlantic Marine Environment (FAME) Project. This involved attaching small a Global Positioning System (GPS) logger to the feathers of kittiwakes and guillemots, which they carried for just a few days. During that period, the logger recorded an accurate picture of the foraging destinations of the birds thanks to the high precision of GPS technology. These surveys will start to answer one of nature’s mysteries – where do seabirds go to feed when they leave the cliff. This will provide us with important information about what the birds need to thrive and will help us to conserve them in the future. Here's what a couple of our kittiwakes got up to over a couple of days:

The first was tagged on the 26th of May when it was incubating a clutch of two eggs. The map on the right shows the flight path this Kittiwake took during a two day period. The GPS tag attached to the feathers on the birds back logged a GPS point every 1 minute and 40 seconds. In areas where the dots are spread out the bird flew fast and in areas where the dots are clumped the bird slowed down to feed or rest. 

The second Kittiwake was tagged on the 27th of May when it, too, was incubationg a clutch of two eggs.  During the three day period this Kittiwake did three flights out to sea, one short trip south and two longer flights north (see map left). You can see quite clearly where this bird searched for food, flying tight circles. If you look closly you can see the side trip it did to visit the Isle of May.

It is truly amazing to see where these birds go to search for food during the breeding season. The map below shows the flight paths recorded for both of the above Kittiwakes on the same map, and gives a bit more perspective as to how far these small creatures travel over a small period of time. There are still many questions to answer, for instance, these maps show that not all bird go to the same place to feed, so what makes them choose the direction to fly in?  As usual, the more we find out, the more we realise we don't know!

Over the season the FAME Team were kept very busy as they were collecting data on kittiwake, guillemot, razorbill, shag and fulmar flight patterns on Orkney, Fair Isle, Colonsay, Isle of May, the Sillies, North Aberdeenshire, Fowlsheugh Nature Reserve and  Flamborough Head as well as at St Abb’s Head.

Another interesting project that stemmed from this work was "SEA Art in a Differnt Way" a collaboration between artists and scientists, culminating in an exhibition at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow between the 13th and the 21st October - check out the RSPB blog for more details   http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/getinvolved/b/seabirds/default.aspx

Long time no see

So sorry that it has been so long since the last post.  I can assure you that this is not because we have not been doing anything – rather to the contrary really.  It is due to the fact that we are having IT problems in the office.

So, what has been going on since July I hear you cry!  Well, we had a couple of groups of volunteers out fighting the good fight against creeping thistles on our grasslands.  A group of NTS Conservation Volunteers (or CVs as they are affectionately known - pictured right) came down from Edinburgh, and a group of Berwick Academy students who are working towards getting their John Muir Award.

Also, out on the grasslands one of the Trust’s Nature Conservation Advisors, Lindsay Mackinlay, came and spent a few days monitoring our grasslands – all part of our new grassland management plan that we have instigated this year.  This has also included us replacing nearly 2.5 km of fence to make sure that we can graze areas when we want to, but exclude stock at other times.

In August, Jack and Dave spent a couple of days working with the Trust’s in-house Footpath Team up at Ben Lawers.  The Footpath Team are experts in using a variety of techniques to repair footpaths, making the paths more comfortable to walk on, and so, in turn, protecting the habitat through which they pass.  Because if a path is uncomfortable to walk on, people will take a route that they find easier, forming more and more paths, and spreading erosion across the surrounding area.  Although the weather was far from balmy (see pic of Dave in the mist, left), Jack and Dave really enjoyed their time at Ben Lawers and learnt an awful lot.  This week, they have been putting their new skills to use on the path around the Mire Loch, improving drainage and surfacing, and putting in some steps. 

We had yet another wedding on the reserve last week - Anita and John got married on the clifftops above Petticowick (picture left). A bright and breezy day, but that only enhanced the already fantastic back drop, by adding in white caps on the dark blue sea and scudding clouds in the bright blue sky!

Also last week, we got a brand new 4WD for the reserve.  We have been having terrible trouble with vehicles over the last 3 months.  Our old 4WD died without warning in June, which rather left us in the lurch.  Luckily, our colleagues from Glencoe had a land rover that they could spare, and they were kind enough to lend it to us for a number of weeks.  It was a bit of an old banger, but better than nothing, but I must admit to being very relieved when I was told our new vehicle was ready to be picked up.  The land rover obviously didn’t want to go though, as it had two punctures in 24 hours, so delaying me being able to pick up the new vehicle by a number of days! 

Through the eyes of another...

A couple of weeks ago Becky Riseborough spent a week volunteering on the reserve.  During her time with us she spent part of her time shadowing us and also helping us with tasks like bracken bashing, thistle thwacking, producing children's activity sheets for the Nature Centre and producing a guide to the sea slugs to be found in the Marine Reserve. Plus, knowing that she takes fantastic photographs, I asked her to takes some shots to illustrate her time with us.  There's no real facility to upload them all onto the blog here (at least that I am aware of), but check them out on our Facebook page.  This link should allow you to access the images even if you are not signed up to Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.263281210442538.48636.213846425386017&type=3&l=3f7cc99f57 . Or you could check out some of her images which are on display in the Nature Centre (although they have lost some of their luminocity in printing).

Becky also wrote these words to go with her images: "These photographs were taken as part of my week spent volunteering up at St. Abb’s Head. Whilst there I learnt a great deal, from the nesting habits of guillemots and shags, to flower preference of an array of butterfly species. I took these photos to reflect the vast beauty that can be found around the reserve. It is not often that I find myself in the situation that allows the time to stand back and truly appreciate the unspoiled environment that can be found around our area. My week as a volunteer on the reserve has changed my perceptions of the natural world and taught me to really appreciate even the smallest of detail. I share these photos with the mind that everybody can experience and appreciate the minute, cherished details that we so often take for granted."

Enjoy!

Butterfly update...

Part of my job as seasonal ranger is to monitor butterflies on the reserve. This is done by carrying out weekly transects. This involves walking a set route around the reserve covering many different habitat types and counting the number of different species encountered. Transects can only be carried out when strict criteria such as minimum temperature and wind speed are met.

Carrying out butterfly transects allow us to monitor butterflies on a local level as well as to contribute nationally. At the end of the year our records are submitted to Butterfly Conservation and though them our records feed into a larger dataset helping to build up a picture of how species are doing nationally. Analyzing the data allows us to see things such as population declines, increases and distribution trends within individual species.

So far this year’s records are indicating that it has generally been a quiet start for many species on the reserve. Cold and wet weather is thought to be the reason for this.

To find out how this year’s weather has affected butterflies nationally visit the Butterfly Conservation website and read this great article. http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/article/9/287/wild_spring_weather_baffles_butterflies.html

Fingers crossed that the weather will be nice for our Moth and Butterfly morning on Sunday the 1st July... further information below.

Rumblings in the jungle?

Folk walking along the coast path will have spotted some strange goings on in the undergrowth at Starney Bay yesterday.  In fact, it was so strange that I ended up having shouted conversations with several people explaining what was going on.

Well, what WAS going on, I hear you ask?  Volunteers Ernie, Dave and myself were carrying out a little bracken control.  Being a conservation organisation we don't like to use chemical control where we can avoid it, so we were bashing the bracken using bamboo canes.  Now, this is not just a strange method we have come up with, it is tried and tested.  The idea is to damage the bracken as much as possible so that it has to expend a lot of energy healing rather than growing.  We will aim to bash it twice a year, and after three years it should be gone.  Its the same principle as using a tractor towed roller, or using cattle to trample the bracken.  But, of course, neither of these two methods are going to work on the 45 degree slopes above Starney!

I must admit, it must have looked really rather comical to passers by - like people talking out their aggression on the undergrowth with their walking sticks in a Fawlty Towers kind of way.  Ah well, a double whammy then, conservation work and entertainment all rolled into one!

Here's a couple of photos of Dave (top) and Ernie (bottom) to literally put you in the picture!

Stepping up to the mark...

This week saw the completion of a new flight of steps up the Mire Dam.  Regular visitors will know that it has always been a little tricky negotiating the spillway and then scrambling up the dam itself via some small stone steps.  Hopefully the new steps and the wee bridge over the spillway will make life much easier.  They both look very new and straight and perhaps a little out of place at the moment, but give Mother Nature time and she will soon help them blend in.  We have also replaced the stile at the top, and intend to put in a dog gate too in the future just to finish the whole area off. 

This work is the start of a larger project to improve the access to the Reserve.  Later in the year, when there are less folk about, we will be upgrading the car park and carrying out work on the coast path around Starney Bay.  This work is 50% funded by Scottish Natural Heritage with the other half being covered by the Trust.

Upcoming events...

We are running two new events this summer;

Firstly ‘Jumping Jumplings’ on Saturday 16th June, 8:30-10:00pm.

Every year when Guillemot chicks reach around three weeks old they take a dramatic plunge from their rocky shelf into the ocean below. Join us to watch as the flightless Guillemot chicks try their best to evade the hungry Herring gulls and reach the safety of the sea. The event is at the height of the season so the cliffs will be packed with birds nesting and feeding young. We ‘may’ also be able to pick out one or two Puffins. A car share from the nature reserve car park to the lighthouse will ensure that this event is accessible to all.

Meet at St Abb’s Head Nature Reserve car park (NT 913 674) at 8.30 pm on Saturday the 16th June to car share to the lighthouse. Bring binoculars if you have them, and come suitably clad and shod.

The second event is a ‘Moth and Butterfly morning’ on Sunday 1st July 9:30-11:30am.

We will be discovering the variety of moths at St Abb’s as we open up our live traps (set the previous night). This is an excellent opportunity to see moths close up and in daylight. After opening the traps we will take a leisurely walk around the Mire loch looking out for butterflies, day flying moths and other wildlife. Target species include Small Copper, Common Blue, Dark Green Fritillary and Northern Brown Argus. Experts will be on hand to help you identify.

Meet at St Abb’s Head Nature Reserve car park (NT 913 674) at 9:30am on Sunday the 1st July. Bring binoculars if you have them, and come suitably clad and shod.

Both events are priced at Adults £3, Children (16 and under) £2, Family (2Ad 2Ch) £10. Please note that children must be accompanied, at least one adult to four children.

For further information contact St Abb’s Head Rangers Office on 018970 71443

St Abbs Fest

So folks...the flyers have arrived, you can pick one up for your self at our Nature Centre or just click on the following link to open an electronic version... http://issuu.com/nationaltrustscotland/docs/st_abbs_fest_web_version/4 .

Come and join the celebrations!

Oh, and by the way, if you are hoping to come along to the SCO concert in Duns, you better be quick buying your tickets as I understand they are selling like proverbial hotcakes!

See you there!

Its Festival Time!

Regular readers will be aware of the pARTicipate project that we have been running at St Abbs for the past year or so, which aims to engage the public in the work of the National Trust for Scotland, through the arts.  Here at St Abbs we have been working mainly with the medium of music, and our main partner has been the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO).  You will have read before about the various fabulous events that have come out of this so far, but now the project is coming to its climax – the world premier performance of the piece of music that the Trust has commissioned from composer, Howard Moody, performed by the SCO.  This will be taking place on Thursday 24^th May, at the Volunteer Hall in Duns (see image above for details of how to get a ticket).  The piece will then be performed at two other venues as part of the SCO’s South of Scotland Tour 2012.

And if that wasn’t exciting enough, we decided that we should have some kind of mini festival on the run up to this world premier.  As this was a little bit of an afterthought, and it is a busy old time of year here at St Abbs, we haven’t had time to pull together all the potential events that could be part of a St Abbs Festival.  So we have just called it “The St Abbs Fest”, and who knows, if it proves popular in its embryonic form then maybe it will go on to become a regular thing and develop into a fully grown Festival in years to come!

The “St Abbs Fest” will start on Wednesday 16^th May and will run all the way through to the final concert of the SCO’s tour, which takes place in Castle Douglas on Saturday 26^th.  Events vary from guided walks to, to art exhibitions (including that of our Artist in Residence, Sarah Riseborough), to film shows and more.  Details to follow soon...

Just in time...

Hello everyone. I’m Jack the new Seasonal Ranger here at St Abb’s. I’ll be posting using this dark green font.

I’ve been here for about 2 weeks now and I’m settling in nicely. Initial reactions... what a fantastic place! I arrived here after spending the winter at RSPB Geltsdale in Cumbria and I was hoping for some dry, sunny weather. What did I get... snow, sleet, rain and a cold northerly wind. Fingers crossed for a return to spring.

So why St. Abb’s...
My main interest is in birds and the reserve certainly has a lot to offer in this department, from the breeding seabirds to the passing migrants. It’s also great to be working on a reserve that is home to a whole range of other wildlife... butterflies, moths, flowers, insects, mammals etc.

Having previously worked on the Farne Islands it feels great to be back working amongst a busy seabird colony.

It looks like I arrived just in time as the seabird breeding season has certainly kicked off. Shags are firmly settled incubating eggs and one or two of the Guillemots have also begun to lay. Guillemots were first seen on eggs on the 14th making this year the earliest year on record for St Abb’s. Exciting times!

Migrant birds have also begun to return with the first Willow Warbler on Sat and the first Swallows yesterday. I’ll be keeping the blog updated with sightings, as and when. Until then, here's a couple of photos I've taken just outside the Ranger's Office, using the digiscoping set up we have here. A brown hare (top) and a female blackcap (bottom).

Its official, its spring!

So, there are primroses and dog violets blooming; lambs gambolling about the fields; the seabirds are starting to settle down to breed; and spring migrants like chiffchaffs are singing away like crazing in the woodland. But to us in the Ranger's Office, the official sign of spring is when the Seasonal Ranger starts work, so spring officially sprung last week!

We have a new recruit this year, Jack, who has come to us hotfoot from Geltsdale, an RSPB reserve in Cumbria, and who worked on the Farne Islands last year. Jack has a lifetime's interest in natural history, his first love is birds, but he is also keen on butterflies and moths. Feel free to stop him for a chat if you see him around and about on the reserve.

A right, royal, celebratory start to the season...

Last week 8 students from Coldingham Primary school helped start off our season by planting trees along the side of the Mire Loch. The trees were sent to the school from the Queen's own forests, or order for them to be planted in a public place to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee year. The pupils were all members of the school's Environment Committee, and had planted trees before, so they made pretty quick work of getting the 20 trees into the ground. There were 4 species planted - birch, rowan, cherry and one royal oak, which was planted, near to the photo above, to mark the entrance to the Nature Reserve for centuries to come.

The Trumpet Volunteer...

Firstly, I need to apologise for the length of time it has been since I last posted. We had the decorators in doing the office just after Christmas which set us back a bit. And this was closely followed by a few unplanned occurrences which have taken some time to deal with, and we have been chasing our tails ever since it seems!

But enough excuses...where to start? As you might have gathered from the title, this post is going to be dedicated to our fantastic team of volunteers, without whom we could not do everything that we do here at St Abbs. And there has been an awful lot going on as far as volunteers are concerned in the last month or so. We had our Christmas party on Robert Burns’ birthday (well, December gets ever so filled up doesn’t it?). As usual, we went on an expedition aimed at being both fun and educational, and this year we visited Our Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh. If you haven’t visited, I urge you to go; it is such a great experience for all ages. Image left, the team enjoy the 3D presentation (L to R Dave, Ernie, Jack, Fran, Margaret, Georgia).

Also, we have taken Dave on as a Voluntary Ranger/Handy Man. Dave has been volunteering with us for a number of years now, but only as a member of our regular gang of volunteers who come and help out on a Wednesday morning. But as he has enormous amounts of energy, and a wide range of skills, it seemed a shame not to use them to their full capacity. So now he is spending the morning with the gang, and then in the afternoon is tackling the seemingly never ending list of jobs that need doing around the property. Regular visitors will notice that he has been doing a fair bit of work on footpath maintenance, as well as less noticeable, but just as important, handyman jobs in the various buildings on the property.

Then a couple of weeks back, Maggie Shaw, willow worker and friend, came to show us how to install a “fedge” (a cross between a fence and a hedge) between the Ranger’s Cottage and the Ranger’s Office, to form a natural looking dividing line, between the garden of the cottage and the surrounds of the office, and give those that live in the cottage a little privacy. Willow is an amazing thing, you can cut off branches, and push them into the ground, and they will take root and grow a whole new tree. We had to cut back some of the crack willow off the Mire Loch Dam so that the whole structure is visible for the annual inspections. So it was great that we could utilise this in the fedge – so free materials as well as giving the old willow in question a new lease of life. We also got free labour as Maggie donated her time as did a group of volunteers. Pictured right L to R Ernie, Ishbel Hayes, Maggie and Georgia. Thanks also go to Helen Cole and Peter Hayes. The fedge will take a couple of years to take root and start to grow above ground too, but once it does, there should be no stopping it. Not willing to wait, there was a robin investigating it before it was complete, and a whole variety of different types of bird have been seen on it since!

So as I say, what would we do without our volunteers hey? Many thanks to you all! And not just here at St Abbs, the Trust as a whole estimated that volunteers donated well in excess of £1 million worth of time to our cause last year alone. If you would like to donate your time to us, we are always looking for outgoing and knowledgeable people to man the nature and chat to visitors. SO if you fit the bill, please get in touch for a chat.

In the Bleak Midwinter...

On the eve of the winter solstice it seems appropriate to give you the last update of 2011. You have probably noticed that its been quite quiet on the blog front this month. That is certainly not because nothing has been happening; just the opposite, in fact. The truth is that so much has been happening that there just hasn't been time to write anything on the blog!

Its funny, the question us Rangers get asked most often is "what do you do in the winter?". And its one that it is difficult to give a satisfactory answer to. And again, that's not because we go into hibernation, its just we do so many different things that it is difficult to give a succinct answer. So, here, for your delectation, is a precis of what I have been up to during November and December.

Firstly, there are a fair few meetings - anything from the coming together of all the Countryside and Islands staff from the south of the Trust's domain to the AGM of the Marine Reserve (at which I act as secretary). I have also been on a couple of training courses: one on recruitment and interview techniques and a chainsaw course - again, a bit of an illustration of he breadth of the role!

I have also been drawing together the final paperwork for a funding bid to the Scottish Rural Development Programme in order to bring in funds to help us manage our species rich grasslands at St Abb's Head and at the Lumsdaine Strip. I just heard this week that this has been successful, which is great news. Also on the application front, I have put together and submitted a planning application to seek permission to site a mobile home behind the Ranger's Office to house volunteers in the summer months.

Other office work has included pulling together and analysing biological data collected over the field season, writing reports, work planning and setting budgets for next year, and organising everything needed to recruit a new Seasonal Ranger for next year (as, sadly, Elaine will not be returning next year).

Then there is carrying out maintenance around the property - either doing it myself with the assistance of our volunteers, Dave and Ernie, or bringing in contractors to do the work. Over the last couple of months we have tackled jobs ranging from blocked urinals to footpath maintenance ourselves; and have had contractors in replacing a fence at Blackpotts, putting in drainage in the nature reserve car park and decorating most of our buildings inside and out.

Phew - so, I am rather looking forward to my Christmas break! Which leads me on to wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

Science Group meets for the first time

On 6th December we were joined by staff from the Dove Marine Laboratory, Heriot-Watt University, The Wildlife Information Centre, the Berwickshire and North Northumberland Coast European Marine Site and the Marine Conservation Society for the first meeting of the VMR’s Scientific Study Group, the aim of which is to focus current and future research the VMR carries out. The meeting was a huge success with lots of exciting ideas being discussed and it was a great opportunity for different organisations to network and share information. New projects for 2012 were discussed, including sea urchin surveys and mapping horse mussel beds.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Well I think the picture above just about says it all! It was taken at an on Tuesday where pupils from Coldingham and Eyemouth Primary schools, got together with Eyemouth Fisherman's Choir and Mission Crew; a small ensemble from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and composer, Howard Moody, to share music inspired by St Abb's Head. This was the culmination of the first 6 months of the Trust's pARTicipate project at St Abbs (mentioned several times before in this blog). The event wasn't a performance as such, rather a sharing of the music with each other and a few selected folk who had been involved in the project, and, of course, some proud parents!

There were two sharing events, one at Eyemouth Primary School and one in St Abbs Visitor Centre. Both were excellent, but the latter, being in a much more intimate venue with great acoustics, was particularly moving. Luckily there were media students there from Stevenson's College in Edinburgh filming the occasion, with a view to putting a piece about it on the web to allow others to share the enjoyment too.

This project will now go into hibernation for a while, well for most of us, whilst Howard beavers away composing his big St Abbs Suite (a working title only) that will be performed at the SCO's South of Scotland tour next May. The world premiere will be in Duns - watch this space for more details. Below are a couple more pictures for your delectation!

My kind of engineering...

I have really posted this for my fellow Rangers here at St Abbs to prove that I am not the only one who believes that these two particular items are essentials in any Ranger's tool kit. I only have one criticism of the above flow chart - it doesn't include baler twine and silicon sealant!

Looking at things from a different angle

I have been away to Pitlochry for a Trust Staff Conference for a couple of days. We have a two such meetings each year, where the Property Managers who look after the Trust's diverse portfolio of 129 properties have a chance to get together with Trust Managers from a range of other disciplines and review the last season and plan ahead for the future.

Its always really inspiring and refreshing to meet up, to share experiences (both good and bad) and knowledge, and just to be reminded as to the enormous breadth of specialist skills that Trust staff possess between them.

On returning to St Abb's today, I went up to chat to a fencing contractor who is replacing a fence line on our land up behind the Rangers' Office, at a place called Blackpotts. The fields that we own here have minimal nature conservation value in their own right, but are an integral part of the grazing management of the delicate, flower rich grasslands of St Abb's Head. This is because they provided alternative grazing for the stock that we use to graze the Head, and enable us to be able to ask our grazing tenant to move the sheep from the Head to Blackpotts at very short notice. I don't have a reason to go up to Blackpotts very often, and every time I do go up there I am struck by the fantastic view you get from there (see picture above), and today it seemed somewhat symbolic of the importance of looking at things from a different angle.

A wave from St Abbs...

There have been tremendous seas followed by high onshore winds over the last couple of days, so I thought I would head down St Abbs harbour at high water to see what was occurring; and as I suspected there were some spectacular waves breaking over the harbour walls. I was particularly keen to see how the repair works on the sea wall are going, as these have involved taking down sections in order to completely rebuild them. As you can see to the right of the photo, there are still some holes in the wall, and the sea is getting through, but not apparently causing any havoc when it does.

The repairs being carried out to the sea wall are part of the project to build a Marine Research Station at St Abbs. If you would like to find out more about this project then please check out their website at http://www.marinestation.co.uk/StAbbs.html.

A call for support for Marine Protected Areas for Seabirds

The following is an excerpt from the Seabird Group Newsletter which I thought would be of interest:

"...there has been a recent whirlwind of activity around the designation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the UK’s seas. Much of the impetus for this comes from the passing into law of the UK Marine and Coastal Access Act and the Marine (Scotland) Act in recent years.

The creation of this legislation has been much welcomed by the environmental NGO community – the culmination of over a decade of campaigning supported by a huge swathe of the British public. One of the major successes of these laws was the legal duty placed on Ministers to designate a network of protected areas at sea – particularly for nationally-important habitats and concentrations of species which receive no protection through EU legislation (the Birds and Habitats Directives).

The processes for selecting these sites differ across Scotland, England and Wales. In Scotland, the process is science-led, with proposals for nature conservation MPAs brought forward by SNH, JNCC and Marine Scotland. In England, four independent stakeholder-led groups were convened to nominate Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) for protection. In Wales, given the high level of territorial waters already designated under EU legislation, the Welsh Government is leading on the selection of a limited number of ‘highly protected’ MCZs. These national level sites will prohibit any extractive or depositional activities, and aim to compliment the existing network of MPAs in Welsh waters.

As you would expect, the RSPB hoped that these MPAs would fill in the gaps for our nationally-important seabird colonies – presently protected on land through SSSIs but lacking protection in maintenance areas adjacent to their colonies and at important foraging sites offshore. In particular, we expected that black guillemot – the only seabird species in the UK which cannot be protected by marine Special Protection Areas – would be protected by the new national level designations. Without pre-judging the outcome of the site selection process, we hope that key areas for this species will be protected in Scotland, the UK stronghold for tysties – particularly the far north.

It is thus a major disappointment that, in England, seabirds – as well as some other mobile species – have been largely excluded from the ‘nationally-important’ site designation process (though one site for black guillemot is currently proposed in the English MCZ network at St Bees Head in the north west). In Wales, the restricted number and size of MCZs will offer very little in the way of additional protection for seabirds or other mobile species. In both cases, this is in spite of the relative simplicity with which colony extensions to protect maintenance activity areas could have been identified using agreed methodologies already applied to identify these extensions for SPAs across the UK (albeit that only those in Scotland have thus far been classified). Identifying key seabird foraging sites is admittedly more difficult – but not without precedent, and tracking technology is already revolutionising our understanding of seabird foraging – RSPB, working with partners across Europe (as part of the FAME project - www.fameproject.eu - see SGN115 Oct 2010), is using GPS technology in an attempt to proactively inform such designation. How key areas for seabirds are included in the Scottish site selection process remains to be seen – but we are continuing to engage with Marine Scotland, SNH and JNCC through workshops and consultation responses in the hope that seabirds will be actively protected through the process.

It is especially frustrating that much of the rationale for the exclusion of seabirds from the national MPA selection processes has been the fact that all species bar black guillemot qualify for protection within SPAs classified under the Birds Directive – 30 years after the deadline for implementation of the Birds Directive in the UK, we have only three truly marine SPAs (all in inshore waters), maintenance extensions to SPA breeding colonies – although identified and agreed some years ago have thus far only been classified in Scotland, and there are no areas protected for foraging seabirds in the breeding season.

Many members of the Seabird Group have been actively engaged in MPA work as it relates to seabirds – and we hope that you share our concern about the creation of the UK’s first MPA network being a massive missed opportunity for our seabird colonies. If you have time, we’d appreciate your show of support by signing our pledge at www.rspb.org.uk/marinepetition or by contacting your local elected representatives."

Home grown

I was out with two of our volunteers, Ernie and Dave, today, planting trees to the west of the Mire Loch. For Ernie, this was the culmination of a many years patiently waiting as he collected the acorns several years ago, planted them out in his garden and then dug up the resultant trees yesterday in order for us to transfer them to their final resting place on the reserve today. They are in the shelter of the more mature trees that are already growing around the Mire Loch, and have been staked and encased in tree tubes to protect them from browsing deer, so hopefully folk who visit St Abb's Head in a hundred or even several hundred years time will be able to enjoy the fruits of our labours.

Seabird Summary 2011

I am pleased to say that 2011 was a good year for the seabirds - its been a while since we've been able to say that. We must be careful not too read too much into this though, population numbers fluctuate wildly from year to year because there are so many factors effecting the seabirds, but nevertheless, it is nice to be able to report good news for once after all the years of doom and gloom.

You may remember me reporting that the breeding season caught us on the hop somewhat this year, with the birds starting to lay eggs more than a week earlier than ever recorded before. So we had to start early with our monitoring too.

The first monitoring to start is the shag productivity monitoring which the Seasonal Ranger carries out, starting in April and carrying on through until all the shag chicks have fledged, which can be as late as September some years. Basically this involves following the breeding activity at nests on a series of fixed study plots throughout the whole season, recording the number of nests built, the number of eggs laid, chicks hatched and eventually the number of young fledged per nest. This means you can then calculate the breeding success which was 1.85 chicks per active nest for shags this year, the second highest on record! Picture top left - a shag, looking resplendent with its shag (from which it gets its name) all fluffed up.

Next off is the whole colony count of herring gulls and shags, and yes, this is what it seems - we count every single nest we can find of each species. This is quite time consuming as it involves walking all of the cliff tops, scanning the cliffs from every possible angle and vantage point in order not to miss any nests. The count has to be done over several days as it is pretty physically tiring going up and down all the cliff tops, and out onto all the headlands, but also mentally - it takes an awful lot of concentration! Then we go out on a boat (weather permitting) and count the areas that cannot be seen from land. Both shag and herring gull numbers were very similar to the last few years (with 220 pairs of herring gulls and 160 pairs of shag . Picture right, a herring gull chick and an egg - it is best to count them at about this stage, any later and all the chicks start to run all over the place and its difficult to work out the number of active nests!

Then I start the kittiwake productivity monitoring - which follows the same principles as the shag productivity. Again, the kittiwakes had a good breeding season this year, with 0.95 chicks being fledged per active nest. This may not sound very high, but it is significantly above the 25 year average of 0.63.

Next up I start on the auk monitoring - now as we have something like 33,000 guilliemots it would be madness to try and do whole colony counts of these each year, so we only do total counts every five years. But each year we count the number of guillemots and razorbills on a series of fixed plots, doing a series of counts in the first three weeks of June and then taking an average. This gives an indication as to whether numbers are increasing or decreasing from year to year, this year counts of these two species were up on last year. Picture bottom left, a razorbill chick, oft overlooked.

Then comes the whole colony counts for fulmar and kittiwake - again, following the same principles as the counts for gulls and shags...but much more mind boggling as there are so many kittiwake nests! Again counts have stayed about the same as the last few years with 4,688 pairs of kittiwake and 205 pairs of fulmar.

Then last, and very much least, is the puffin count. This involves counting the number of birds seen ashore on one evening in late June. This count doesn't take long as there are so few puffins at St Abbs, this year there were just 7 birds ashore.

So, all in all, the seabird monitoring is a pretty major undertaking and keeps us pretty busy. All the data we gather doesn't end up on a shelf in the Rangers' Office, but gets fed into a national database and so helps to add to the picture of how seabirds are faring in the UK as a whole. And as the UK is the breeding site of nearly half of Europe's breeding seabird population it is pretty important that we know what is going on, and if possible, to work out why, and is there anything we can do about it. Also, seabirds are excellent indicators of the health of the marine environment as a whole, so another good reason to justify all our hard work!

An Inspector Calls...

Last week we had the dam inspector visit us - and no, I'm not being rude, what I mean is that an engineer had to come and inspect the Mire Loch dam to make sure that it is sound. It is only a small dam, but under UK law at present, all dams must be inspected annually, and have an extra rigorous inspection every 10 years. This is to ensure that they are solid enough to hold back the water they are impounding and also any once in a century flood incidents that could possibly occur, so making sure that the dam is not causing any threat to either lives or property. It does seem a little over the top for dams such as the one at the Mire Loch, as if it did burst, the worst you would get would be a few paddling cows! But nevertheless, the law states it has to be done.

This year it was one of our 10 yearly inspections, so the whole of the top and the downstream surface of the dam had to be visible to see if there were any wet areas suggesting a breach. This is why we had to clear all the lovely scrubby vegetation off the dam before his visit - not just me getting carried away with the strimmer! And then he took measurements of the height of the dam (accurate to the nearest millimetre) at intervals along the crest to see if there has been any settlement since 10 years ago ie any places that were lower than others so might allow water to flood over.

I am pleased to report that all seems to be well, so Northfield Farm's cows can remain dry for a while yet!

Missing Links...

I knew there was something missing...a list of useful links. Well that was relatively easy to rectify - if you look on the panel to the right hand side of the posts you will see a list. I have also added a link for our Artist in Residence, Sarah Riseborough's, blog and flickr page for your perusal.

So now you can enjoy St Abbs any time of the day or night with just a click of a mouse!

Theres gold in them there woods...

If you go down to the woods today... then you might well come across people very intently peering into the tops of trees with binoculars. What they will be looking for is a bird called a yellow browed warbler which is a species that migrates south-west from its breeding grounds in Siberia, and often stops for a meal and a break in coastal woodlands en route. We see them most years at St Abbs, but there have been a good number this year so we have also had a migration of groups of birders searching them out. They are tiny, and dot about a lot in the tops of trees so its a pretty neck aching job to find them. Luckily there are also large numbers of goldcrests (picture left) about too, so even if you cannot catch sight of the YBW then you will be able to watch these beautiful little birds instead. This is Britain's smallest resident bird (weighing in at a mere 5-6g) and breeds in pine forests, but large groups of them get together and roam further afield in autumn and winter. They are about the same size as a YBW so a good way of getting your eye in whilst you search too!

But not everything that glitters is a goldcrest...there are also flocks of goldfinches flying around out there too (picture right). Most people are more familiar with these delightful looking birds as they are a relatively common site on farmland and open ground in the breeding season and regular visitors to bird tables in the autumn and winter. Your attention is usually drawn to flocks of goldfinch by their lovely twittery calling as they fly around, and they love to feed on thistle seed heads in late summer and autumn.

So, its an exciting time of year to be bird watching, as you never know what you might see. And St Abbs, being a headland sticking out into the sea, is a great place for birds to make first landfall, and refuel before carrying on with their mammoth journeys. So why not get out there and join the gold rush?!

Trees are us!

This week is Borders Tree Hugging week - no, I haven't made it up, its an event being organised by Borders Forest Trust for raise awareness (and funds) to help with the conservation of the woodlands of the area. And, being a bit of a tree fan myself, I have thrown myself into this with gusto, and I decided to start off at St Abbs. "Trees at St Abbs", I hear you cry, "you must be joking?!" Well, I'm not - believe it or not there are actually 33 different types of trees on the species list for the National Nature Reserve. So I decided, what better way to start off Tree Hugging Week than to remind myself (and others!) of all the fabulous trees that are right here on our doorstep.

Most of the trees at St Abb's Head are concentrated around the Mire Loch, planted here in the early 1900s when the dam was built to form the loch for fishing. But there is also quite a concentration at the car park (where the old farmhouse and its gardens used to be) and around Northfield House. So, I decided to take a circular route from the car park, along the coast path (passing alongside Northfield House gardens, where a fair few trees overhang the wall), then around the Mire Loch and back to the car park again. Without having to deviate far from the path I managed to hug 21 different species of tree of all sorts of sizes. From the knarled and wind-sculpted hawthorns of an old hedgeline (probably pre-dating the Mire Loch) to the east of the Mire Loch (picture top left) to the newly planted ash along the west of the loch (picture right).

Purists might tut and shake their heads to see so many types of trees in the area that would not naturally be here. For instance, most of the mature trees around the Mire Loch are sycamore, which are not native to Britain. But at St Abbs they form an important part of the woodland habitat and we are happy to have them. Having said that, when we do plant more trees, we are sticking to native species these days.

So, why not get out on the reserve this weekend and see how many types of tree you can spot (and hug if you fancy!)? We have put some laminated ID sheets in the visitor centre to help you use leaves, twigs and seeds to tell what is what. It can be tricky sometimes, as the windy and salty conditions at St Abbs have resulting in trees taking on weird and wonderful shapes (see the larch pictured left). But you don't actually need to know what they are called in order to enjoy them, so don't so tied up in looking at the ID guides that you miss the beauty of the trees themselves!

For those of you who like tick lists, here is a list of the species I hugged: alder, ash, beech, silver birch, blackthorn, wild cherry, elder, hawthorn, hazel, horse chestnut, larch, pedunculate oak, osier, scots pine, rowan, sitka spruce, sycamore, common whitebeam, goat willow, crack willow, yew.

If you would like to find out more about Tree Hugging Week or the BFT, go to http://www.bordersforesttrust.org/support-us/tree-hugging-week

Basking shark is back!

Myself and many others saw a rare sight yesterday as another basking shark was seen in the area!! Though slightly late in the year for them to be around, this time the shark was seen at the mouth of St Abbs harbour where is lazily swam feeding! My dad with his eagle eyes spotted the shark by seagull rock. Though we could only see its dorsal fin and occasionally its tail fin it was still great to watch! A few divers on two of the dive boats spotted the shark as well and got some amazing views as it swam in between their boats!

Unfortunately my camera isn't great, though I did manage to snap some pictures of its dorsal fin as it came to the surface to feed. It was also spotted in Eyemouth after it left St Abbs so if your in the area keep your eyes out for a black dorsal fin!!

MINKE MAGIC

Yesterday evening, during another beautiful sunset over the Firth of Forth, I got a perfect view of Lorna's Species of the Month, a Minke Whale! I have never seen one before and it is a magical experience. As it was such a lovely evening and unusually calm at the Head I decided to chill out on the cliff at the edge of Foul Bay, just northwest of the Lighthouse and enjoy the sunset. The usual suspects were about, juvenile gulls, a couple of Greater Black Backs, the odd Shag doing a fly by and plenty of Gannet commuting to and from the Bass Rock. The sea was so calm despite a slight swell and the high tide was on the turn.

Just out of the corner of my eye I saw a dark shadow and a little spray. I saw nothing through the binoculars so thought I was imagining things. Same thing happened again. And then by pure coincidence I managed to get the binoculars on the right spot just in time to see a full blow, followed by a graceful arch of a massive black back through the water showing the small dorsal fin and a final flick of a huge tail fluke! I could not believe my eyes. It was so close I even saw its nostrils (or the whale equivalent!). At that point it was very close in, it was near two white buoys, which I assume were marking the position of some lobster pots. After that it hung around for a good 20 minutes surfacing occassionally. I saw some spray and the tip of its nose but I didn't get anymore amazing views.

What a magical moment and a perfect way to end a wonderful season here.

Species of the month - the Minke Whale!

There have been quite a few sightings recently of Minke Whales off St Abbs head!! With so many minkes spotted here is a bit of info for you all about these magnificant mammals and how to identify them.

Minke whales have a world wide distribution and are found in tropical, temperate and polar seas. They can be spotted from Norway to France and in the Northern North sea, where they can be seen in small numbers mainly from May to October.

Minke whales are the most abundant of the baleen whales as well as the smallest. The males range from 7-9.8m in length and the females are slightly larger from 7.5-11m! The head of a minke whale is slender, triangular and pointed.

The feature to look for to idenitify minke whales is their dorsal fin which is situated 2/3rds along their back and is small, triangular and curved in shape and is often the only feature seen when they are swimming. The head and body are dark in colour from grey to black. Another distinctive feature to look for if your up close or have binoculars are the white markings on each flipper.

The jaw of a baleen whale has approx. 300 short smooth baleen plates used to filter food from the water! The whales often ‘lunge feed’ where they lunge towards their prey at high speeds. Minke whales can reach speeds of 30km/hr! They feed on fish such as herring, cod, capelin, saithe, haddock, whiting and sand eels. In polar regions they feed on plankton or krill.

In the northern hemisphere reproduction takes place from October to March and gestation is about 10 months. Some whales migrate from polar feeding grounds to temperate water breeding grounds. Females normally give birth to a single calf but a very small percent give birth to twins or triplets!

Minke whales can be seen in small groups or as solitary individuals but they may congregate in larger feeding groups where up to 15 minke whales may come together at once! They also sometimes spy hop and breach and some curious individuals may even investigate boats.

During the 1930s in the northern hemisphere and the 1970s in the Antarctic minke whales were major targets of the whaling industry. In 1986 they were given protection from commercial whaling. Despite this Iceland continued their whale fishery until 1993 and in 1998 Norway resumed catching minke whales. Another concern for these large mammals is entanglement in fishing nets and traps. Some minke whales become entangled in fish cage nets.

This cetacean species can be seen quite regularly at the moment feeding off St Abbs Head or passing by. So if your planning a visit to St Abbs over the next few weeks keep an eye out for these incredible creatures.

Photogrpagh shown by Christopher Swann and taken from www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk