I was told about a search engine called Ecosia the other day - they use the revenue generated by advertising to plant trees, and have planted over 3 million so far. I am going to try it out, why don't you? Liza. https://info.ecosia.org/what?ref=first-search

Heard my first chiffchaff of the year just now, just outside the Rangers' Office - spring is here! Liza.

Loads of people out enjoying a walk around the reserve in the sun yesterday, watching the gangs of lambs racing up and down the fields, and who can blame them? Unfortunately, though, I had to ask three sets of people to put their dog on a lead, even thought there are signs up asking them to do so. You may recall, a few weeks back we had a sheep worrying incident, with a dog chasing heavily pregnant sheep. The owner was mortified, her dog had never done anything like that before. However well you think you know your dog, they have instincts. Please don't chance it - keep an eye out for signs, and please keep dogs on leads when asked to do so. Thank you. Liza.

Our local dry stane dyker, John Rae, has been repairing the wall to the south of the Mire Loch over the last couple of weeks. Its like doing a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, but with no picture to give you a clue as to what goes where. It takes skill and patience, but when done well, you shouldn't be able to tell where the mend is. John very kindly took a set of photos of the work he's been doing over the last few weeks to give you a bit of an insight into the process.  Liza.

You may remember that we had a Green Tourism audit the other week. This morning I received the news that we have been upgraded from Silver to Gold in recognition of the environmentally friendly way we run the property here at St Abb's Head. Good to know its been recognised that we practice what we preach! Liza.

Did you spot St Abb's Head on Countryfile last night? It was in a piece about the effect of wind farms on birds. It was an interesting piece, why not check it out on iplayer? The piece starts at about 6 mins 30 secs in.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0755hqf/countryfile-sussex

If you have been down by the Mire Loch over the last few months, you will have noticed that there has been a lot of work taking place on the Mire Dam. This is because a we have been trying to locate the source of a leak in the dam (which has been getting worse over the last couple of years), and plug it. The dam is of a pretty basic construction - a core of "puddled" or compacted clay, with stone armouring on the side nearest the loch and all buried in an earth structure. ...You would think with such a simple construction it would be easy to find and plug a leak, but it has proved to be somewhat illusive. We have dug several large holes, punched through the concrete spillway and one of its walls, puddled in tonnes of clay, rebuilt the wall and recast the concrete spillway, and we have definitely slowed the leak down, but not stopped it completely. All somewhat frustrating! 


However, now that the breeding season is approaching fast, we have had to put an end to our work down there so that there is time for the water level to come back up ready for the wildfowl to start building their nests (we've been keeping the water level down with a siphon whilst we have been doing our excavations).

So apologies for the noise, and the mess and the disruption. The contractors have tidied themselves off site pretty well, but it still looks pretty scarred at the moment. But once the grass starts growing it will soon heal over. What do they say about eggs and omelettes? Thank you for bearing with us!


Liza.

Another big thanks to our volunteers Bill, Jean and Ernie who came out last week to help us clear ivy off some of the walls near the car park. This has cleared the way for some repairs to be carried out. Below are Jean and Ernie in action.  Lizy.

I (Liza) was out on the cliffs with researchers from Napier and Northumbria Universities this morning. The folk from Northumbria were scanning the cliffs with a laser to produce a very accurate map of the cliff faces and kittiwake nest sites. The folk from Napier were introducing this year's research student, Jenna, to the site, and we were discussing suitable areas to install sound recording devices to monitor changes in seabird vocalizations in response to various factors. Isn't modern technology wonderful - except when the mist comes in, the laser didn't like that at all!

A silver lining?

We had our biennial Green Tourism business scheme audit today. Green Tourism is a not for profit organisation which aims to make tourism more sustainable. Every two years we are assessed by them every against a rigorous set of criteria, covering a range of areas such as energy and water efficiency, waste management, biodiversity as well as social and ethical choices. We are proud to be on the Silver level of grading - I wonder if we will have done enough to progress up to gold? Only time will tell!


Liza.

The recent warm weather has brought more spring firsts to St Abb's Head. We spotted our first butterfly, a Peacock, yesterday, and this stunning Red-green carpet was caught in a moth trap at the weekend.  Lizy.




Red-green Carpet (Chloroclysta siterata)

The last couple of days have been very spring-like here at St Abb's Head. Birds such as Skylark and Yellowhammer have started singing, flowers including Lesser Celandine and Primrose are starting to emerge, and most importantly the seabirds are back! The last couple of days have seen 1000s of Guillemots back on the cliffs, although they are very unsettled at this time of year, and could easily have all disappeared out to sea by tomorrow! Looking a bit more settled are the Shags which have already started to build nests.

Lizy.

Foul Bay, finally filled with the sights and sounds of a seabird colony after many months of emptiness

Guillemots back on the cliffs, including one bridled Guillemot with a white ring around its eye

Making an impression...

The wet winter is not seen by many as a positive thing, but one positive that has come out of it is the soft ground which is ideal for spotting wildlife tracks, like this set of badger footprints (left).  Badgers have quite distinctive footprints with one main kidney shaped pad, 5 toe prints and often also 5 claw marks above these as you can see here.  You can see there are two footprints here, badgers tend to step their back foot close to where their front foot was so often footprints are very close together. 


Badgers also do a lot of digging and there is plenty evidence of this around the loch.  These diggings are mainly for foraging as they love earthworms but some could be territorial markings where they dig latrine holes as badgers scent mark their territories.

All Washed Up...

At this time of year every year, people all around the UK and on the North Sea coast on the continent get out and walk along beaches looking for dead seabirds and other wildlife.  This may seem to be a rather macabre thing to do, but it is done for a good reason - to try and gather as much data as possible on the causes of winter mortality of seabirds. This is something that's quite difficult to monitor, because seabirds spend much of the winter out in deeper waters away from the coasts, only starting to come inland around this time of year, gearing up for the breeding season.  Therefore, if and when seabirds die out at sea, the body will be eaten by scavengers or sink to the seabed taking with it any evidence of what caused the death. 

There are many causes of death in seabirds - old age, starvation, hyperthermia (this is usually linked to something effecting their usual ability to maintain their body temperature), and more and more so these days - pollution.  This annual survey, called the Beached Bird Survey (BBS), was born out of trying to assess the effects of oil pollution on seabirds - something that was a very important factor in seabird mortality some 25 years ago when the survey first started.  These days, oil pollution is less of a threat on the whole, with the main pollutant of concern being plastic.

Today I was out walking Coldingham and Milldown beaches, and I am pleased to report that I only found two dead birds - one unidentifiable auk (not much left of it) and a puffin.

If you fancy a beach walk with a purpose, then why not think about getting involved next year.  The UK BBS is coordinated by the RSPB, so contact them for more details. Its important research, and gives you an excuse (should you need one) to go out beachcombing!

Liza.

Winter Solstice compliments of the season...

Please DO confer!

Last week I attended the Trust's annual Countryside Conference. It was based in Lochgoilhead in deepest Argyll and comprised two half days inside discussing various topics from health and safety to promoting the Trust's countryside work. We also had one full day out on site, split between the Beaver Reintroduction Project site at Knapdale and the Trust's fabulous woodland garden at Crerae. Storm Abigail was kind on the whole - although it was a tad breezy and we had one major downpour that soaked us all in the space of about 90 seconds!

The annual conference is the only time that NTS countryside staff from all over the country get together in one place (there's a lot of us about - something like 50 or so attended the conference and no everyone was there!).  As always, it was great to share news, ideas and experiences, as well as a couple of beers and plenty of laughs! 

The main highlights for me were seeing the signs left behind by beavers (I now totally understand where the term "busy as a beaver" comes from!) and also being on the winning team for the quiz - two things I have never experienced before.

Here's a few shots I took to give you a flavour...

Just half of the conference attendees learning all there is to know about beavers

A 45 degree angled cut - classic beaver sign

They will fell quite large trees - it just takes team work and time!

Once the tree is felled they will cut off small branches to build their dams and lodges, and eat the bark off the larger branches.

Although it may look like beavers are just incredibly destructive, they bring lots of benefits to the wildlife of an area and also help with flood control!

Hello from Helen!

Hi I’m Helen and I’m the new Assistant Ranger here in St Abbs for the winter.  I arrived on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning last week, so I’ve been here two weeks now and I’m really enjoying it so far!  I hadn’t been here before so my first walk around the reserve was really exciting; the views of the sea and cliff faces were stunning!  I knew there wouldn’t be many sea birds around at this time of year so wasn’t surprised to see so few of them; however since I arrived I have seen some shags, guillemots, various gulls and oystercatchers and some eider ducks in the sea as well as some seals.  My sightings of other birds so far include a kestrel, linnets, thrushes, lots of blackbirds and starlings as well as some fieldfares which seem to be really enjoying the berries on the trees beside the track, through the farmland from the Mire Loch!  On the loch itself I’ve seen moorhens, coots, little grebes, mallards and the swan, and was sad to hear the other swan had died the week before I arrived, but both Lizy and I were happily surprised to see two swans there again in my first few days!  Whether the lone swan has a new mate or has been ousted by a 2^nd pair we will never know unfortunately.  Every morning I look forward to eating my breakfast while watching the woodpecker, a nuthatch, great tit, coal tits, blue tits, sparrows and chaffinches fighting for their own breakfast from Lizy’s feeders while a pheasant eats below – pretty impressive for a view out of your lounge window!    My best sighting so far was the appearance of a short-eared owl directly above us in the middle of the day, hovering for a moment before continuing to be chased off by a rook!

My first day involved a lot of introductory reading some of which I’m still finishing off!  Since then I’ve been busy out and about all over the reserve helping Lizy carry out maintenance work.  This has included fixing the railings near the path up to the cliffs from the nature centre, burning piles of gorse that been cut recently to prevent it spreading and allow other plants to grow, gathering the data from our people and car counters, litter picks, weeding the boathouse roof, measuring the Mire dam water levels, replacing several sunken posts at Pettico Wick, fixing tree guards, sanding and treating benches among other tasks. 

I met Bill on Wednesday last week, a local volunteer who comes every Wednesday for our volunteer days.  Together with Lizy we cleared the ditch beside our office gate which a hawthorn tree had taken over along with some brambles.  It took a lot of untangling but we got there in the end and the burn was freed!  This week the three of us started cutting out a new path beside the Mire Loch to avoid having to cut back oak trees that are growing out over the existing path.  On one of my first days I was asked to be a visitor and walk around the reserve noting down anything that I felt wasn’t clear or needed attention.  I really enjoyed my walk round and the chance to explore the reserve and read the interpretation panels outside on the reserve and in the nature centre too!  The nature centre shuts from November until next Easter so on Monday this week, we cleaned and shut it for the winter which was quite sad having only seen it open for a week, but I was glad to have spent the time reading all the interpretation as it provided a real insight into the reserve and I personally thought it was all very interesting and very well done! 

I have really enjoyed carrying out all of these tasks, each one is a new challenge and at the end of them you always feel a real sense of achievement and often people stop on their way past and thank or compliment us which is really nice too!  I have always enjoyed working outdoors and love having a view over the sea whilst I am working too!  I am really looking forward to seeing and counting grey seal pups very soon too!

Its nearly the end of my second week here in St Abbs and it feels like it’s going past so fast already but I also feel that in that short space of time that I’ve learned and seen so much and I am really looking forward to seeing what the rest of time here will bring!

There is a definite change of pace here at St. Abb’s Head lately as the busy summer breeding season comes to an end.  If you’ve visited the reserve recently you’ll have noticed that our cliffs are nearly empty now, with the majority of our seabirds back out at sea.

Other birds are on the move here too;  swallows and martins are gathering,and preparing for their long journey back to Africa for the winter.



Swallows and House Martins

Earlier this week I counted 126 sat on the wires outside our office, and that’s not including the ones swooping above the grass catching insects.

Sycamore seeds

The leaves of the trees haven’t quite started to turn yet, but these colourful sycamore seeds are a sign of things to come with their beautiful autumnal colours.  This year’s rowan berries are looking quite spectacular on the walk around the Mire loch, and should provide plenty of food for migrating birds such as redwing and fieldfare when they arrive later in the year.

Rowan berries

Summer isn’t over yet though!  On a walk around the Mire Loch on a warm sunny day you can find yourself surrounded by butterflies and flowers, many of which are at their best at this time of year.

Small Copper on Scabious

This small copper butterfly is feeding on a scabious flower.  Butterflies also on the wing here include, large, small and green-veined white, small tortoiseshell, peacock, red admiral, painted lady, wall brown, common blue, meadow brown and ringlet.  Keep a lookout for them on the spectacular clumps of black knapweed and thistles dotted around the reserve.

Black Knapweed

The Gregarious Guillemots

Well time has flown by since my last post! It was a very busy spring season with all attention focused on the spectacular cliffs covered in myriads of seabirds. Studying the guillemots and razorbills breeding success dominated my time in May and June and gave me a really privileged insight into the trials and tribulations of their lives. I witnessed a huge range of behaviours in the guillemots. As they nest in such dense colonies there are lots of interactions between individual birds.

Guillemots form strong pair-bonds, which are maintained from year to year, most birds breed for the first time at 5 years old. In the dense colonies pairs have a ‘nest’, and in most cases return to the same location each year, which they defend as a territory. Guillemots defend the smallest known nest-area territory of any bird, about 0.05m². This includes the nest-site and an adjacent area where the off-duty (not incubating) bird of the pair can rest. They will have several neighbours most of which are less than 5cm away. Their territory is used for courtship, mating and raising their young. Before incubation begins the colony will roost at sea overnight, returning to their nests each morning, they will do this for varying periods of times from an hour to all-day, but the amount of time spent on the cliffs increases as the season progresses. So in April, on some days the whole colony would be on the cliffs and then the next day there wouldn’t be any birds. They also were more likely to be present on the cliffs for longer when the weather was calm.

Before the eggs were laid I would see a lot of allopreening (figure 1) between mates, this is when the bird preens the head and neck of its mate. Often you could see the feathers of the recipient were raised and when being preened on the chin and throat they would raise their heads vertically. To me this looked as though the recipient was enjoying the experience. The pair would also bow frequently and pairs would do this together regularly before allopreening. It is thought that bowing indicates the pair’s ownership of their territory. If one of the pair had been in a confrontation they would return to their mate and perform a mutual fencing display, where they clash bills together. This seemed to suggest that they ‘had each other’s backs’ and was a way of providing comfort and support to the bird involved in the confrontation.

 

Figure 1 Allopreening

It is when the pairs are re-establishing their sites that the most aggression occurs. If the bird feels threatened, for example, if another bird is intruding of its territory, then it will assume the alert-posture (figure 2), whereby it stands upright, extends its neck and raises its wings. Often alert-bowing will follow, where the neck moves rapidly down in an arc and then up again. The rival will respond by assuming the alert-posture as well and rebuffing the attack by pointing and stabbing its beak at its opponent. If the aggression escalates then the birds stand on their tip-toes and lift their wings higher, they can then start jabbing and grappling their beaks. However full blown fights like this weren’t common and aggression was more regularly meet with appeasement behaviour. This behaviour is well-develop to aid high-density nesting and most antagonistic interactions compromise one bird threatening and the other would display an appeasement behaviour after first retaliating briefly. Appeasement behaviours include side-preening (figure 3), turning-away and stretching-away (figure 4).

Figure 2 Alert-posture

Figure 3 Side-preening

Figure 4 Turning-away (left) and stretching-away (right)

Guillemots do not build a nest; the egg is laid directly onto the ledge. An interesting adaption to what might seem a perilous situation is it that the eggs are heavily taped at one end (figure 5); this means an egg will roll in tight circles rather than off the edge of the ledge. Both parents take it in turns to incubate the egg for up to 24 hours at a time. The egg rest on the bird’s feet and is then tucked tightly under the bird as they sit on it, there it rests against a brood-patch. This is an area of skin without feathers and is well-supplied with blood-vessels at the surface; it is an adaption many birds have to increase heat transfer to their egg(s). This also means the egg is completely out of sight to predators, such as the herring gulls. The off-duty mate roosts at sea along with immature birds, leaving just the incubating birds on the cliffs at night. In the morning and evening the number of birds on the cliffs increases as the birds change-over. The change-over is a ritualised and careful manoeuvre; the off-duty bird first approaches the incubating bird and bows its head. Sometimes the incubating bird appeared to ignore this action so its mate would preen it until it agreed to move. This agreement was demonstrated by mutual head-bowing and then both birds would shield the egg by raising their wings as the change-over happened. This would happen quickly and the raising of wings is clearly an anti-predator adaption as this is when the egg is most exposed.

Figure 5 Eggs

For my study I was trying to record the contents of the ‘nest’ and as you can imagine this was quite difficult as the egg is completely hidden under the incubating bird. Therefore a bird which is sat down could be either incubating or just sitting down. This meant I would wait to see if the bird would lift its breast so I could see whether or not it had an egg. Clearly this is something the birds do as infrequently as possible to protect their egg for predators.  If the incubating birds mate was present or if it was preening itself, there was a good chance that I would be able to sneak a peek. I also noticed that on many occasions, the first time I would see an egg at a nest both birds would be present and they both appeared very interested by the appearance of their egg.

More often than not, the incubating birds were asleep on the cliffs; they would be faced towards the cliff with their breast against the rock. Their heads were hunched into their bodies and their bills with either raised slightly or tucked into their wing. Often I could see them slowly blinking and they looked like someone who was very tired struggling to keep their eyes open. When the bird was like this I would record that they were incubating and move to the next bird, as they seemed to be able the sleep for hours.  

Once the birds were incubating their eggs the colony seemed a lot calmer. I regularly saw the off-duty mate preen the back of the incubating bird. Close physical contact with their incubating neighbours was tolerated and I actually witnessed birds preening the backs of incubating neighbours.

Once the eggs began hatching the dynamic of the colony changed again. I began seeing birds landing with fish in their beaks. Frequently, these birds would return to ‘nests’ where a chick was not present. On further reading it is likely that these birds had lost their eggs. If the bird was at the nest by itself it would just hold the fish, sometimes bowing its beak to its feet as if attempting to feed a chick. If its mate was present they would exchange the fish at their feet. This behaviour often led to aggression as other birds would try to steal the fish.

Again another clue for me that an egg had hatched was the presence of both parents at the nest and intense interest. Once the chick has hatched it continues to be brooded against the brood-patch for a few days. Which means a bird can still appear to be incubating even once the chick has hatched. The incubating birds did however seem to like preening the heads of their chicks. Also the off-duty mate would appear with a single fish for the chick and the feeding of the chick happened in much the same way as the change-over, where both parent would raise their wings to shield the chick. It was during these moments that I could record the contents of the ‘nest’.

It is after about 4 days that the chick becomes too big to the brooded against the brood-patch and is instead brooded under the wing. At this point it was much easier for me to see if a bird had a chick or not. Once the chick reaches 9-10 days old it is able to thermoregulate and does not need to be brooded, although the chick will remain under its parent’s wing to protect it from predators for the majority of the time. However when the coast is clear they will emerge from their parents wings and go for a wander round to their neighbours. This is when fights seemed to break out between neighbouring birds; as parents tied to protect their wandering chick.

Sadly but inevitably as the season progressed more and more birds lost their eggs and chicks to predation. So I more frequently saw birds bringing in food for ‘phantom chicks’. This ‘phantom chick’ phenomenon was also apparent in another behaviour; footlocking. This is when a bird bends forward so the bill touches the ground, and they then nibble their feet or pick up and drop small stones by their feet. It looked as if the bird was going to preen its chick and then realised there wasn’t one there. Furthermore, when chicks were lost the female would stay at the nest site for days still incubating their ‘phantom chick’. I really felt sorry for these birds that had invested so much into rearing a chick and now would have to wait until next year to try again.

Later in the season younger non-breeding birds also increasing begin to visit the breeding ledges. This combined with birds that had failed and wandering chicks, not forgetting preying gulls, made for a hectic colony. Then as soon as they arrived they began to leave.

The chicks start to ‘jump’ at around two weeks old. They are called jumplings rather than fledglings as they leave the nest before they can fly, and jump into the sea. This happens on calm evening before dusk and with a colony here of over 30,000 birds they jump in quite quick succession. I would certainly recommend having a picnic on the top of the cliffs around the summer solstice to witness this amazing spectacle. Chicks are seen wandering around, preening frantically and flapping their tiny underdeveloped wings. They then move to the edge of the cliff with their father, bowing to each other as they go and being pecked by the other birds they have to squeeze past. Once at the edge they bow more and more frequently until the chick jumps! They normally fall straight down with their wings and large feet outspread and will land on their bellies. If they’re lucky they will hit the water but many bounce of rocks as the fall and may have to jump a few more times before the reaching the sea. There they are reunited with their father and swim out to sea, he will care for the chicks for up to another 12 weeks. The mother stays at the nest site for up to three weeks after the chick has fledged.

And that is the amazing breeding season of a Guillemot, there’s certainly a lot to it and I feel very lucky to seen all those varied and wonderful moments. After completing my work in the morning to monitor the breeding success of the guillemots and the razorbills and I was able to ‘pop-up’ and talk to some of you up on the cliffs. As I sure many of you know we had a pair of Kestrels nesting on the cliffs this year, very well camouflaged but in plain view and close enough to be able to observe them with ease. This was one of the things I most enjoyed sharing with visitors. As they were so well camouflaged most people were unaware of their presence but once pointed out they couldn’t believe how close they were. I know it was for me, and I think it was for many others, the best view of kestrels they have ever had.  We had four young kestrels fledge from that nest and we see them soaring overhead on the reserve regularly. What a spring!


Written by Charlotte (assistant ranger)