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The Week in Review – 24th October

Baitfish shoal — The beautiful iridescence seen in this shoal of baitfish provides camouflage in shallow water. Image by William Warby.

News from outside the nest

This week we learned all about the shiny things of the natural world and the underlying structures that create iridescence.

We read about nature’s lovers and fighters: from this fascinating research into the beginnings of sex on earth…to the long drawn out battles occurring between hives of Australian bees.

Providing a new solution for the management of non-native plants, the humble goat has proven to be a great non-toxic approach in the East Coat Marshes of the US and Canada.

We found these rare images of a smallspine spookfish truly bizarre.

It is always fascinating to see the human-like characteristics of our closest relatives, and this new research showing chimpanzees searching for their favourite tool was no exception.

And finally…”A grizzly stole my GoPro!” – This footage from Knight Inlet in Canada made us laugh.

New arrivals at the warehouse

Perfect for Christmas, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2015 Desk Diary is now in stock.

Two new additions to the range of FSC fold-out guides: Mosses and Liverworts of Woodlands and Mosses and Liverworts of Towns and Gardens

From the keyring sized Micra to the tool-packed Surge, there’s a Leatherman for everyone.

SteriPEN UV water purifiers are perfect for the traveller or field worker.

The Week in Review – 17th October

Monarch Butterfly — There are difficult days ahead for this fascinating and beautiful species. Photo by Deborah, Flickr Creative Commons

News from outside the nest

We have been keeping an eye on the webcam at Dorset Harbour following announcements that the largest flock of spoonbills ever to be seen in Britain were sighted on the Brownsea Island Lagoon.

The Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, and we were as astounded as ever by the standard of photographs on display.

We read about the plight of the Monarch butterflies, their astounding migrations and the efforts being taken to save them from extinction.

Evolving in leaps and bounds, quite literally; poisonous cane toads in Australia are jumping straighter and farther, allowing this invasive species to expand into new territories at an alarming rate.

We learned some fascinating things about how birds cope with turbulence from an eagle wearing a black box flight recorder.

The beautiful Nature is Speaking series from Conservation International has kept us entranced.

And finally…Raffia the camel became the first animal to be involved with Google Maps in efforts to capture images of the Liwa Desert in Abu Dhabi.

New arrivals at the warehouse

The second addition of British Soldierflies and their Allies contains beautiful photographs alongside illustrations of key indentifying features. It also includes the most up to date information on species’ status.

Sex on Earth is a highly readable work that celebrates and investigates the hows and whys of sex on our planet.

Build-in sparrow boxes are now available in a terraced version, providing space for three nesting pairs. Choose from red or blue brick or face them with your own to perfectly match your building.

The Ltl Acorn 6310 is available with a choice of night vision LED types (standard or low glow) and is the latest addition to the range available at NHBS.

The Week in Review – 10th October

Honeybee — Will our cities be the salvation of these vital insects? Picture by Rakib Hasan Sumon

News from outside the nest

We watched this inspiring film from Mosaic about the Urban Pollinators Project and learned how our cities may be the last refuge of some of our most vital pollinating insects.

And from the very small to the very large, we witnessed the US government sign a contract which saw debt owed by Indonesia to the United States swapped for rhino protection and conservation measures.

We listened to the great podcast “Costing the Earth” which, this week, looked at the impacts of climate change on small Caribbean Islands and their probability of future survival.

This fascinating research from the University of San Diego on cross-species vocal learning in killer whales showed us how these amazing mammals learned to communicate like bottlenose dolphins.

We were excited by the release of the GoPro HERO4.

And finally, we listened to what would happen if the pattern of birds perched on electrical lines were transformed into musical notes.

New arrivals at the warehouse

The new Spypoint SMART Trail Camera utilises Intelligent Triggering Technology which alters the number of photographs taken or length of video based upon the movement pattern detected – now available for pre-order.

These mobile Dino-Lite digital microscopes provide a portable, computer-free microscopy solution

Twenty-eight years following the first edition, the long awaited second edition of the Birds of New Guinea is now in stock

The latest in the New Naturalist series looks at Nature in Towns and Cities

The Week in Review – 3rd October

Hedgehog — These once common garden visitors are now a rare sight in the UK. Image by Milo Bostock

News from outside the nest

With news that world wildlife populations have halved in the last 40 years, we were keen to find out which British wildlife species have been most affected.

On a brighter note, we learned all about solar power: from the UK’s first floating solar farm, and solar sunflowers to solar powered beer.

We were fascinated by this video of a rare purple siphonophore, discovered by marine biologists in the Gulf of Mexico.

As many of our summer bird visitors leave for warmer climates, we have been keeping an eye on the radio-tagged cuckoos on the fantastic BTO cuckoo tracker and were excited to observe the first arrivals in the Congo rainforest.

And with birds in mind we listened to Mark Avery talk about the last passenger pigeon and autumn bird migrations.

And finally….we ventured to the hedgerows to stock up on home-made sloe gin.

New arrivals at the warehouse

The Ltl Acorn cameras were an exciting addition to our trail camera range.

Now in stereo – the new Batscanner from Elekon.

The Vascular Plant Red List for England presents, for the first time, a comprehensive list illustrating the status of native plants and archaeophytes in the region.

A Feathered River Across the Sky tells the story of how our passenger pigeons became extinct.

Collecting visual evidence of bats at roost entrances

Aim
Recording bats and their behaviour around roost entrances can be extremely useful for a number of reasons: as evidence to present to a client, to demonstrate or test for a change in behaviour during or after mitigation, and as a back-up system to record the presence of the quieter bats like the brown long-eared. We tested two night vision systems at a lesser horseshoe maternity roost.

Methods

We set up two very different night vision video recorders on tripods near the entrance of a large lesser horseshoe roost near Totnes, Devon. The first was the Yukon Stringer 5 x 50 Night Vision Monocular, a very reasonably priced Generation One night vision device with a built-in video recorder. The second was the Pulsar Quantum HD38S Thermal Imaging Scope, a thermal imaging camera with a 30 Hz refresh rate coupled with a Yukon MPR Mobile Player / Recorder. Both were used to film bats as they emerged from the roost entrance and as they flew around the garage within which the roost entrance is sited.

Results
The two videos below demonstrate close-up and distance footage from both the Yukon Stringer and the Pulsar Quantum:

Discussion

Image Quality: The Pulsar Quantum produced some very high quality video that was clear and easy to interpret. The results from the Yukon Stringer are slightly less clear but are still of sufficiently high quality for most purposes.

Usability: The Yukon Stringer does have a much narrower depth of field and due to the fixed zoom it proved very hard to get any decent footage of the bats flying around within the garage space.

Battery Life: The only drawback was the short battery life of both the Quantum and the Yukon MPR Mobile Recorder. To get round this we used the EPS5 External Battery on the Pulsar Quantum and changed the batteries of the Yukon MPR regularly – not the ideal solution but the cheapest way we know of to get some really impressive thermal imaging video.

Six eponymous bird name facts

This month sees the publication of Bo Beolens’, Michael Watkins’ and Michael Grayson’s The Eponym Dictionary of Birds – a major publication with over 4,000 entries to fascinate the curious-minded birder. Each entry explains the biography behind the people commemorated in bird names, from lesser-known but dedicated collectors to officers, dignitaries and royals. Such as:

Passerini’s Tanager and Salmon’s Jacamar

Professor Carlo Passerini (1793-1857), an Italian entomologist and an early enthusiast of scientific photography, and Colonel Thomas Knight Salmon (1840-1878), a British railway engineer whose lung disease forced him into retirement and to opening a naturalist’s shop, are perfect examples of the hundreds of entries concerning those dedicated relative unknowns whose efforts have added rich threads to the natural history of birds and beyond. Salmon’s health deteriorated and he travelled to Colombia for the better climate where he spent seven years. He died in England leaving a collection of 3,500 bird skins.

Adelie Penguin

This entry exemplifies a theme of dedicating the naming to one’s spouse, in this instance Adelie Dumont d’Urville (1798-1842), the wife of Admiral Jules-Sebastien-Cesar Dumont d’Urville, who first found this penguin. Various places in and around Antarctica were similarly honoured, including the Adelie Coast.

It is not only the eponymous common names that are included. So many latin names contain dedications too, for instance:

The Red-headed Parrotfinch, Erythrura cyaneovirens gaughrani was named after American waterpolo player Dr James ‘Jim’ Alan Gaughran – who, apart from appearing at the 1956 Olympic Games and acting as head coach of Stanford University’s waterpolo team from 1969-1973 – was with duPont on the 1970 expedition to Western Samoa during which the parrotfinch holotype was collected.

Dig around and it won’t be long before you discover some familiar territory:

Lewis’s Woodpecker is named after Captain Merriweather Lewis (1774-1809), one half of famous explorers, Lewis and Clarke. Their expedition of over 4,000 miles across the North American continent was rich in discoveries, not least the collection of the holotype of this woodpecker. It was collected in near Helena, Montana, and is now in Harvard, perhaps the only bird specimen left from the expedition.

Finally, it must be worth mentioning that the Great Egret has been known as Queen Victoria’s Egret. Victoria was opposed to the feather trade and ordered her regiments to stop wearing plumes in their uniform, giving her a royal place in bird conservation.

Micro photography with the Dino-Lite digital microscope

A digital USB microscope is a fantastic way to view and capture images of specimens and has many applications in the classroom, laboratory or at home. The Dino-Lite range of USB microscopes provides a large variety of models ranging from affordable microscopes for the amateur user to extremely high resolution, feature-packed options designed for the professional market. Dino-Lite USB microscopes can even be used as a standard webcam with applications such as MSN Messenger and Skype, a handy feature which allows remote users to collectively view and discuss the microscope output.

Watch the AM4113T Dino-Lite Pro in action

The Dino-Lite AM4113T is a professional digital microscope which provides 10x – 50x magnification with an additional 200x setting when the microscope is directly above the object being observed. A 1.3M pixel image sensor provides sharp, high resolution images with a large field of view. The AM4113T comes complete with DinoCapture software (or DinoXcope for Mac) which enables you to capture images and videos, annotate them and also use measurement features.

Watch high-res micro photography from the AM4113T

Other Dino-Lite Products

Entry level: AM2111

Ideal for educational use and Bioblitz events
640 x 480p resolution
10x – 70x and 200x magnification
Image capture software included

Advanced features: AM4815T Edge

20x – 220x magnification
Interchangeable end caps
Extended Dynamic Range and Extended Depth of Field
Polariser option available

For professional presentations: AM7013MT 5M pixel

5M pixel (up to 2595 x 1944p)
Magnification of up to 400x
Robust metal housing
Polariser option available

Birds and Climate Change – authors James Pearce-Higgins & Rhys E. Green discuss the impacts and responses

Birds and Climate Change: Impacts and Conservation Responses has just been published by Cambridge University Press. This key topic is given a broad critical review by James Pearce-Higgins, a Principal Ecologist at the British Trust for Ornithology, and Rhys E. Green, Principal Research Biologist at The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Honorary Professor of Conservation Science at the University of Cambridge. We asked them a few questions about the priorities and processes involved.

Given this is such a vast subject, is it possible to summarize what we know currently about the impacts of climate change on birds – and also how we know it?

There has been an increasing wealth of scientific information published in recent decades, documenting the impacts that climate change has had on birds, which we review in the first part of the book. One of the best documented impacts is that the timing of spring migration and breeding outside of the tropics has become earlier in response to warming. There is also strong evidence that the abundance within bird populations has changed in response to changes in climatic variables through time. This has occurred through a range of different mechanisms. In response to climate change, these processes have led to significant changes in the composition of bird communities through time, and to shifts in species’ distributions, which have tended to move poleward by an average of over 7 km per decade.

The precise impacts of climate change vary across the globe, with changes in temperature being much more important in temperate and higher latitudes, whilst variation in rainfall is the most important cause of change in the tropics, and to long-distance migrants. Although there is a burgeoning evidence base about climate change impacts on birds, much of this research is from Europe and North America. We show in a key graph how little research effort there has been in the tropics, where we have shown the ecological processes are different, and where the majority of bird species are found. Long-term monitoring of bird populations, breeding and migration are an important resource for climate change studies. These studies have been done both by volunteer enthusiasts and academics, but mostly in the Northern Hemisphere and outside the tropics. Addressing this monitoring and research gap should be a high priority.

Much of the long-term monitoring data required to study the impacts of climate change upon birds is necessarily collected by volunteers (citizen scientists) because this ensures that the data are sufficiently extensive and sustainable in the long-term. Thus, information about the changes in the timing of migration and breeding is collected through bird observatories and schemes like the BTO’s nest record scheme, whilst large-scale information about bird populations and distributions is collected by standardised monitoring by volunteer birdwatchers, such as through annual breeding bird surveys and periodic atlases. Ringing (banding) and nest record schemes provide information about birth and death rates, which can help identify the processes behind these changes. These data are complemented by professional studies which are often more intensive and particularly have helped to understand the ecological mechanisms of change.

What sort of conservation responses are available?

The second part of the book examines potential conservation responses to climate change. The first step in this is to predict the future impacts of climate change on birds, which is covered by its own chapter. Here we link projected range changes and extinction risk to the amount of climate change, and show that increasing amounts of climate change will threaten an increasing number of species. We then review the options for adapting conservation action to climate change, building on a range of tools already used by conservationists. These include deciding which species and places are priorities for conservation, the protection and management of a network of core sites, habitat protection and creation to enhance connectivity, management of the wider landscape to reduce other threats and more intensive methods such as translocations. We believe that it is important to build on the foundations of existing conservation management, so that the threat of climate change does not divert resources away from existing and important conservation action. Reducing the impact of other threats on species will increase their ability to cope with a changing climate and may be sufficient, in some cases, to compensate for the negative effects of climate change.

Maintaining and extending the existing protected area network, alongside initiatives to improve the management of sites in that network, will be vital in helping species adapt to climate change. For example, protected areas can provide opportunities for colonisation of areas where the climate has become suitable for a species because of climate change. However, we recognize that with increasing magnitude of climate change, this adaptation challenge will become more difficult, and require more radical solutions. The final chapter in this section also considers the additional complication that the ways in which greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, and other climate change mitigation, will also have a significant impact on bird conservation. Some renewable energy options are likely to have negative impacts on birds, whereas prevention of the release of carbon stored in forests and bogs because of inappropriate land use change, such as deforestation and drainage, is likely to be beneficial for the bird species which inhabit those habitats.

Can you give some specific examples of responses underway, and what sort of levels of success these are demonstrating?

There has been recent criticism that because climate change will result in shifts in where species are found, that a static network of protected areas will no longer be useful. However, a number of recent studies are reviewed which demonstrate that by protecting large areas of extensive semi-natural habitat, protected areas in fact ensure the existence of suitable areas of habitat for species to move into. This has been particularly demonstrated for wetland and heathland nature reserves in the UK. There has also been much discussion about the potential for the creation of stepping stones and corridors to help create more connected landscapes through which species may move more easily. This literature is also discussed, which demonstrates that these interventions may benefit 30% of bird species studied, or fewer. Indeed, for the most sensitive habitat-specialists, such as tropical forest specialists, about 50% of a landscape may need to remain forested to ensure connectivity. Evidence is also building for the potential to manage sites appropriately to increase their resilience to climate change. In particular, the blocking of drainage ditches in the UK uplands may raise water levels and reduce the vulnerability of peatland ecosystems to summer drought, which will benefit a range of upland bird species, such as the golden plover.

Global change demands global responsiveness – how much agreement is there over the priorities?

Priority setting will be an important aspect of conservation responses to climate change, and a range of different ways in which priorities may be assessed exist. We review a number of these in the book, as well as suggesting a number of ecological traits likely to be associated with species vulnerability to climate change. Whilst there are an increasing number of examples of these being applied to particular regions or countries, there remains a lack of consensus over priorities across continents or biogeographical areas. The need to address this is recognized, and as discussed in the chapter on conservation in a changing climate, there is potential to use existing policy instruments, such as intergovernmental agreements, to achieve this. Given the potential threat that human responses to climate change may also pose to birds, whether the impacts of renewable energy generation, or other potential changes in land-use and other sectors discussed briefly in the final chapter of the book, this consensus needs to extend to other areas in order to be effective.

What future developments are on the horizon in extinction risk assessment, and are you positive about the potential impact of conservation responses overall?

One of the most significant chapters in the book reviews the literature predicting the effects of climate change on birds, and provides guidance for how this should be used. There is considerable potential to extend these to include information about population size, rather than just occurrence, and to make them more process-based, incorporating information about demographic rates and the mechanisms by which climate change may affect the species of interest. This has been achieved in a small number of cases, producing models which may be useful to inform future decision making about conservation responses to climate change. Such development will be particularly valuable, because it will help to assess the likely potential impact of conservation responses, relative to the likely magnitude of future climate change. However, this detail comes at a cost, and will not be feasible for most, or even many species.

Wild Flowers of Eastern Andalucia reviewed by Plant Talk

This excellent field guide to the flowering plants of Almeria and the Sierra de los Filabres region covers an area of southern Spain with a particularly rich and varied flora. The book is beautifully illustrated with stunning colour photographs, and botanist Sarah Ball describes a good representative selection of the most frequent and characteristic flowering plants to be found, from the Sunshine Coast to the beautiful mountainous area inland, spanning 2000m in altitude. Aromatic thymes and colourful brooms dominate, along with other Mediterranean vegetation types, and Sarah has used the botanical collections of the University of Reading extensively to check her plant identifications and to further discover the distribution and variation of the species she describes.

Wild Flowers of Eastern Andalucía contains background information on geology, habitats, vegetation types and classification, and descriptions of 625 plant species, with 575 illustrated by colour photographs. A comprehensive glossary will help novice users to understand the necessary botanical terms, and the text is also supplemented by information on traditional plant uses that bring the descriptions to life. There is an introductory account for each plant family and each species account includes the English and local Spanish names where known.

I think this book will appeal to local residents and holidaymakers, visiting botanists and students, and anyone with an interest in wild flowers, planning to visit the area. I travelled to this region of Spain in 2004 with groups from the Eden Project and the University of Reading, to study both wild and cultivated plants, and this book would have been invaluable… and small enough to carry easily in a rucksack!

Review by Shirley Walker at Plant Talk

Wild Flowers of Eastern Andalucía is distributed by NHBS

A Sparrowhawk’s Lament author David Cobham interviewed by NHBS

Our readers may be familiar with you as the director of the 1979 film, Tarka the Otter, so your conservation credentials go back a long way. What first stirred you to get involved with the plight of our wildlife?

In the late sixties I made several films for the Midland Bank showing the advice they gave to farmers enabling them to reorganize their farms, specialize and make them more profitable. This always involved pulling out hedgerows, filling in ponds and knocking down old barns. Not very good for wildlife. I tried to get them to make a conservation film but they were not interested. In 1970 I met Henry Williamson, who wrote Tarka the Otter, and asked him if he’d be interested in writing a film for the BBC Natural History Unit called “The Vanishing Hedgerows”. The film would be based on his experience of farming in Norfolk between 1936 and 1946. Farming with horsepower initially, then the first tractor and finally pesticides. Running through the film was the story of the plight of the Grey Partridge. The film was a great success and won a conservation prize at the Montreux film festival.

Your new book, A Sparrowhawk’s Lament, explores the state of Britain’s birds of prey. How are they getting on, and what are the main threats to their survival?

The Hen Harrier’s existence as a British breeding bird of prey hangs in the balance. The main threat is persecution by gamekeepers on grouse moors. It is coordinated throughout the Pennine chain. All predators, not only Hen Harriers, are exterminated. As a result there was no successful breeding in 2013. There is a chance that prospects may improve in 2014. Nevertheless this spectacular bird must not be allowed to become extinct as a British breeding bird. It is estimated that there is territory for up to 300 pairs of Hen Harriers on the Pennine chain. Poisoning of birds of prey is still prevalent throughout the British Isles. Red Kites, Golden Eagles and Common Buzzards are the main targets.

Did you spend much time roaming the countryside encountering these magnificent birds during the research process of the book? You must have met some interesting human characters too on your travels?

I spent three years researching and writing A Sparrowhawk’s Lament. Some of it came out of films I had made for the BBC and Channel 4. For instance I made 3 films on the Peregrine Falcon: one in Scotland, two in Cornwall. On them I worked with two experts, Roy Dennis in Scotland, and the late Dick Treleaven in Cornwall. I did travel to Scotland to meet up with Roy Dennis and glean some of his vast experience with Ospreys and Golden Eagles and I went to Mull to talk to Dave Sexton about the successful re-introduction of the White-tailed Eagles in Scotland. In the North of England I saw Merlin and Honey Buzzards and I talked to my cousin George Winn Darley who owns a grouse moor. Stephen Murphy of Natural England showed me round the Forest of Bowland which was once the stronghold of breeding Hen Harriers. There I was priviledged to hear his first hand account of the death of Bowland Betty. In the Midlands I met Tim Mackrill who took over the Osprey re-introduction at Rutland Water. Nearby at Rockingham I spent time with Steve Thornton and Derek Holman who’d been involved with the Red Kite release on the Forestry Comission land there. They also showed me nesting Hobbys at Lilford Hall. In Norfolk there was plenty of opportunity on our Hawk and Owl Trust reserve to see Marsh Harriers, Goshawks and Sparrowhawks. David Lyles showed me where to watch nesting Montagu’s Harriers on his land. On Salisbury Plain I met up with Nigel Lewis and watched him ringing young Kestrels and in the West Country Robin Prytherch took me round his Common Buzzard study area in the Gordano Valley near Bristol. Finally, Steve Roberts blew away some of the mysteries surrounding that extraordinary bird, the Honey Buzzard.

I also talked to a great number of wildlife cameramen. Mike Richards, Hugh Miles, John Aitchison, Simon King, Chris Knights, Martin Hayward Smith and Manny Hinge shared their often gruelling experiences with me.

Finally, there were many enthusiasts, amateur and professional who took time to talk to me and impart their knowledge. In particular, I must mention the late Derek Ratcliffe, Robert Kenward and Ian Newton.

What is the significance of the title A Sparrowhawk’s Lament?

As a film maker I was always keen to find a hook to catch the audience’s attention. If you didn’t they had the easy option of switching off. So before I wrote a word I knew I had to have a hook. Quite by chance I found my hook while I was in hospital for an operation. I was literally waiting to go down to the theatre when my wife came in with an armful of books for me to read. One of them was the Penguin Book of Bird Poetry. My wife left and I flicked through the pages. To my amazement I found an anonymous fifteenth century poem in which a male Sparrowhawk was complaining that the fear of death worried him. In the fifteenth century Sparrowhawks were protected – they were the hawks that a holywater clerk was allowed to fly. Did the Sparrowhawk have a crystal ball to forsee the future – persecution and pesticides? So that was the hook and the first chapter is a detective story seeking out from what it was that the male Sparrowhawk was fearful of dying.

How has our relationship with birds of prey changed in this country over the centuries?

For over three thousand years Man trained birds of prey to put food on the table. With the introduction of the double barrelled shotgun that relationship was severed. The 1831 Game Act let loose a period of persecution beyond belief. By 1916 five birds of prey were extinct in the British Isles – the Goshawk, Marsh Harrier, Osprey, Honey Buzzard and White-tailed Sea Eagle. Gradually, the swell of public opinion, nauseated by this senseless, selfish slaughter, held sway. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was formed and the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 afforded full protection for all British birds of prey. In recent years the BBC TV programmes, Springwatch and Autumnwatch, have gone to great lengths to champion the role of birds of prey in our environment and to show in a sympathetic way the difficulties they experience in finding a mate, nesting, providing enough food for their offspring and finally in migrating to their winter quarters.

What are the current priorities now for conservation of our birds of prey, and how might this book inspire people to get involved?

The top priority at the moment is to ensure that the Hen Harrier does not become extinct as a breeding bird in England. It is on a knife-edge at the moment. Publicise the horrific cruelty of pole traps and poisoning. We need more Wildlife Crime Police Officers. We need to strengthen the law so that landowners are made to accept the responsibility for any crime against birds of prey that occurs on their land.

The Sparrowhawk’s fear of death in that fifteenth century poem, which I have called A Sparrowhawk’s Lament, inspired me to find out the true state of British breeding birds of prey, exactly how they were faring. I hope that some of the experiences that I have had will influence young and old to revere our birds of prey and join an organisation such as the Hawk and Owl Trust which are dedicated to the conservation of all birds of prey. They are thrilling birds. Whether you revel in the sky splitting stoop of the Peregrine or the ground hugging dash of the Sparrowhawk the world would be a poorer place without them.