The last two weeks have been marked by a run of storms in the Atlantic that have brought very high winds and seemingly endless rainfall. At first we worried about the weather’s impacts on the land with widescale flooding in southern England. How would landbirds find enough food if the ground became saturated and the rain prevented them from foraging. Even our garden birds were suffering.
At the same time our coasts were being battered with high winds and huge waves. As defences were being breached, seawater was coming inland and would impact on plant communities and eventually their associated birds. Then, last week we started to see exactly what the storms were also doing to our seabird populations. North-west Europe has many millions of seabirds and the majority of these winter out in the Atlantic. We could only guess what it must be like out there for small birds that need to be able to dive for fish in roaring seas and winds up to 100 mph.
Well, our worst guesses began to come true when dead seabirds started to turn up on beaches from the Bay of Biscay and Brittany to Cornwall last week. The predominantly south-west winds have put the victims on our islands’ southern and western beaches. In the last week we have seen over 75 dead birds in Jersey including shags, kittiwakes and auks. The presence of many dead puffins has, perhaps, caused the most upset. Local puffin populations are both popular and highly threatened and, while the origins of the victims is not really known (to date one bird is known to be of Welsh origin), it brings home just how vulnerable our local birds are. It might now only take one big storm to exterminate them.
Alderney Wildlife Trust are co-ordinating attempts to record the numbers of birds that are being found in the Islands. Sadly it seems most are being found in Jersey. The Jersey Wildlife Facebook group are posting records as people find birds. Cris Sellarés is organising a systematic count on Sunday (16th February) in the afternoon and will check all the beaches. If you’d like to join you can make contact through the Facebook group.
After Sunday’s count please continue to look for birds The important things to do are to record the species, location and date and then try to dispose of the body (this prevents the same bird being counted several times) – bury it on the beach above the high tide line or bag it and bin it. Look for any rings or tags etc. though. Please wear gloves if you do pick up a bird and always wash your hands thoroughly later. You can then report your finds through the Facebook group or directly to Birds On The Edge and they will be passed on.
As you may remember, the North Coast Breeding Bird Survey was started in 2013 running from the late spring until the end of September. Its aim was to determine the number and location of breeding pairs of species of conservation interest. The list of target species comprised of kestrel, peregrine falcon, jackdaw, raven, skylark, common whitethroat, Dartford warbler, stonechat, meadow pipit and linnet.
With the exception of Les Landes (SSI), which encompasses an extensive area of suitable habitat, the survey was restricted to a narrow strip along the coast. Most observations were taken from the coastal path; information was recorded regarding territories and behaviour such as singing, territorial displays, nest-building and food delivery to the nests.
Results
The results of the survey did paint a worrying picture for some of our farmland birds such as the stonechat and meadow pipit as fewer were found than was hoped for. The location of their territories was consistent with a combination of the right habitats for nesting and foraging, be it a cliff side, a hedge, an open field or a grassy boundary, yet it was hoped that their breeding success would be higher, especially as some pairs did not seem to succeed in their breeding attempts.
It was no surprise that most breeding territories were found within Les Landes SSI, which holds the largest expanse of maritime heathland in Jersey and has been under conservation management for over a decade. Not only is Les Landes the present stronghold for stonechat and meadow pipit, it is also the last site within this area where skylark bred until recently. Other species of interest to BOTE such as yellowhammer have been absent from the area for many years and, as expected, none were found during the survey. Whilst farmland birds seemed to cluster in particular areas, territories of cliff-nesters (kestrel, peregrine, jackdaw and raven) were relatively well spaced from each other.
So how did the species fare?
Eurasian kestrel: 6 pairs
Most of the six kestrel pairs found in Area 1 are likely to be cliff-nesters. The kestrel is categorised as amber (decline by more than 25% but less than 50%) on Jersey’s bird redlist Conservation Status of Jersey’s Birds 2011 (read here) due to its low numbers, which have, however, remained stable over the last decade. 2013 was a difficult year for kestrels that breed in nestboxes and similar problems may have occurred for those nesting in cliffs.
Peregrine falcon: 2 pairs
Over he last decade the number of breeding pairs in Jersey has seemingly reached a plateau at 5-6 pairs. The two breeding territories found in Area 1 are consistent with data from 2011 and 2012 collected by the Société Jersiaise’s Bird Section.
Jackdaw: 1 pair (unconfirmed)
The Jackdaw has green status on the redlist as numbers have locally been increasing over the last few years. The territory located, albeit with unconfirmed breeding success, could be the first of others in this area if the expansion of the species continues.
Raven: 1 pair
The raven population in Jersey appears to have remained stable at around five breeding pairs over the last decade with only small fluctuations in the number. This species is, however, given amber status because the population is very small and, therefore, vulnerable. The single breeding pair found reflects this species’ preference for very large territories.
Skylark: 0 pairs
Skylark is red listed (severe population decline in the Jersey population of more than 50% over 20 years) and there are no data on breeding attempts in the area since 2010 and the species is losing ground at the only other known breeding sites in Jersey (Les Blanches Banques and the Airport). The annual skylark survey conducted at the Airport since 2006 shows a steady decline in the number of singing males and in overall numbers.
Common whitethroat: 5 pairs
There are no previous data on this species for this area; however, the five pairs located were less than was initially expected.
Dartford warbler: 5 pairs
This species is not considered threatened in Jersey and was green listed in 2011. The population typically fluctuates between 40-45 singing males but can drop after a very cold winter. An Island-wide breeding survey in 2012 detected 13 breeding pairs in the survey area, but only five of these were found in the 2013 survey with another three pairs whose breeding success could not be confirmed. This species is a good community indicator through its dependence on mature heathland and gorse habitats.
Common stonechat: 1 pair
The overall decline of this red listed species in Jersey in recent years has been alarming, having dropped from five pairs in 2011to three known pairs (two of them at Les Landes) in 2013. Of these only one succeeded in breeding.
Meadow pipit: 6 pairs
Meadow pipit is on the Jersey amber list and the six pairs located in the survey area was perhaps less than was expected.
Linnet: 7 pairs
This species is amber listed in Jersey and, whilst there are no previous breeding data for it in the area, the seven pairs located were also less than expected.
Concluding remarks
The available data suggest that the number of breeding pairs of the surveyed species is not increasing in the survey area, with the exception of perhaps only jackdaw. Skylark has disappeared from the area and stonechat may soon do likewise while Dartford warbler, meadow pipit and linnet might be decreasing. The trend in kestrel, peregrine falcon and raven are not so clear.
Birds On The Edge hopes to repeat this survey over the next few years and to expand the survey area towards the west coast of Jersey. Only long-term monitoring can provide a reliable picture on population trends and can help steer habitat conservation efforts.
The 13th Great Garden Bird Watch takes place this weekend, Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th February
The annual Action for Wildlife and Jersey Evening Post (JEP) Great Garden Bird Watch takes place this coming weekend. Islanders are once again encouraged to watch the birds in their garden for any period between 8 am and 11 am on either the Saturday or the Sunday.
Data from past surveys were included in the 2011 assessment of our birds that became the Island’s first bird redlist The Conservation Status of Jersey’s Birds which can be downloaded here.
Analysis of sightings from the previous 12 years makes it very obvious that not all our favourite garden birds are faring so well. While blackbird, our most recorded bird, is both common and holding its own, the greenfinch population has suffered a disastrous crash in numbers. The decline in garden greenfinches is consistent with overall reductions in their numbers in NW Europe (see report here). Data shown by the survey are very important in highlighting what is happening in our environment and, while not covering the whole countryside, do bring home to everyone wider concerns. Just think, if the birds are dying out in our gardens where we feed and protect them, what is happening out there in the rest of the world.
How to enter the survey
Watch the birds in your garden for any period between 8 am and 11 am on either the Saturday or the Sunday. Counters should note the highest number of each species of bird that are see together at one time during that period – not the total number which enter your garden over the period of the watch.
Survey forms and a handy identification guide will be published in the JEP on Thursday the 6th and all data received will be passed on to La Société Jersiaise to add to their records and included in Birds On The Edge bird monitoring analyses.
Completed forms can be posted in or delivered to the JEP. You can also send in your records online through the JEP here from the weekend.
2013 was a very busy year for the Farmland bird monitoring team. Whatever the weather, and last year there was plenty of it, we were out counting birds. The ‘Farmland’ title of the project is a little misleading as we count birds at 20 sites across a variety of habitats including true farmland, woodland, heath and sand dune. The project doesn’t include seabirds at sea or on the cliffs or waterbirds on open water – but any that fly over our transects are fair game!
In 2013, 486 record sheets were filled out by our team of 13 volunteer recorders. Since the project started in 2005 we have filled out 2,517 sheets. That’s a lot of birds to put into the data base. We’ve now seen 161 species, one more since the last posting in June, with yellow-browed warbler the most recent addition (recorded at Durrell and Le Saie) this autumn.
Why do we record all these birds?
Consistent, systematic, long-term bird monitoring like this can tell us a lot about what is happening with our local bird populations. This is very important information when planning conservation strategies and updating protection laws or establishing protected sites. The red list of Jersey’s birds (available here) was based on long-term projects like this. Monitoring can show us too seasonality of birds (how many there are through the year) like the common whitethroat (below) but it can also show us alarming trends in their status over the years like the unfortunate greenfinch. It can, of course, also show us those birds that are actually doing pretty well like the great tit.
Common whitethroat. Results from farmland bird survey 2005-2013
Greenfinch. Results from farmland bird survey 2005-2013
Greenfinch. Results from farmland bird survey 2005-2013
What were the team’s highlights in 2013?
The team were asked what their personal highlights were. Sally and the National Trust team told Birds On The Edge that, “whilst hundreds of birds have been seen and counted, including kingfishers, marsh harriers, peregrines, stonechats and goldcrests, the sighting that stands out the most has to be when we found long-eared owl chicks, sitting in a tree in Fern Valley.
“It was a lovely, sunny, still morning; we had almost finished the transect, and it had been rather quiet, not many birds had been seen, probably because sunrise was a little earlier than our start time. Jonny ‘Hawk-eye’ Parkes spotted them first, sitting quietly on the spindly branches on an alder tree, four pairs of big, glowing, orange eyes looking at us, looking at them. We were transfixed, they were so beautiful to see, very fluffy and cute, with big saucer shaped eyes, and they were as interested in us as we were of them.
“None of us had seen real live, wild owl chicks before, so it was really hard to drag ourselves away, we had to finish the transect after all, and report our sightings to anyone and everyone that would listen”!
Cris also wrote: “I enjoy these (two) transects as they happen to go right through a bit of land that is the focus of my work – habitat restoration to save Jersey’s endangered birds. Walking the transects allows me to witness how the restoration management is being implemented and how it’s slowly changing the landscape and improving the habitats for the wildlife community. Hopefully, in time, the data from the transects will show an increase on bird numbers and diversity that will reflect those habitat improvements. The second best thing about this transects is that, on a good day, I get to record all five resident raptors in Jersey: kestrel, sparrowhawk, buzzard, peregrine falcon and marsh harrier”.
Harriet (W) was more than happy too with her year. In November she found not one but two cirl buntings on the Noirmont transect! Harriet (C) found a common quail and Glyn’s highlight was getting two bitterns together on a transect!
Richard retires
Very sadly, one of our stalwart counters, Richard, has had to retire from the programme. Richard covered two transects on the east of the Island and was lucky enough to have breeding cirl buntings, firecrests and buzzards on his patch. We will all miss Richard very much but we do know that we’ll still see him as he’ll continue to feed the cirl buntings to make sure that they are getting enough food throughout the year.
Like to join us?
With Richard’s retirement we are looking for new volunteer recorders. As you can see, it’s always fun and we need someone who can commit themselves to doing their transect once in each fortnight (you can chose which day and we can bring on a sub for holidays and other absences). No transect is much more than one kilometre in length and they are all easy to walk. It is, of course, important to be able to identify our common birds both by sight and , often more importantly, by sound but don’t worry about those rarities if you aren’t certain about Richard’s pipits or honey-buzzards. Rarities may just the icing on the cake for us observers and you’ll learn about them as you go! We will show you the routes and help with bird identification. If you are interested please reply through this web page.
Winter is not an easy time for birds. They need extra energy to keep warm, especially during long winter nights. To cope with this, they lay down extra fat reserves, though small birds quite often only lay down enough for a single night. Longer nights not only affect the amount of energy a bird uses, they also reduce the amount of time that birds can feed in. Birds, therefore, have to make the most of the daylight hours to replenish their energy reserves before it gets dark.
The 2004 BTO Shortest Day Survey, run in association with BBC Radio 4, investigated the patterns behind birds arriving at garden bird feeders first thing on a winter’s morning. Building on observations from the Shortest Day Survey, the Early Bird Survey will investigate what effect, if any, light and heat pollution have on the feeding patterns of birds during a cold winter’s morning.
Your help is needed to work out how light pollution affects the foraging behaviour of garden birds.
The Early Bird Survey will be taking place on Thursday 9th January. It’s a simple survey that requires you to get up before sunrise (which you’ll have noticed is still quite late!), note the birds arriving at your garden feeding station and enter them online.
Once you enter your results, you’ll get immediate feedback about how your garden compares to those of other observers!
If you are free to do it tomorrow, please download the instructions today as we will also be collecting data on artificial light sources and overnight temperatures.
Conservation fields yield seed-rich crops for our farmland birds
By Cris Sellarés
You may remember announcement of our trial scheme to help farmland birds through the winter when it was launched last spring with the help of two private sponsors. Local farmers were supplied with a bird conservation seed mix to be planted into potato fields. The crops, similar to those used in the conservation fields that the National Trust for Jersey has at Le Don Hodges, near Sorel, were planted in clusters of fields across the north coast, after the Jersey Royals had been harvested.
Many local farmers and landowners kindly agreed to try these crops for a few months, so that they would provide our farmland birds with a source of food during the coldest months of the year. As soon as the crops were planted we started monitoring their growth every fortnight and documenting their development.
These conservation crops are composed of a rich variety of plants, especially chosen to produce large amounts of protein and fat-rich seeds, such as buckwheat, mustard, quinoa, chicory, sunflower, millet, gold-of-pleasure, triticale, spring wheat and phacelia, which is very good for insects too.
Such has been the success of some of these conservation fields that members of the Botany Section of the Societé Jersiaise have expressed their interest in the crops and shared her extensive knowledge on each plant’s history in Jersey and it’s importance for the ecosystem.
Some species in particular, such as gold-of-pleasure Camelina sativa or wheat, have all but disappeared from our landscape over the last few decades and it is exciting to find them again amongst our fields. Sadly, the varieties planted are commercial ones, produced and chosen for their value to the birds during winter, and are not likely to self-spread or go wild anytime soon, at least not before the fields are ploughed at the end of the winter to make way for next year’s crop of Jersey Royals.
In January, Birds On The Edge reported on an exciting project to remove rats from St Agnes and Gugh in the Isles of Scilly in order to safeguard important numbers of nesting seabirds (see the article here). Since then the project has progressed nicely:
•To reverse recent declines in seabird populations on the Isles of Scilly through removal of a non-native species (brown rat) from the islands of St Agnes and Gugh;
•To enable people living in and visiting the Isles of Scilly to learn about, take pride in, and play an active role in celebrating and conserving their seabird and wider natural heritage;
•To train and support island communities to embrace the benefits of seabird recovery, including the removal of rats, and continue to protect their heritage once the project has ended.
The islands, which are located off Cornwall, are home to breeding populations of 14 seabird species and approximately 20,000 birds. Eradication experts from the UK and New Zealand’s Wildlife Management International Limited (WMIL) will manage the poisoning of several thousand rats.
“Among many challenges our seabirds face, the greatest threat on land is predation of eggs and chicks by brown rats,” said Jaclyn Pearson, Project Manager of the Isles of Scilly Seabird Recovery Project.
Elizabeth Bell, from WMIL said (see BBC Cornwall): “A period of intensive baiting will start from 8th November and most of the rats will be dead by the end of November. We’ll then target the surviving rats.”
A long-term monitoring programme will start at the beginning of 2014 to check the rodents have been eradicated from the islands. Ms Bell said all the bait stations were enclosed, tied down and were designed not to kill any other species, such as rabbits.
Ms Pearson said: “The project is 25 years in length, although the project team will disband after five years, for the remaining 20 years the community will continue to protect their seabird heritage, by keeping the islands ‘rat-free’. This includes correct waste management, ensuring bio-security on boats and freight to the islands, and of course, educating all visitors to the islands to be vigilant and ‘rat on a rat'”.
“This is the largest community-based island restoration project attempted in the world to date, with 85 residents living here year round.”
The project has recruited a team of ‘seabird task force volunteers’ and the first arrived on the islands in early November of the start of the delivery phase. They will be on St Agnes and Gugh baiting and monitoring rats for the next six months. After their induction to the project and the team, they were straight out to collect windfall apples (removing this food source away from the rats) and on to meet the community as part of an evening community talk ahead of the baiting starting. Safety protocols around the bait stations were reiterated and the WMIL team will be on call 24 hours a day.
On 12th November the local news ‘ ITV West-Country’ came to report on the first day of baiting. They flew to the islands on the first flight of the day to capture the excitement on this important day in the project (see the video here).
Jaclyn Pearson spent this first important week of baiting with the WMIL team and the volunteers, and has been interviewing the volunteers for the local radio station to find out why they have volunteered for the project and what it means to them. Volunteer Lyndsey Death says “I am so happy to be spending the winter on the islands gaining skills and learning about island restoration projects. The project is so well organised, I am really enjoying it.”.
Many thanks to Jaclyn Pearson for help in compiling this report. See the project’s poster here, read regular updates and sign up for the newsletter.
The ‘early bird’ strategy has been revealed by a team studying the winter foraging behaviour of birds in Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire. The researchers fitted over 2,000 birds with tiny PIT radio tags. They then used 101 feeders which detected these tags and captured the exact time individual birds found each feeder. By moving 36 of these feeders around the forest throughout the day, and recording the results, the team showed that birds gathered information about new food sources during the morning so that they can then eat it later in the day.
The birds studied were a mixture of great tits, blue tits, marsh tits, coal tits and nuthatches. The full report, published this week, can be downloaded here
Damien Farine of Oxford University, who led the research, says that ‘birds have to store body-fat to avoid starving during the cold winter nights, but this can make them slower and less manoeuvrable so that they are more likely to be caught by predators’. ‘So there is a trade-off, where birds need to remain lean enough in order to ‘outrun’ their predators, or at least the next slowest bird, during the day but also store enough fat to survive each night.’
The team knew from previous studies at Wytham Woods that, when the predation risk appears high, birds delay putting on fat until late in the day. The researchers wanted to test the idea that, instead of simply ‘idly waiting’ until the afternoon, birds were actively seeking out new sources of food to work out where their next meal was coming from.
‘We used new tracking technologies to investigate how great tits, blue tits, and other common garden birds, balance the competing risks of predation and starvation’. ‘Our results show that these birds display very different patterns of food discovery in the morning and afternoon; very few new food sources were found during the afternoon, whereas nearly every new food source that we put out during the morning was quickly discovered. It supports the idea of an ‘early bird’ strategy of scouting for food early on so that they can return to feast a couple of hours before dusk in preparation for a long winter’s night.’
Winter is a tough time for small garden birds as not only is there less natural food available but their predators, such as the sparrowhawk, are keen to stock up their own fat reserves and so are hunting every day. The short days and long cold nights mean that small birds can lose around 10% of their body weight over a single night so that individuals failing to pile on the grams on even one day can starve and won’t be around to pass on their genes the next summer.
‘Because small birds can’t reproduce without surviving the winter they have evolved a complex set of behaviours that enables them to maximise their chance of both surviving predators and avoiding starvation,’ said Damien Farine ‘It’s a good example of how animals alter their behaviour to respond to constantly changing environmental conditions. It also shows how new technologies, like tiny PIT tags, are enabling us to explore questions about animal survival strategies at an unprecedented scale.’
Anglo-Scottish rivalry takes a completely new turn. In a surprising story of contrasting wildlife fortunes, southern England is rapidly losing some of its most attractive summer birds, from swallows to willow warblers, while at the same time, Scotland is gaining them.
It’s not that birds are quitting the South of Britain to go and nest in the North. Rather, the southern populations of several species of summer visitors are rapidly declining, while their northern populations are expanding substantially. The striking and so far unexplained divergence has been revealed by the magnificent new atlas of British and Irish (and Channel Islands) birds, all 700 pages of it, which has been six years in the making and is published next week. See a taster of the new atlas here
It displays a growing North-South contrast in abundance, over the past two decades, in at least eight species – swallow, house martin and sand martin, willow warbler, garden warbler and grasshopper warbler, plus tree pipit and cuckoo. (Other species are showing signs of this, but it is in these eight that the shift is clear).
Scotland, long seen in bird terms as the grandiose home of the golden eagle, is now a much better place than the Home Counties to hear two of spring’s most delicate sounds – the musical double note of the cuckoo and the silvery cascade of the willow warbler – and to witness the exhilarating springtime sight of swallow acrobatics.
The population of the willow warbler, for example, has declined by 28 per cent in England since the early 1990s but in Scotland it increased by 33 per cent over the same period. Willow warbler was lost too as a Jersey breeding species. Over the same period, the cuckoo declined in England by no less than 63 per cent and it is missing now across much of the South (it too no longer breeds in Jersey). But over Scotland as a whole, while there was a total decline of 5 per cent, in some areas such as the Highlands and Islands there was a notable growth in numbers.
Swallows too are increasingly thin on the ground in the South-East of England but increasing north of the border, and the same can be seen for house martin and sand martin.
These shifts are vividly displayed, with green for losses and red for gains, in the maps of Bird Atlas 2007-2011 (see willow warbler here) – the most complete overview of bird distribution and change in Britain, Ireland, Channel Islands and Isle of Man ever put together. Produced by the British Trust for Ornithology with BirdWatch Ireland and the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club, the atlas examines the breeding and wintering fortunes of nearly 300 species over the 2007 to 2011 period, as noted down by 40,000 volunteer observers who between them contributed 19 million records. More than 99 per cent of the land surface of the British Isles has been covered.
The resultant snapshot of the present is engrossing, but the real value is in the contrasts the atlas affords with the two previous bird atlases of the British Isles, done for the periods 1968-1972 and 1988-91. What results, says the BTO’s director, Andy Clements, is “a 40-year story of change”.
There are changes in all directions. An arresting one is the spread eastwards of a pair of species once persecuted by gamekeepers – the buzzard and the raven. Two decades ago they were largely confined to the west of a line drawn from the Pennines to Southampton; now (perhaps because persecution has ended) both birds have spread all over England. During this period the buzzard has also colonised Jersey.
There are many such: the hobby, the dashing summer falcon, is moving steadily northwards in distribution, while the nightingale is shrinking back remorselessly towards South-East England and its stronghold in Essex, Kent and Sussex. In terms of sheer increase, the prize is taken by the little egret, which at the time of the last atlas did not breed in Britain; now there are about 700 breeding pairs (with around four small colonies in Jersey). But it is the English-Scottish shift of the willow warbler et al. which is most remarkable. All eight birds concerned winter in sub-Saharan Africa, and it is very probable that this offers a clue to what is happening, although it has not been teased out yet. Climate change, affecting the hatching of their caterpillar food, may also be playing a role.
Yet whatever the cause, there it is in the maps. “We have removed observer bias and we are sure this is a real phenomenon, and a notable one,” said co-author Dr Simon Gillings. Have a look for yourself from next week. It is the most riveting bird book produced in Britain for years.
The number of wild birds in the UK is still falling, despite efforts to protect them by changing farming practices.
Since 2003, there has been a 13% decline in the population of farmland birds. In the five years to the end of 2012, the decline was 8% overall. The decline has slowed, according to the Wild Bird Indicator statistics released by the UK Government, and some species are in better health than they were in the 1970s when data began to be comprehensively collected. However, conservationists are concerned that the drop in numbers is continuing, with a halving of farmland bird numbers in the past 40 years. Woodland birds are down 17%.
Turtle doves have had their lowest level of sightings since records began. Lapwings are down by nearly two thirds since 1970, while corn buntings are down nine-tenths in the same period, and the number of skylarks is down by well over half.
Farmland birds suffer from intensive agriculture, as farmers often remove or drastically cut back the hedges and trees where many of them live, while pesticides can leave them with less prey, and a lack of wild field margins cuts down on habitats.
There are some government-sponsored schemes to encourage farmers to make room for wildlife, for instance by leaving field margins wild, cutting down on pesticide and artificial fertiliser use, and leaving some areas fallow or pasture. There are also strict laws against killing rare birds of prey, but conservationists think these are frequently flouted.
Martin Harper, conservation director at the RSPB, said: “The trend for farmland birds continues to go downwards. The decline has slowed, and wildlife friendly farmers who put conservation measures in place on their land must be congratulated for their hard work. But if we are all going to work together to bring wildlife back to our countryside, then the funding must be there for these measures to continue.”
Under reforms to the common agricultural policy, which were agreed this summer, the UK Government has the ability to divert some of the millions of pounds of funds available – which come ultimately from European taxpayers – to environmental stewardship schemes to reward farmers for good practice.
The UK Government, has still not said how they might allocate the funding, which could go up to 15% of the agricultural subsidies budget. But given the government’s freedom of action under the new rules, much of it could go to farmers based not on their practices but on the amount of land they farm, as other subsidies are.
A decision is expected before the end of the year, and green groups are concerned that the amount devoted to environmental measures will not be enough to halt further declines in wildlife numbers.
The situation in Jersey appears very similar and Birds On The Edge is working with our local farmers to monitor locally endangered birds and enhance the habitats of their farmland via a sponsored trial scheme. Some of the fields in the north coast have been planted with hedges and the fields have been sown with conservation crops that are providing birds with a source of food throughout the winter. The public will hopefully be able to see these fields and the birds feeding on them on the Birds On The Edge Autumn Walk – details to be announced soon.
The full UK report Wild Bird Populations in the UK, 1970 To 2012 can be downloaded in full here
The last two weeks have been marked by a run of storms in the Atlantic that have brought very high winds and seemingly endless rainfall. At first we worried about the weather’s impacts on the land with widescale flooding in southern England. How would landbirds find enough food if the ground became saturated and the rain prevented them from foraging. Even our garden birds were suffering.
Well, our worst guesses began to come true when dead seabirds started to turn up on beaches from the Bay of Biscay and Brittany to Cornwall last week. The predominantly south-west winds have put the victims on our islands’ southern and western beaches. In the last week we have seen over 75 dead birds in Jersey including shags, kittiwakes and auks. The presence of many dead puffins has, perhaps, caused the most upset. Local puffin populations are both popular and highly threatened and, while the origins of the victims is not really known (to date one bird is known to be of Welsh origin), it brings home just how vulnerable our local birds are. It might now only take one big storm to exterminate them.
