Category Archives: Author blogs
The real nitty gritty
Time for some nit-busting and myth-busting too! Think you know your nits? Richard Jones, author and guest blogger, explodes the top ten myths about head lice …
Head lice are dirty.
Wrong. Head lice do just fine in clean hair thank you very much. Washing hair once a week, or once a year, makes no difference.
Men don’t get head lice because of testosterone.
Wrong. If men get head lice less often, it’s because they cuddle their children less. It’s a sad indictment of our aloof male stiff-upper-lip Britishness. We’d rather shake hands with our kids.
Afro-Caribbean children don’t get head lice.
Wrong. Head lice have tormented humans on every continent, in every era. As one Victorian textbook put it: “No human race is without lice, or immune to them”.
Girls get head lice more often than boys because of their long hair.
Wrong. Boys did not get more head lice back in the hippy 1960s or mullet-topped 1970s. Girls tend to get head lice more often because they do more head-to-head huddling and cuddling, but boys still get lice.
Blondes do not get head lice because they cannot grip the fine hair strands.
Wrong. Blonde, brunette, ginger, black, grey or blue rinse, we can all get head lice. Baldness is the only state likely to be free of lice.
You can easily get head lice from hats, scarves, combs and headphones.
Wrong. A head louse removed from the scalp is dead within hours. Head lice are small and soft and vulnerable. If one lets go of a hair it would get squashed, or it would get lost. Letting go of the hair is suicide for a louse.
Vinegar removes nits (louse eggs)
Wrong. It is now scientifically proved that acetic acid has absolutely no effect at nit-loosening; proprietory nit-loosening shampoos are equally useless. At least vinegar tastes good on chips.
Combing is old-fashioned.
Wrong. Combing is cheap, it’s easy, and it’s effective. Combing works. It is only old-fashioned in the way that eating, drinking, breathing and sleeping is old-fashioned. In fact, combing is the future.
All you need is a louse-killing shampoo.
Wrong. We’ve all been reading too much science fiction. No insecticidal shampoo is 100% effective. They do not kill all head lice. Inevitably, some survive to come back and haunt us. Insecticide-resistance in head lice is now becoming a serious issue.
Head lice hate strong smelling hair oils.
Wrong. Unlike, say, mosquitoes, which do detect their food by scent, head lice do not sniff out their next victim, they feel their way from head to head. Head lice do not fly, they do not jump, they do not skip. They crawl, but they are very good at it.
For more indispensable advice on head lice and curious nit-know-how consult The Little Book of Nits by Richard Jones and Justine Crow – available in bookshops from Thursday 24th May. They also have a brilliant blog called NIT HEADS.
The wonder of waders
This week a guest blog by author Don Taylor on a group of birds that provide perhaps the sternest of ID challenges …
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Waders have long fascinated me – there is such variety in this wonderfully complex group of species. I well remember flushing my first Jack Snipe, from a derelict gunsite on the Hampstead Heath extension in north London, back in 1952. Many years later I wrote the text to complement Stephen Message’s excellent illustrations in our field guide Waders of Europe, Asia and North America.
Some sensational snipes.
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While the challenges of separating very similar species, like the ‘peeps’, are always fascinating and can provide one with great satisfaction, when a correct identification is made, it is often some of the more exotic species that provide me with greater excitement, including some outside the range of this book. Some years ago I set myself the ambitious target of seeing all the waders of the world and photographing as many of them as possible. The book essentially deals with those species in the northern hemisphere and just one still eludes me, the Great Thick-knee.
As you read this I shall probably still need to see just five southern hemisphere species too, having added the last two African species during November. Somehow, I’ve managed to miss the Australian Pratincole, but the real challenge is to see the last four South American snipe species which have so far eluded me: Puna, Giant, Fuegian and Imperial. Having travelled widely in this pursuit, there are many tales to tell.
Australian Painted Snipes. The female (left) is the brighter and more colourful in this species.
The separation of the Australian Painted Snipe as a different species from the Greater Painted Snipe meant a trip to Australia. I again arranged to join Philip Maher, as my guide, and he came up trumps. He had located an area, north of Deniliquin, where he’d seen a pair. During the afternoon, we did flush one but never saw it at rest. Towards dusk we prepared to wander around the open marshy habitat again and once darkness fell, we started our exploration. It wasn’t long before his searchlight shone on one, but again, it flew and it was a while before we relocated it. In fact we discovered a male and a more attractively plumaged female, both of which I was able to photograph successfully, as we were apparently less of a threat to them in the dark. It was an immensely rewarding experience.
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To see remote species, like the Tuamotu Sandpiper, requires joining an organised birding trip in order to get to isolated islands where small populations survive. In September 2010 I joined the Birdquest group on their French Polynesian tour, which provided me with that opportunity. As I lowered myself off the zodiac onto the rocky shore of the island of Tenararo, then walked up the sandy beach, I was virtually greeted by a pair of these exquisite birds running across the sand towards me. They are so different from any other wader and a real delight to spend time with. Several pairs of them entertained me for much of my time on this exotic island, with their squeaky calls, short-tailed fluttering flight, confiding, even curious behaviour and habit of alighting practically anywhere – on the shore, among the palm vegetation, or on the branches of even the tallest palms.
The Tuamotu Sandpiper - one of the world's rarest waders.
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Don Taylor is the author of our Helm Field Guide Waders of the Europe, Asia and North America.
Autumnwatch Uncoiled
This week we have a guest post from TV presenter and Bloomsbury author Maya Plass – the inside story of her latest appearance on Autumnwatch …
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I never thought a day would come where I could go rockpooling in the middle of an arboretum but, through the power of television and the expertise of the National Marine Aquarium, a ‘mockpool’ tank of intertidal organisms was fashioned for the Autumnwatch Unsprung programme. As is often the case with television, I found myself coming away from the filming thinking of all the things I could or should have said. So in this blog I’ve decided to expand a little on some of the themes I touched on.
First, I have to mention what a prolific ‘mockpool’ that was, which is not to say that the real thing doesn’t have a similar level of diversity and species. However, the chances of seeing species so clearly are lower because they are likely to dart into any crevice as soon as you approach a real rockpool. The vibrations of your feet on the rocks are enough to cause even the most ‘aggressive’ of crabs to hide! So it’s always a good idea to sit quietly and watch a rockpool for a while to see what might emerge from the safety of seaweed and rocks. It’s the combination of the chance element of discovery and the thrill of exploration that makes rockpooling such a delight.
Snakelocks Anemone. An intertidal beauty.
The Snakelocks Anemone in the ‘mockpool’ tank was a beautiful specimen, with its long fleshy green tentacles and purple tips. It certainly looked as though it hadn’t gone without a good meal in its comfortable surroundings. On the programme I mentioned the anemone’s rather intriguing adaptation of using its mouth both as its bottom and as the orifice from which it releases its egg and sperm. However, the story does not end there, they also bud to reproduce a perfect miniature form of themselves. These anemones are found around the majority of the British coast but are rarely (if ever) found on the east coast of England and Scotland or the easterly parts of Ireland. However, with warmer temperatures and changing currents in our seas the distribution of species is changing.
The vivid coloration of the Snakelocks is in part due to the presence of algae that love sunlight, which live in the tentacles. You will tend to find these anemones in the sunnier patches of rockpools. Unlike their cousins – the Beadlet Anemones Actinia equina – the Snakelocks rarely withdraw their tentacles to prevent themselves from desiccation on the low tide. The Beadlets will be found in shaded areas and can survive in areas where they will be left high and dry over the tidal period – in rocky, shaded crags for example. There is also a brown, paltry form of Snakelocks Anemone that is more common in areas protected from the harsh rays of the drying sunlight. But, as with the colourful algae-filled Snakelocks, the brown form will mostly be found in the pools even on the lowest of tides. This anemone was thought to lack the presence of the algae, but it is now thought to possibly even be a different species.
Cushion Stars will dry out if left out of the water for any period so replace in pools as quickly as possible.
There were also some small, but always popular, varieties of starfish within the ‘mockpool’. Hidden in the pool on the surface of the rocks and seaweed were a perfectly formed Cushion Star and Common Starfish. These always seem to capture the enthusiasm and delight of rockpoolers, young and old. They have some amazing adaptations, with tube feet on their underside that they control with hydraulic pressure. They use these tube feet to glide seemingly effortlessly around the surfaces of rocks and seaweed.
Seven-armed Starfish – the tube feet of the starfish, which they use for locomotion and predation, are clearly visible.
The Common Starfish – the larger, orange specimen – also use their hydraulic tube feet to predate on their food. They will give an unsuspecting mussel a seemingly affectionate hug, enveloping the mussel in their strong arms, attaching the many tube feet that run the length of their five arms to the mussel’s shell. Once the starfish has a good grip it gently prises the mussel shell apart. It then ejects its stomach from its mouth in a bizarre and, for some, disturbing way and digests the mussel within its own ‘protective’ shell.
In times gone by if fishermen found these starfish eating their commercially valuable mussels they would peel off the starfish and rip them in two. But in unforgiving tidal and marine environments the starfish have adapted to withstand the pressure of harsh waves and predation using the powers of regeneration – they will quite simply re-grow lost limbs and it’s not uncommon for their usual pentameral symmetry to be broken by a shorter, ‘stumpier’ arm.
I could tell you so much more about the incredible adaptations of the organisms that are found in the intertidal zone, but I’d better save some facts for my book, the RSPB Handbook of the Seashore, coming in early 2013. I am looking forward to being able to really expand on the amazing stories that these wonderful beasts have to tell. By the end of the writing months, I hope to have so many more new facts for you to read, but also to maintain my chances of ‘out-geeking’ the knowledge fountain that is Chris Packham!
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You can watch clips of Autumnwatch Unsprung’s ‘mockpool’ on the BBC iPlayer via these links – the marine sections are at 6.20, 15.00 and 24.45 minutes (UK only).
“A pig is a jolly companion”
This week we have a delightful guest blog from our cherished author and award-winning artist, Celia Lewis, who discloses how life really is living with a pig or two.
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“Mum, there’s a pig at the front door” is not necessarily what you want to hear when you’ve just changed and are about to go out to dinner. “A” pig rather than “a couple of pigs” is even more tiresome as it means one is missing. Never give your pigs names you are advised, if they are going into the freezer – this is fine advice until it comes to calling them when they are lost.
Pigs can be kept on very little or a great deal of land. If you give them as large an area as you possibly can, with plenty of room to root, they will follow their natural instincts.
The pig at the front door is very happy to trot back down to its field with the help of a bucket of nuts, but then there is the problem of finding out where its strong snout has managed to lift up the fence in order to squeeze under. It is quite remarkable how small a gap a large pig can slip through.
Gloucestershire Old Spot sow. The Gloucestershire Old Spot is a pig well suited to the smallholder with a bit of land as they are hardy and excellent foragers.
Finding the lost pig is another matter. We are lucky enough to live on the edge of a huge area of heathland and one feels awfully foolish wandering about shouting “piggy piggy piggy”. Dog walkers are rather surprised, though not half as much as when they meet a large spotted pig trotting merrily along the footpath towards them. Our pigs never went far, however, and were always overjoyed to see you when found.
A healthy snout is cold and moist. The snout is used to dig into the soil to find food and is a very acute sense organ.
The field where our pigs live has a hill right in the middle, which necessitates a long walk all the way round if the pigs aren’t visible, so I taught them to come to a whistle which also saves a lot of calling. The only problem is that lop-eared pigs have trouble locating where a sound is coming from, not to mention being unable to see because their ears hang over their eyes – they hear the whistle and run, but frequently in the wrong direction. Stop, look about, I whistle again and they hurtle in a different direction. Eventually they see me and come running, ears flying – their funny stiff gait always making me laugh. Pigs have the reputation for being intelligent but mine never seemed to learn that when I whistled I was always by their ark where they were fed.
Gone are the days where you could feed your pigs with scraps or kitchen waste. But you may feed fruit and vegetables from your garden and your pigs will certainly appreciate it - windfall apples are a perfect example.
Pigs are characterful creatures that become extremely tame and I did rather regret the way they trotted happily and trustingly up the path and into the stable to start their journey to the abattoir. These two were lucky pigs though, that had five acres to root up – which indeed they did.
Celia Lewis and her Gloucestershire Old Spots.
Celia Lewis is the author and artist of the wonderful Illustrated Guide to series, which are delightfully illustrated and informative books ideal for anyone interested in keeping pigs or chickens who wants to choose the most suitable breed for their circumstances.
There are two published titles in the series so far: the best-selling The Illustrated Guide to Chickens and, brand new this month, The Illustrated Guide to Pigs.
Celia is currently hard at work writing and painting for her next title in this series The Illustrated Guide to Ducks and Geese, due to publish in summer 2012.
Snapping scavengers
This week, a guest post from author and photographer Clive Finlayson, on an incredible encounter around a carcass in the Pyrenees …
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It’s cold, actually it’s freezing – hard to believe that I am in the Iberian Peninsula and not somewhere in the Arctic. The temperature has plummeted to -11oC here at 1,600 metres in the Pyrenees. It’s January. Having to keep motionless in the dark really doesn’t help much, nor do the layers of thermal underwear, tights, pairs of socks … the sky outside is intense blue. That should, at least, ensure good conditions for photography. But will our target birds arrive today?
It’s now 10am and my wife and I have been in the hide for four hours. The sun is up but the temperature stays below freezing. Some silhouettes flit past. They are large. We focus the cameras on the deer carcass laid out barely 15 metres away, and we wait … out of nowhere a Griffon Vulture appears, as though by magic, but he’s been soaring cautiously above the bait – we just couldn’t see him with our limited view. A blink of the eye and there are now twenty vultures on the ground. They look around nervously, unsure. We avoid the temptation of clicking away. This would be the wrong moment. If they get spooked now, that will be it for today. Ten minutes later and a hundred or so Griffons approach the carcass. The first one goes for the intestines and starts to open up a gash. Others come in quickly. They start to scream and chatter at each other. The frenzy has started. Now we can start to shoot!
Griffons doing their thing.
Twenty minutes and hundreds of photos later the deer is a skeleton but our work has only just begun. Hanging around the edge of the frenzy, eight Black Vultures now come forward. They may be larger but they cannot compete with so many Griffons. But there is plenty for them to eat now; tough tendons, sinews and hide all get torn to shreds by their powerful beaks. Even now we haven’t got what we came for and we know we may not get it at all. Previous visits have ended in disappointment – they didn’t come down or they kept some distance. Today is different. We can see their distinctive shadows on the ground – large with a wedge-shaped tail …
Black Vultures - the Face of Death.
Then, as unexpectedly as the first Griffon, our first Lammergeier is down – a first-year bird. This one stays on the edge of the commotion. It looks around nervously but then starts to walk towards the hide. A second bird puts it up as it lands. These birds seem to have the habit of landing close to each other in threatening fashion, often displacing each other. And the young ones seem more aggressive than the adults. Then the “wow” moment as the first adult lands. Its hard to believe how spectacular this bird is when it is just a few metres away.
The Lammergeier.
Anvils? Who needs anvils. The Lammergeiers find their ideal bones, manipulate them with dexterity and swallow them whole! That’s just one lesson from watching birds close in. It’s only when the optimal bones are exhausted that the larger ones are carried away, held in one foot or with the beak.
The scene I have described would have been a familiar one to our prehistoric ancestors. In fact, most of the Palearctic species around today predate the last two million years of glaciation and many are much older. Lammergeiers shared their Palaearctic range with the Neanderthals – the fit is almost too exact – and they must have come into close competition for bone marrow. No doubt the Neanderthals watched the vultures, who led them to sources of food.
An Egyptian Vulture joins the fun.
I’m now back at home in Gibraltar, going through the palaeontological collections that I have been excavating here for twenty years. I bring out a set of bones from a Neanderthal occupation level. In my hand is a metatarsus of a Lammergeier and the box also contains Griffon, Egyptian and another large vulture (probably Black). The bones are 40,000 years old. I reflect on the history of the avifauna of the Palearctic. How did climate shape the fates of the birds? Can we combine the fossils with the living birds to give us a better understanding of the history and biogeography of Palaearctic birds? In Avian Survivors I hope to answer these questions and more …
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Clive is the author of Avian Survivors: The History and Biogeography of Palearctic Birds – on sale next month!
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“Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience”
Our guest blogger this week is David Tipling – a well-known professional wildlife photographer who for the last 20 years has travelled extensively, photographing some of the world’s most iconic wildlife. In this week’s blog, David reflects on the early days of wildlife photography and some of its pioneers.
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I was recently asked to take part in a programme for Radio 4 on Emma Turner. If you live in the Norfolk Broads and have a keen interest in wildlife you may have heard of Turner, but largely she has been forgotten. Yet a hundred years ago she shot to fame within the wildlife photography and conservation world, for it was Emma who discovered the first Bitterns breeding back in Britain since their extinction in 1868 and she took images of the young that even a hundred years on are still striking. For these photos she was awarded the Royal Photographic Society’s Gold Medal, a once prestigious award. Blowing the dust off Turner’s best-known book Broadland Birds I got thinking about those early photographers.
Bittern stalking through the marsh in autumn.
Emma Turner was very much a pioneer; she started taking pictures with a plate camera in 1900 just five years after R.B. Lodge took the first ever image of a bird, of a Lapwing on a nest. The limitations of her equipment meant she needed to be within just a few feet of her subject. Turner would get one of her helpers to cover her in reeds or any other natural material to hand and would lie prone for hours in pursuit of often just one image, because once her plate was exposed she had to reload the camera with another. At the same time the Kearton brothers were also experimenting with concealment; they tried disguising themselves in a pantomime horse, made a false tree in which to hide and employed countless other ways of getting close to birds, but neither they nor Emma had yet to start using a simple canvas tent that later became known as a hide.
Early wildlife photographers had to improvise their hides from whatever materials were to hand.
In spite of these rudimentary beginnings remarkably by the start of the First World War nearly every species of British breeding bird had been photographed. Cherry and Richard Kearton blazed a trail and became very well known, indeed Cherry Kearton’s films were screened in cinemas around the world. And by the 1920s there was an ever-growing army of photographers, many still choosing to use the plate camera as it gave such excellent image quality. Plate cameras were still restrictive, however, both in reach (as you had to be so close to your subject) and because you could only expose one image before having to remove and reload the next plate – a far cry from the 10 frames a second photographers can capture now.
It was during the 1920s that camera manufacturers started producing single lens reflex cameras for smaller formats. This was a huge leap forward for wildlife photographers and a decade later another major breakthrough came with the invention of Kodak colour film.
Today's wildlife photographers can use lenses to create the illusion of proximity with their subjects. The long lens used to photograph this resting fox helped isolate the fox's head and provide focus on its one open eye.
Since then our equipment has evolved to allow us to be able to capture the most amazing images from the natural world. But there is still one requirement of wildlife photographers that was as relevant to taking a great picture in 1911 as it still is in 2011, and that is perseverance. Kearton, Turner and the many great photographers that followed them have, of course, all experienced moments of luck when something special happens at exactly the right moment, but the harder you try the luckier you get.
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David is the author of several books and his wildlife photographs have been published widely throughout the world. The fully revised second edition of his RSPB Guide to Digital Wildlife Photography was published earlier this year and is available to buy on our website now. It’s the ultimate reference book for all aspiring and established natural history photographers.
A glimpse of a golden dragon?
This week, a guest blog from author and photographer Marianne Taylor, in search of elusive insect visitors …
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What an Easter weekend it was. Every day was wall-to-wall sunshine, and the heat was more suggestive of August than April. We’d already had one full day out, watching Kittiwakes, Fulmars and Peregrines at Seaford Head in Sussex, and now it was Sunday night and I was surfing around the wildlife websites, looking for inspiration for something to do on Easter Monday. A thread on a message board caught my eye – ‘Vagrant Emperors at RSPB Dungeness’. I read on – three rare dragonflies that were supposed to be in Africa had been found hawking over a ditch down in east Kent.
Twitching, or rarity-chasing, isn’t just for the birders. When we arrived on Denge Marsh Road on Monday morning, there was already a long row of parked cars – everyone eager to see the exotic dragonflies. People were standing on a nearby stone bridge over the ditch that had seen all the action yesterday. No Vagrant Emperors to be seen – perhaps they had flown on north, but it hardly seemed to matter. We were surrounded by wildlife.
A male Marsh Harrier soars away (Marianne Taylor)
Overhead, the local Marsh Harriers cruised and wheeled. Through the morning they shared their airspace with a mini-procession of migrant raptors – a Red Kite, another, a Hobby, a third kite. Closer to hand, a Sedge Warbler sang with extraordinary verve and exuberance. I watched as it pirouetted around a reed stem, then launched itself skywards, singing furiously all the time. Over the creek flew little Hairy Hawker dragonflies, while right below us in the water lurked a hefty Pike, regarding the humans above with a cold and disenchanted eye.
A Sedge Warbler doing its thing (Marianne Taylor)
Then a shout came from down the creek – when all hope seemed lost, someone had spotted the Vagrant Emperor. The electrified crowd moved as one, racing down the path alongside the creek, trying to control swinging binoculars and cameras and dodging ruts and furrows underfoot. We caught a glimpse of the golden-winged dragon just as it disappeared around a bend.
Vagrant Emperor in flight, Dungeness (Robert Cardell)
We waited, and eventually it came powering back along the creek, a volley of camera clicks tracking its progress. We sat in the long grass and watched it go by again, once, twice, three times, and then it was gone. Everyone began to drift away, but we stayed a little longer, watching Swallows skimming the fields around us while fat, clumsy alderflies settled on our shoes and a freshly emerged Hairy Hawker climbed slowly up a reed stem, the sunshine glistening on its brand new wings.
Hairy Hawker (Marianne Taylor)
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Marianne is the author of our brilliant new book RSPB Nature Watch – click the cover below to pick up a copy! You can read more about Marianne’s adventures on her blog, The Wild Side.
Seabird adventures in the South Seas
A few months back, I wrote an article about A&C Black author Hadoram Shirihai and his fearless quest for seabirds. In this piece (written on behalf of the Tubenoses Project and Extreme Gadfly Petrel Expeditions Ltd), Hadoram and his colleague Vincent Bretagnolle update us on an audacious and truly amazing research expedition to the Western Pacific in April and May this year. Prepare yourself for a tale of adventure and some fascinating discoveries …
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We have just completed an extraordinary research expedition to Vanuatu. Our main focus was collecting additional material for our taxonomic investigation of the brevipes-leucoptera complex, within the gadfly petrels. Our first major expedition to this region was conducted in December 2009–January 2010, and on this occasion we again reached the remote Banks Islands, in the north of Vanuatu. There we tried to relocate and study our new petrel, which we have recently named and described as a new taxon to science, the Magnificent Petrel Pterodroma (brevipes) magnificens (for full details see Bretagnolle & Shirihai 2010).
Magnificent Petrel, April 2011, off Mota Lava Island. The smallest but most attractive of the gadfly petrels – and endemic to the Banks Islands, North Vanuatu! Note the combination of small, delicate appearance, particularly the slender bill and body, and proportionally longish tail. The Magnificent Petrel occurs almost exclusively in this dark form (in at least 99% of the individuals examined); note also the predominantly dark underwing with a very broad black diagonal band and grey greater-coverts, leaving an extremely limited pure-white covert area.
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The new data and some of the discoveries made on our latest expedition (especially from northern Vanuatu but also from elsewhere from Western Pacific) will be analysed and published in the ornithological literature before becoming available in full to the public. However, we are delighted to give a taster of some of our findings and photos now. This expedition was easily the most challenging of our careers, but also one of the most successful, especially regarding the new discoveries we made on the way.
During a pelagic search in the Banks Islands, especially off Gaua, Vanua Lava and Mota Lava Islands, we found in the space of just three days no fewer than 107 Magnificent Petrels, and counted 420 Vanuatu Petrels P. (cervicalis) occulta.
Vanuatu Petrel, the other endemic gadfly petrel of the Banks Islands, April 2011, off Mota Lava. This petrel was first collected in 1927, but it was only seen alive at sea in 2006 (by the authors); on the latest expedition more than 400 individuals were counted at sea, and good numbers of birds were studied at night at the colonies in Vanua Lava.
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Many birds were documented with the most advanced camera equipment, with issues of plumage variation, moult and ageing of the petrels being the main target in these observations. We also collected data on oceanic distribution, pre-evening inland penetration, gathering behaviour, movement and feeding behaviour. To see video footage of the team in action at sea, click here!
(Left) Hadoram during the pelagic survey, documenting plumage variation and behaviour of the petrels; (right) Herald Petrel Pterodroma heraldica was among the surprises during the pelagic – a truly rare breeder or vagrant in the West Pacific. April 2011, off Mota Lava Island.
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Following an earlier 2011 expedition conducted by scientists from Australia (S. Totternam) and New Zealand (Colin Miskelly and Alan Tennyson), and partly with the same local guides, we reached the highest volcano complex of the Island of Vanua Lava, Banks Islands, where we were able to confirm our 2009 discovery of the Magnificent Petrel’s breeding island.
With three islanders we climbed the forest in Vanua Lava Island, entering the complex of the volcano, Qwelrakrak. Here we are crossing the volcanic sulphur fields at the base of the caldera.
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The location of the breeding colony is suspected to be on a very steep cliff (inaccessible by all means); this forms part of the caldera of a still partially active volcano! Despite this sizeable challenge, and with the help of three local villagers, we camped out, spending four nights on the top of the caldera, just above the colony and where non-breeding birds were making powerful nocturnal aerial displays.
The breeding locality of the Magnificent Petrel, a cliff top on Qwelrakrak Volcano’s caldera on Vanua Lava, Banks Islands.
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Each night, between 20 and 40 Magnificent Petrels were involved in these impressive and highly vocal flight displays – to hear some of these extraordinary calls, click here: the deep call is of the female, followed by an unsexed bird uttering ‘machine-like’ tig-tig calls; these may also function to help the birds avoid crashing into each other in the dark!
By comparison, during the initial discovery of the breeding location on the 2009–10 expedition, only 5–10 birds (presumably breeding adults) were displaying at this location in December (some also gave ground calls). The possible differences in the age-class and display behaviours between the two expeditions – December (adults) versus April (non-breeders) – augment our hypothesis that the Magnificent Petrel is a summer (instead of winter) breeder within the brevipes-leucoptera complex.
Magnificent Petrels on Vanua Lava Island.
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We managed to mist-net quite a few of the displaying petrels, allowing us to collect highly valuable biometric data, to perform DNA sampling, and to photograph all the Magnificent Petrels we trapped. Many hours of tape recordings were collected for acoustic investigation too. The new data will help to refine the taxonomic relationships and taxonomic rank of the Magnificent Petrel.
A Magnificent Petrel on Vanua Lava Island. When handled, Magnificent Petrels are very calm, almost as if they are ‘allowing’ examination. Birds were trapped for measurements and blood sampling. Note the broad diagonal black underwing-band, leaving a limited pure-white covert area.
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Magnificent Petrel on Vanua Lava, an extreme dark individual with a smaller white facial area; note the typical dark bluish-grey below.
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During the work on Vanua Lava Island, we also took biometric and acoustic data and carried out genetic sampling of the Vanuatu Petrel, from the recently discovered breeding colony of this petrel – these data will complement current studies of this petrel lead by the Australia/New Zealand team mentioned above, along with local islanders of Vanua Lava. A report on the first at-sea sightings of Vanuatu Petrel as well as on identification and variation in the taxon can be found here.
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This was a difficult and challenging expedition, with some serious life-risking situations for us to deal with. Perhaps the most dangerous was a night escape from a volcanic sulphur eruption. At midnight on 26th April, while Vincent was located at the bottom of the caldera (to improve acoustic conditions for recording Vanuatu Petrels at night) and Hadoram was trying to monitor and capture displaying Magnificent Petrels at the top, there was a steaming eruptive event, with dramatic increases of air temperature and the release of toxic gases. The dense volcanic cloud trapped Hadoram, unfortunately while he held two Magnificent Petrels in his hand. Vincent managed to run away back to the forest, escaping intoxication, but stuck at the top of the caldera, Hadoram had no choice other than to take the two petrels into his sealed tent, and to wait for a few hours with a gas mask attached to his face until the air had cleared up. Hadoram also tied a wet towel around the heads and bills of the two Magnificent Petrels to protect them from the gases. Only at about 03.00 the next morning had the gases dispersed and the air cleaned up; at this point the two Magnificent Petrels were released safely, unharmed.
The source of the sulphurous volcanic eruption on Qwelrakrak.
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The next day Hadoram was very ill – due partly to the cold, wet conditions, and partly to exposure to the gases – and an eight-hour struggle through the forest back to the ocean did not help matters. However, on an expedition such as this one has two choices – recover quickly and continue, or die. Indeed, we continued to another island group, where we made additional petrel discoveries at sea and on land, and where Vincent became the first European to reach several summits (according to local islanders), discovering the breeding grounds of other petrels. The complete story of that part of the expedition will be published soon (hopefully), and everything is documented in the expedition’s diary as well …
In addition to our discoveries, and work on Magnificent and Vanuatu Petrel biology mentioned above, the expedition was invaluable for the completion of collecting information on all the known populations of the brevipes-leucoptera complex of gadfly petrels, including at-sea chumming photographic documentations, biometrics, acoustic and genetic data, and which hopefully will help to reveal some of the secrets of these incredible and still little-known seabirds.
Sunrise at the breeding locality of the Magnificent and Vanuatu Petrels, at the top of the Qwelrakrak caldera, Vanua Lava. The bottom of the caldera is still steaming away after the midnight eruption.
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To view Driven by the Petrels, a short (and fairly amazing) movie summarising events on the first leg of the expedition to the Banks Islands discussed above, click here!
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Hadoram Shirihai and Vincent Bretagnolle are the authors of the forthcoming Albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters of the world: a handbook to their taxonomy, identification, ecology and conservation, and Field Guide to the Seabirds of the World, both published by Christopher Helm.
Extreme Gadfly Petrel Expeditions Ltd is a non-commercial body with the specific goal of searching for and studying the least-known and rarest species of albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters, and to increase awareness for the conservation of seabirds in general. Extreme Gadfly Petrel Expeditions and the Tubenoses Project perform two or three major research expeditions to remote waters and islands every year.
Vincent (left) and Hadoram (centre top), with some of the Lalngetak islanders that are protecting and assisting the study of the petrels on Vanua Lava, Manman (right) and Brown (centre below), with the photo taken by Jackson.
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For Mike Imber: The authors dedicate the expedition and this report to the memory of a recently lost friend and collaborator, Mike Imber (New Zealand), who died while the current expedition was taking place. Mike’s contribution to petrel ecology and conservation had no match, and we both owe him a lot. We were deeply saddened to hear of the loss of Mike; the petrel community has lost a true authority.
A Passion for Puffins
This week, a guest blog from Mike Harris and Sarah Wanless, from the Puffin colony on the Isle of May, Scotland …
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It is early morning and we are peering out of a weathered wooden hide at some 400m2 of grassy slope – part of the largest Puffin colony in the North Sea, on the Isle of May National Nature Reserve in the entrance to the Firth of Forth, southeast Scotland. Some of the Puffins disturbed by our arrival at the hide are starting to land, while others that dived down into their burrows peer out before confidently re-emerging. They should be used to us, since this is the 40th year that we have been watching them.
View from the hide (Liz Mackley).
The colony is a busy place today, even though by early May most pairs will probably be incubating their single egg, deep within their burrow. However, some birds are still squabbling over the ownership of burrows. Usually this involves little more than threats but there is the occasional scrap, with the protagonists tumbling down the slope, beaks locked, wings flailing. Other birds are tugging away at clumps of dead grass and taking bundles down burrows to line the nest chambers. Periodically, a rabbit hops through the area looking slightly intimidated by all the Puffin activity. During the winter it probably lived in a Puffin burrow but has been evicted now that the owner has returned, its soft nose being no match for a Puffin’s beak!
Puffin and rabbit (Eleanor Watt).
As well as simply enjoying watching the goings-on in the Puffin colony, our visit to the hide on this and many other mornings has a more scientific purpose. We are trying to read all the colour-ring combinations of the birds that are present, and this is best done early in the season before the vegetation has grown. At the end of the 2010 season, 158 colour-ringed Puffins were known to be alive, and so far this season we have recorded 75% of these at least once. There is still plenty of time to tick off more birds but already it is clear that that survival rate over the 2010–11 winter has been good, since the resighting rate is approaching the normal 80–85%. Actual survival is always a little higher than the resighting rate, since we never see all the birds alive.
The Puffin that we would love to see, but sadly probably won’t, is ‘yellow-blue left, yellow-BTO ring right’, a male ringed as a breeding adult in 1974, when he would have been at least five years old. He last bred in burrow number 100 in 2005 and was present in the colony in 2006 and 2008, when he would have been at least 39 years old. Currently the longevity record for the Puffin is held by a bird that died in the Lofoten Islands in Norway when aged 41 years.
Colour-ringed Puffin on the Isle of May (Liz Mackley).
On the Isle of May the Puffin is among the earliest of the seabirds to breed, with the first egg often laid in the first few days of April. The incubation period lasts 40–42 days, so we are now looking forward to one of the highlights of summer at a seabird colony, seeing the first Puffin carrying fish ashore.
Puffin carrying sandeels (Akinori Takahashi).
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Mike and Sarah are the authors of our new Poyser monograph The Puffin – now on sale!
Follow that falcon
This week, a guest blog by Richard Sale, Arctic explorer, photographer and author of Complete Guide to Arctic Wildlife.
The accumulated whitewash identified the Gyrfalcon nest site. The little cave high in the cliff was an ideal spot, the whitewash suggesting that generations of Gyrs had used the well-hidden, well-guarded spot. This year’s female was barely visible as she sat incubating her clutch. Gyrs are among the earliest to breed of all Arctic species and this female had started before the sea ice at the base of the cliff had even begun to melt.
Access to the cave was difficult, a sloping ramp of rock offered a chance, but there was still an overhanging section below the cave. I climb rock faces as a hobby, but the week before, out on Hudson Bay, I had slipped in the boat from which I was photographing Beluga Whales, caught my hand on the gunwale, and fractured the thumb of my left hand, which was now the size of a football and hurt like hell. With my thumb splinted against my index finger with insulating tape – no medical facilities out in this remote place – I had continued to head north. But for a one-armed solo climber the cliff face was just too intimidating.
A high-angle scramble up frozen mud and scree, using the tripod as a makeshift ice-axe, allowed me to approach the spot where the male Gyr had an observation post. From this point he watched for any sign of predators on the prowl, in defence of his mate and her precious eggs. He saw me, and let out that awesome but beautiful kaa-kaa-kaa that raises the hairs on the back of my neck. He was magnificent, almost pure white, ghost-like as he flew silently through the cold air.
Over the next few days, perched in a cramped and fairly miserable hide, I got to know him well. He hunted regularly for his mate, feeding her so that she would not have to leave the eggs, which would have quickly chilled in the sub-zero temperatures. Then he would sit on his observation post, resting and peering out over the sea ice. Once he let out a sharp call, and exiting the hide I saw him dive and hit a Snow Goose which had strayed too close, killing it instantly but knocking the unfortunate bird into a stretch of open sea, from which he could not retrieve it. At other times he plucked his lunchtime grouse just a few feet away. Days passed and my hand hurt a little less. That made the long, long snow-scooter ride back to civilisation much less painful than the outward journey had been. It wasn’t the pain that stopped me now, but the need to look back for one more glimpse of Gyr.
Richard Sale is the author of A Complete Guide to Arctic Wildlife.
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