birds | people | science · 2020. 4. 16. · Cover image: Megha Rao and Farah Ishtiaq (Tata...

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birds | people | science

April 2020

BOU.ORG.UK IBIS.AC.UK

@IBIS_JOURNAL

IBISJOURNAL

IBIS_JOURNAL

英国鸟类学会会刊

BOU member newsletter | April 2020 |

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Welcome Juliet Vickery BOU President

Down, but most certainly not out.

At the time of my election last year, no one had any

idea what we would be facing as a global community

just one year on. All of our lives are now disrupted due to Covid-19. We’re all

experiencing personal and professional disappointments, as events and milestones are

cancelled or postponed. I desperately hope none of you will face serious illness or worse,

the tragic loss of loved ones.

Early April should have seen many of us attending the BOU annual conference on Avian

Restoration, and the eagerly awaited Alfred Newton Lecture by “Conservation Hero”

Carl Jones MBE. Sadly, this was postponed until 2021, but Carl and many of the other

presenters instantly agreed to move with us to next spring, ensuring that the hard work

of the Avian Restoration conference organisers will still bear fruit.

The BOU is a small but unique community and if Covid-19 teaches us nothing else, it

will certainly remind us of the value of being connected and part of a community. It has

never been easier to stay in touch with the outside world without actually entering it.

Social media, in particular, can be a force for good; do use it to share your ornithology

highlights and updates and to congratulate and support others.

As physical events around the world are shut down, people are increasingly looking to

online and remote ways of delivering their scientific research–and the BOU is already

ahead of the game. This year we are involved in or running three Twitter conferences,

starting in May with the BOU-supported World Seabird Twitter Conference (#WSTC6).

In October we are co-hosting, with the International Wader Study Group, the first ever

International Shorebird Twitter Conference (#ISTC20) and in November, our annual

one-day autumn meeting will also be a full-on Twitter event. You’ll find details of all

these events on the conference pages of the BOU website.

We’ve recently held our first round of open nominations for BOU committee

membership, where members were encouraged to nominate other members for

committee positions. Thank you if you participated in this new initiative. Nominations

for Council remain open until 15 June, and again we encourage you to nominate BOU

members to represent the membership on Council. See page 11. As many of you are confined to the great indoors, our IBIS journal team has been busy

preparing for a predicted upturn in submitted papers. Isolation is time to finally get that

‘albatross of a manuscript around my neck’ submitted.

Stay safe, stay connected and we’ll see you when the world opens up for business again

at BOU2021.

BOU NEWSLETTER April 2020

Compiled and edited by Steve Dudley

assisted by Graham Appleton

Contributions Please send contributions to Steve Dudley ([email protected]) or to the address below.

BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS’ UNION Registered as a Charity: England and Wales, no. 249877 Scotland, no. SC044850

Address PO Box 417, Peterborough PE7 3FX, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1 733 844 820 Email: [email protected] Web: www.bou.org.uk / ibis.ac.uk

BOU Staff Chief Operations Officer Steve P. Dudley

Journal & Office Manager Angela F. Langford

Council Officers President Prof Juliet Vickery Vice Presidents Neil J. Bucknell Prof Tony Fox Honorary Secretary Dr Helen Baker Honorary Treasurer Graham F. Appleton

Members of Council Prof Phil Atkinson (Chair, Grants Committee), Prof Will Cresswell, Dr Emma Cunningham, Dr Francis Daunt (Chair, Meetings Committee), Dr Tom Finch, Dr James Gilroy (Chair, Records Committee), Dr Rowena Langston, Dr Jennifer Smart (Chair, IBIS Management Committee), Dr Rosie Trevelyan and Dr Hugh Wright (Chair, Engagement Committee). Cover image: Megha Rao and Farah Ishtiaq (Tata Institute for Genetics and Society (TIGS-India), Bangalore) with Vaidas Palinauskas (National Research Centre, Lithuania), sampling high elevation breeding birds to understand avian malaria diversity in resident and migrant Himalayan birds. Kanchula Kharag, India, April 2015 © Harish Maithani


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JOHN & PAT WARHAM STUDENTSHIP

Round Island petrels Kirsty Franklin University of East Anglia, UK

In the second article about PhD life, our first Warham Student, Kirsty Franklin, tells us about her first field season on Round Island in the Indian Ocean.

“ Mauritius was made first and then heaven,

heaven being copied after Mauritius ”

With such a recommendation from Mark Twain, it is no surprise that over 1.3 million

tourists visit Mauritius each year. The tropical island, situated in the west Indian

Ocean, is well-known as a popular holiday destination, with its clear blue waters, white

sandy beaches and volcanic mountain backdrops. However, I am not here to tell you

about my time sat on the beaches of mainland Mauritius (although they are pretty

spectacular!), but rather a small volcanic islet called Round Island, situated 22.5 km off

its northern coast.

Round Island was created by an active volcano between 250,000 and 100,000 years ago;

its rocky cliff faces are made up of layers of compressed ash, interspersed with bits of

old coral and lines of quartz. The island’s remoteness and steep rocky cliffs have made

it a difficult place to access and, as a result, the island was unappealing for human

settlement. This means that relatively few people have visited the island–a huge

advantage for the island’s wild inhabitants, given the devastation that often

accompanies human habitation of islands. Mammalian predators, such as cats and rats,

have never reached Round Island, as they did mainland Mauritius. Goats and rabbits

were introduced, to provide food, but these have been eradicated. The damage they

caused to the vegetation is now being restored by the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation

and the National Parks and Conservation Service (Mauritian Government).

As soon as you reach the island (after extensive quarantining procedures, a motion

sickness-inducing boat ride, and then an assisted jump off the boat onto the only flat

rock along the island’s coastline), all you can hear is the cacophony of seabird calls.

Dawn and dusk are alive with the rapidly repeating and high-pitched call of Round

Island petrels, aggressive Red- and White- tailed Tropicbirds fill the remaining daytime

hours, and the night is filled with the eerie calls of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters. It is

Round Island petrels that I travelled to Round Island to study in September 2019.

Round Island © Kirsty Franklin

Round Island petrel chick © Kirsty Franklin Originally identified as Trindade Petrels (Pterodroma arminjoniana), it has only relatively recently been revealed that the Round Island population is in fact a mixed, hybridizing population with at least two additional species – Kermadec (P. neglecta) and Herald (P. heraldica) petrels.


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Pterodroma petrels can be found on Round Island at any time of the year, although the

numbers in which they occur fluctuates across the months. This relates to a peak in the

breeding period from August through to October. Round Island wardens, staff and

volunteers monitor the breeding effort of these petrels every two months during routine

petrel surveys, and I had the pleasure of helping during my time on the island. Known

nesting areas are visited and petrels are either ringed or recorded as recaptures. At the

same time, breeding status (including number of eggs, chicks and fledglings) is

recorded. The petrels are surface-nesters so ninja-mode has to be employed in order to

sneak up on the adult birds before they see you and fly away. Preliminary analyses of

the long-term survey data (collected since 1994) have revealed seasonal variation in

breeding success but further detailed data and analyses are required to understand why

this pattern occurs.

I could have spent my time on Round Island visiting nest sites every day, in order to try

to measure individual petrel breeding performance and capture this seasonal variation

in nesting success, but I needed a longer-term solution for monitoring these enigmatic

seabirds. So, instead, I spent my two months on the island trialing the use of time-lapse

photography. This method has the advantage that, once installed, there would be

reduced disturbance at nests, and nest sites could be monitored year-round. I spent my

first week on Round Island checking out the different petrel colonies and looking for

potential camera sites. This gave me the opportunity to explore the island, watching

every step, in order to avoid treading on the abundance of native and endemic reptiles,

scampering about underfoot, whilst getting used to the very steep and rocky terrain.

Round Island petrels nest in a variety of different habitats, typically in rock cavities or

under rock ledges but they may also nest among boulder piles, tussock grasses, under

Scaevola bushes, or just out in the open. Let’s just say, finding potential camera sites

(where the contents of multiple nests could be viewed, to increase sample size, while

avoiding direct sunlight on the camera face) wasn’t the easiest of jobs. To help me in

my efforts, I also used the historical productivity data collated from the routine petrel

surveys, so that I could choose nest sites that had been used relatively frequently in the

past few years, in the hope that they would be used again.

To make things even more interesting, Round Island is a very seasonal environment

with a tropical cyclone period during the austral summer. This meant that cameras

needed to be securely fixed to the ground, and the materials sourced to make the stands

have to be able to withstand high levels of salt and moisture. After trialing stand

designs and overcoming the logistic challenges of getting stainless steel and aluminium

poles onto the island via boat, it was time to build. I knew when I started my PhD that

I would gain new skills, but never did I think it would be in DIY! Each camera is

attached by a metal bracket to a vertical metal pole dug into the rock, and supported by

four additional metal bars, each drilled into the rock; all cut to size depending on the

camera’s location.

A range of camera settings were tested: did I want the PIR motion sensor on? How

often did I want a photo to be taken? These options would determine how often camera

maintenance would have to take place (changing batteries and SD cards). I opted for

Kirsty installing one of the remote camera rigs. Each rig had to be made bespoke for its placement, including having to somehow secure them to bare rock!

A finished rig and camera in situ.


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time-lapse, only taking one image every hour, which should allow the identification of

key phenological dates (e.g. egg-laying, hatching, chick fledging) and the recording of

nest attendance, and finally nest success. To capture the seasonal variation in breeding

success, the idea is that the cameras will be left in the field to take photos for the

duration of my PhD (2019-2021). Camera maintenance will take place at two-month

intervals, to coincide with the routine petrel survey, and photos will be emailed back

when the internet allows. Now I have to wait, but I’m itching to see the many images

of up to 40 nests that the ten cameras reveal!

I wish to thank everyone involved in the project and to those who provided access to

Round Island: Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, National Parks and Conservation Service,

my wonderful supervisors (Jenny Gill and Simon Butler from University of East Anglia,

Malcolm Nicoll and Ken Norris from Zoological Society of London, and Norman

Ratcliffe from British Antarctic Survey) and, in particular, Round Island warden

Johannes Chambon and fellow PhD student Max Tercel, for their invaluable help in the

field.

JOHN & PAT WARHAM STUDENTSHIP

The mystery of the crested penguins Paige Green University of Tasmania, Australia For my BOU Warham-funded PhD project, I am delving into the lives of crested penguins. There are seven species of crested penguin: Macaroni (under which the Royal Penguin is a sub-species), Northern Rockhopper, Southern Rockhopper, Eastern Rockhopper, Snares, Erect-crested and Fiordland. Crested penguins are extremely successful in the penguin world, having diversified into numerous (still existing) species and adapting to life from the relatively balmy climate of New Zealand mainland to the chill of Antarctica. All crested penguins have similar ecologies, feeding on krill, fish and squid. Interestingly, two species will often breed in close proximity, leading to competition for breeding space and food. Different crested penguin populations around the world are showing contrasting population trends, with several species having fairly stable populations (i.e. their population has stayed relatively the same for the last fifty years), while some, like the Eastern Rockhopper Penguin population on Campbell Island in the New Zealand sub-Antarctic, have declined by a massive 95%. This suggests that some populations are “getting it right” and other populations are now unable to find enough

Macaroni Penguins are brave and curious by nature, making them rather fun photographic subjects. This male penguin is taking a break after his long walk up to his nest at the top Swartkop hill, on Marion Island, and came over to say hi! © Paige Greene


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food to survive. Herein lies our mystery, and the case that I am investigating during my PhD: how do crested penguin populations, that are similar in most things they do and that have access to the same resources, not show the same population trends?

This colony of Macaroni Penguin at Amphitheatre, on Marion Island, holds around 30,000 breeding penguins each year © Paige Green The answer could lie in the four to five months when they embark on long and risky migrations into open seas with unpredictable food sources, and how the different populations are using the ocean during this time. Where do they go? Do the different populations go to different areas? How do they partition their resources? Are food supplies more plentiful or just more reliable in some areas than others? We’ve begun to answer some of these questions using the miniaturisation of light-based geolocator tracking devices that weigh as little as 2.5g and have a battery life of up to several years. This makes them ideal to put on the leg of penguins, in order to find out where they are going in the vast blue expanse of the Southern Ocean. Excitingly, we are now collaborating with almost all the current crested penguin researchers around the world, including colleagues from France, New Zealand, Germany, Spain, South Africa, Argentina and the UK, who have generously shared their data on tracked crested penguins during the winter migrations. This will allow us to create the first near-global winter migration distribution of all crested penguin species. It is a thrilling notion that we may gain a glimpse into the mysterious lives of these penguins. We hope to find out why crested penguins are declining worldwide and that these answers will provide a critical first step towards management plans for the conservation of these charismatic birds.

INTRODUCING . . . OUR THIRD WARHAM STUDENT

Émile Brisson-Curadeau was appointed our third John & Pat Warham Student at the end of 2019 by the McGill University (who were awarded the studentship in mid-2019). He will study the foraging behavior of King Penguins under extreme climatic events. Émile started in Antarctica in January, based on the Kerguelen Islands. Being so remote, communication is difficult, but when our email did get through to him, to congratulate him on his appointment, he replied "I have been working with polar seabirds for over three years now, and studying the King Penguin, a key indicator species in the Southern Ocean, is literally a dream come true! Thank you to the BOU for this opportunity".

Location of the Kerguelen Islands


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The first atlas of breeding birds of Armenia

Karen Aghababyan Towards Sustainable Ecosystems (TSE), Armenia

Armenia is a landlocked, mountainous country with an elevation range between 375

and 4090 meters above sea level. It has a very challenging terrain, with cliffs and

rocky canyons widespread and a variety of habitats from dry semi-deserts to wet

subalpine meadows. The area includes Lake Sevan–the second largest high-mountain

lake in the world–and the Ararat Plain contains many wetlands. The diversity of

habitats and geographical position of Armenia, at the junction of Europe and Asia,

results in a relatively rich diversity of breeding birds. The country’s location, between

the Black and Caspian Seas, within the bird migration routes between Eurasia and the

Middle East and Africa leads to rich migratory species diversity. There have been 375

bird species recorded in Armenia: 241 breeding species and 134 migrating and

wintering species, including European species such as Red-breasted Flycatcher and

European Greenfinch, Asian species include Eastern Rock Nuthatch and Persian

Wheatear and several endemics of the Caucasus ecoregion, such as Caucasian Grouse

and Mountain Chiffchaff.

Armenia was part of the Soviet Union until that country’s break up in 1991 and the

early years of independence were marred by energy and economic crises. The country is

still considered as developing, and it is significantly dependent on its natural resources,

which pose threats for many birds and their habitats. Such threats include overgrazing,

unsustainable forest logging, drainage of wetlands, open pit mining, pollution,

overharvesting and illegal poaching. The economic development goes on without any

monitoring of the ecosystems’ conditions and biodiversity. Meanwhile, the current

system of protected areas is not sufficient for comprehensive protection of birds and

other wildlife.

In response to these threats, in 2003 we started a nation-wide monitoring programme

of breeding birds, with the main aim being to produce regular and objective data which

can help in decision making at different levels: from business project to policy

development. Being a small country, rich in bird diversity, with a number of target

species for birders, and sufficient logistics for tourism, we were able to develop a

scheme of volunteer-based data collection, which was then used by scientists for further

analysis and conclusions. In 2010, the idea of the Breeding Bird Atlas of Armenia was

hatched, and in 2011 we began work on the data analysis. During this period the

community of Armenian birdwatchers also formed the Armenian Birdwatchers

Association, whose members have become involved in the bird counts.

Landlocked Armenia has a great many habitats, including (from top, below) extensive lowland wetlands, large tracts of lush green forest and high alpine areas. © Karen Aghababyan

BOU member, Karen Aghababyan, works for Armenian NGO, Towards Sustainable Ecosystems (TSE), based at the American University of Armenia. [email protected]


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At present, over 40% of the data comes from foreign birdwatchers, about 30% of data

comes from our network of volunteers, and the remaining 30% from specialists, who

mostly cover the remote areas, or urbanized areas which are not very interesting for

volunteer birdwatchers. The work on the Atlas continues and the book is planned for

publication in early 2021.

Member misadventures

Tom Finch RSPB Centre for Conservation Science & BOU Council member

There’s a growing move towards publicising and normalising failures, rejections and

mishaps. In these fields I think I’m quite well qualified, having made a string of stupid

cock-ups during my PhD. It’s time for me to speak out, hoping by now that I’ve

exceeded some statute of limitation.

Fieldwork presents a host of opportunities for trouble (see fieldworkfail.com). During

my PhD at the University of East Anglia, I spent three summers studying European

Rollers in France and Latvia, enduring car-related troubles (bottoming out when trying

to turn around in a field, driving off without tying the ladder down, radiator leaking,

central locking failing, battery failing . . . ), tent-related troubles (canvas slashed by

local youths while I slept, flooded out in the middle of the night . . . ), and wildlife-

related troubles (nest-boxes are full of traps for the unwary and I’ve encountered wasp

nests, bee nests, edible dormice jumping out and mite infestations).

The biggest of my many disasters struck during my final season in France. On

returning to our stuffy static caravan after a day’s radio tracking, I was unpacking the

van but couldn’t find the radio receivers anywhere. We rushed back to the orchard

where we’d last used them, to no avail. We then visited farms, the town hall and

eventually a police station, and I attempted to explain our predicament using my best

Franglais–no leads. A day or two later (after I’d caved in and owned up to my

supervisor back in England), we were in town when a farm worker beckoned us to the

back of a van, where he produced the receivers. I can’t quite remember how he found

us, but I think word must have spread that some sorry-looking English students were

desperate to find this stuff, which he was presumably struggling to find a market for.

Back in Norwich, I had my fair share of lab-based errors too. Most memorably (despite

my best efforts to forget) was the morning I went in to remove some (very expensive)

glassware from a furnace. The idea was to burn off organic contaminants overnight,

though in hindsight hot soapy water would probably have been safer. I’d used the

wrong temperature for the furnace and opened it to find a solid layer of glass moulded

MEET BOU MEMBER . . .

Jenna McCullough University of New Mexico, US

Born and raised in Boise, Idaho, I come from a long line of birdwatchers—both my mother and grandmother have travelled the world in pursuit of birds. I am continuing this maternal tradition with a career in ornithology and evolutionary biology.

I graduated with dual majors in Biology and Wildlife Resources from the University of Idaho in 2015. During my undergrad, I was involved with projects such as monitoring breeding Northern Saw-whet Owls, surveying birds in the Frank Church Wilderness of Idaho, and banding migrating songbirds.

In 2016, I joined Michael Andersen's lab at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and the Museum of Southwestern Biology, first as a lab technician, next as a Masters student (conferred in 2018), and now as a PhD student. For my Masters thesis, I investigated the systematics and biogeography of the order Coraciiformes (kingfishers, bee-eaters, rollers, allies). For my PhD, I'm focused on the diversification dynamics of a species-rich clade of kingfishers (Todiramphus) that can be found from the Middle East to French Polynesia. I joined the BOU in 2019 and my dissertation research was recently supported by a BOU small ornithology research grant.

Follow Jenna on Twitter: @Jenna_Merle.


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around the heating element at the bottom. Many apologies to the technician, Paul, who

spent the rest of the day with a hammer and chisel cleaning up my mess.

It’s hard to know what ‘teachable moments’ to take from these misadventures, but I

suppose I’m a bit more resilient. All that really matters is that I’m a doctor now.

Thanks to Tom for sharing some of his fieldwork fails with us. We do have it on good authority that this is the tip of Tom’s fieldwork fails iceberg and Tom is being modest about his ability to fail during fieldwork J If you would like to share your misadventures with other members, please get in touch.

Desert Island Books Neil Bucknell BOU Vice President

Neil is a long-serving member of BOU Council and

committees and is currently one of our two serving

Vice Presidents. He is a soon-to-be retired solicitor,

active citizen scientist and serial-filler of committee

posts on ornithological organisations. He was awarded the BOU’s Union Medal for his

distinguished service to the BOU and ornithology in 2013.

One of the pressing issues in recent email correspondence passing between BOU Council

members has been a request for more contributions from members to Desert Island

Books. My problem has been reducing the number to eight. I applied an initial criterion

to try achieve manageable proportions–good reads only–in order to eliminate all those

technical treatises, monographs, field guides and handbooks (after all I would be on a

desert island–once I had identified the frigatebird, the tropicbird and the Sooty Tern,

and picked up the vagrant Sanderling and Turnstone, what’s the point?) to concentrate

on something to enjoy while whiling away the days waiting to be rescued. This still left

a huge list. So, after many trials and tribulations, here are my top eight. There’s still

quite a few unread books on my shelves, so a second edition may follow! Adventure Lit Their Star Kenneth Allsop (Penguin, 1949) From my birding roots, most likely found as the 1972 edition, but originally published in 1949. A fictionalised account of Little Ringed Plovers breeding in pioneer wetland habitat just after the war, the

account of their spring migration is a fine example of imaginative nature writing. These were the birders’ birds of my teenage years.

BOU CONFERENCE

CLIMATE CHANGE & BIRDS 24 November 2020 | Peterborough, UK & all around the world on Twitter! This meeting will focus on looking at solutions to tackling the climate crisis.

This will also be a meeting with a difference! We will be running a simultaneous Twitter conference before, during and after the physical meeting, and all presentations from the Peterborough gathering will also be tweeted.

If Covid-19 restrictions prevent us from holding a physical meeting, we will still go ahead with the global Twitter event.

Further details at bou.org.uk.

SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMME ORGANISERS: Dr James Pearce-Higgins | Chair

(British Trust for Ornithology, UK) Dr Francis Daunt (Centre for Ecology &

Hydrology, UK) Dr Jo GIlbert (RSPB, UK) Dr Christine Howard (Durham University, UK)


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Man and Wildfowl Janet Kear (Poyser, 1990) It has been difficult to select the best of the eclectic Poyser ‘white series’ of books, but I think this deserves top place. Everything you want to know about, and many things you would not have thought to ask about, our relationship with wildfowl in one book. See below for some of the runners up! Seventy Years of Birdwatching H G Alexander (Poyser, 1974) The pick of the autobiographies, even if the author remains very much in the background. I read this at one sitting on a wet day while on holiday in Scotland. A good insight into the birding world of the early and middle twentieth century.

Birds, Scythes and Combines Michael Shrubb (Cambridge University Press, 2003) This is absolutely required reading for anyone interested in farmland birds in Britain (and elsewhere in the Western Palearctic). As a farmer’s son, I have long been surprised at the lack of knowledge of many ecologists about agricultural change in the last 200 years. Read this and understand the significance of (for example) the

development of the mole plough and permeable ceramic drains on our farmland habitats and their birds. Avian Survivors: The History and Biography of Palearctic Birds Clive Finlayson (Poyser, 2011) Most birders celebrate biodiversity by trying to expand their life lists, but this insightful book explains how the bird list of our

“local” biogeographical area, the largest in the world, has evolved. I find this fascinating Bird Migration Ian Newton (Collins New Naturalist, 2010) Well, you have got to have an Ian Newton on your list (it should be a Desert Island

Books rule!), and this is (in my humble opinion!) the best of a series of books he has

produced for the New Naturalist series, setting out a clear synthesis of an area of

ornithology for the more general reader. You can hear his voice as you read it. Great Auk Islands Tim Birkhead (Poyser, 2010) And you have to have a Tim Birkhead on your list too! This one has

the added bonus of an arctic theme, satisfying my interest in the far

north, and giving me (I hope) some mental relief from the

interminable heat of my desert island prison. The Wood for the Trees Richard Fortey (William Collins, 2016) A delightful book to remind me (almost) of home. It’s the “wrong” side of the Thames–Oxfordshire not Berkshire, the Chilterns not the Downs, but still a great read. Centred around his acquisition of a plot of Chiltern woodland and its management,

BOU CONFERENCE

RESTORING BIRD POPULATIONS 30 Mar – 1 Apr 2021 | Nottingham, UK Join us at the University of Nottingham for the BOU 2021 Annual Conference.

Birds can be indicators of recovery trajectories for entire ecosystems and can be integral to the success of habitat restoration, for example through their functional roles as predators, scavengers and dispersal agents.

This landmark international conference will bring together the latest science underpinning the restoration of bird species and their ecosystems, focusing on successes, challenges and future directions. This 2020 event coincides with a milestone year for assessing Aichi targets for biodiversity conservation and comes on the eve of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration that will run from 2021-2030. It will be of broad interest to conservation-, population- and community-ecologists, practitioners and policy makers.

Further details at bou.org.uk.

SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMME ORGANISERS: Dr David Douglas (RSPB Centre for

Conservation Science, UK) Dr Nancy Ockendon (Endangered

Landscapes Programme, UK) Dr Geoff Hilton (Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust,

UK) Dr Amanda Trask (Institute of Zoology,

Zoological Society of London, UK) Image: Female Great Hornbill | Angadachappa |

CC BY SA 4.0 via ky.m.wikipedia.org


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Richard Fortey sets out the impact of man on the habitats, human geography and

ecology of an area not too far from my native patch. I might feel a little homesick . . . The three non-books I would wish to take with me to my desert island would be a large supply of paper, and of pencils (those BOU ones we had made up many years ago–Shelley Hinsley (former BOU Vice President) and I, as pencil aficionados, rate them highly!) and

my old Coto Doñana sun hat, to keep the sun off the top of my head!

Is this the last Desert Island Books? It’s up to you. We’ll keep publishing them if you keep submitting them. If you wish to contribute, then contact Steve Dudley (see page 2).

BOU Council nominations

Members receiving our e-newsletters will have read in February that we’ve changed

the way nominations for BOU Council and committees are made. Our new process will

solicit nominations from the BOU membership and will be much more open, creating a

more transparent, accountable and inclusive recruitment process. Calls for nominations

will be made to members via these newsletters, our e-newsletters and on social media.

The more nominations we receive from members, the wider and more diverse our pool

of recruits will become, making the BOU better able to represent our membership.

We are now seeking nominations for a Vice President and three ordinary members of

Council for election at the 2021 AGM, two of whom will chair our Engagement

Committee and IBIS Management Committee. Prospective committee chairs must have

a proven track record in delivering on the activities of the respective committee for

which they are being nominated. More information on BOU committees can be found

on the BOU website.

Council are also proposing that Graham Appleton be re-elected as Honorary Treasurer

but BOU members may propose an alternative candidate as long as this is supported by

four other members and is signed by the nominated member (Rule 17).

Nominations will be considered by Council and selected candidates will be proposed for

election at the next AGM (to fill the advertised Council vacancies).

As a BOU member you can nominate yourself, other BOU members, or people from

the wider ornithological community*. Nomination will be via an online form, seeking a

brief explanation as to why you think the nominee is suited to a particular role.

Nominations must be made online via bou.org.uk/nominations.

Elected members of Council are also Trustees of the BOU, a registered charity in

England & Wales (249877) and in Scotland (SC044850). Trustees are legally

responsible for all of the BOU's activities.

BOU CONFERENCE

AVIAN REPRODUCTION With our Avian Restoration conference being postponed due to Covid-19, and that conference being rescheduled for spring 2021, what was originally intended to be our 2021 annual conference will now move to spring 2022. Dates to be confirmed

This conference will investigate all aspects of avian reproduction from pre-natal to post-fledging and across different taxa.

SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMME ORGANISERS: Dr Ian Hartley | Chair | (University of

Lancaster UK) Dr Becky Laidlaw (University of East Anglia,

UK) Dr Rob Robinson (British Trust for

Ornithology, UK) Images: Dead trees CC0 PD pixabay.com

Common Moorhens, Francis C. Franklin CC BY SA 40 via Wikimedia Commons

COUNCIL NOMINATIONS We are retaining the current practice which enables members to nominate individuals for election ahead of an AGM, once an AGM notice, detailing Council’s nominations for vacant Council positions, has been circulated to members (Rule 17.2), as long as they meet the criteria of being supported by at least five BOU members and notice is given to the Union by 15 February each year. All such nominations will be put directly to those members attending the AGM. Members present will vote on all of the candidates together (from both nomination routes).

* Nominees do not have to be BOU members at the time of nomination, but will be asked to join the BOU as a condition of appointment to Council or a committee. Members making self-nominations will be asked for a reference.


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Supporting BOU members Small Research Grants We had another good response for this scheme this year, with 51 applications received.

Selection of awards Only one application was rejected on receipt for not complying with submission guidelines (the project fell outside the period supported) and 18 applications were

filtered during the Chair’s sift, leaving 32 applications to be considered by the Committee ahead of our annual meeting in February. Overall, the quality of applications remained on a par with recent years, based on the proportion of applications going on to be considered by the Committee, and from within these, the proportion of applications scoring an average of >3 out of a possible maximum of 5.

2020 awards Six awards have been made this year as follows:

Josh Arbon (UK), PhD candidate, University of Exeter, UK Does pair-bond strength affect parental care strategies? Awarded £￡1,750 Fraser Bell (UK), PhD candidate, University of Exeter, UK. Patterns and consequences

of parasite infection in a declining long-distance migratory passerine (Pied Flycatcher) Awarded £￡1,989 Amanda Bourne (South Africa), PhD candidate, Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, South Africa Do seasonal changes in food resources predict breeding phenology and reproductive success in Southern Pied

Babblers? Awarded £￡1,440 Crinan Jarrett (UK), PhD candidate, University of Glasgow, UK Putting a price on the menu: quantifying bird ecosystem services in African cocoa plantations

Awarded £￡1,600 Jenna McCullough (US), PhD student, University of New Mexico, US Island kingfishers as an emerging model system to study the genomics of speciation Awarded £￡1,600

Darren O’Connell (Ireland), Postdoctoral Research Associate, University, UK Birds as monitors of ecosystem restoration: using avian soundscapes for assessing biodiversity and functioning of restored mangrove forests Awarded £￡1,650

MEMBER EXPERIENCES

Lara Moreno Zarate PhD student, Institute for Game and Wildlife Research, Spain

The BOU supported Lara’s attendance at EOU2019 in Romania last year.

EOU2019 really helped me to increase my motivation, renew and consider others´ ideas and approaches about my research.

Pablo Salmón Postdoctoral researcher, University of Glasgow, UK

The BOU supported Pablo’s attendance at EOU2019 in Romania last year.

The EOU meeting was an inspiring conference with a broad programme and in my perspective really well attended despite the location. Sharing and discussing my own and other peers’ results with some of the most respected ornithologists in Europe was certainly rewarding.


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Career Development Bursaries We received seven applications, which is line with recent years.

Selection of awards The Committee considered all applications received with committee members scoring each application ahead of their February meeting, at which applications were discussed in detail.

2020 awards Two awards have been made this year, as follows: Amparo Herrera-Dueñas (Spain) PhD awarded in 2018 by University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Getting older in the city (evaluating the effects of urbanisation on the telomere attrition in adult and nestling Blue Tits) Supervisor: Davide Dominoni (University of Glasgow, UK) Awarded £￡2,400

Kate Rogerson (UK) PhD awarded in 2019 by University of East Anglia, UK. Identifying priorities for seabird conservation using a “ridge to reef” approach Supervisor: Maria Dias (BirdLife International, UK) Awarded £￡2,480

Covid-19 and the taking up of 2020 grants and bursaries After announcing these awards, the Covid-19 pandemic swept around the world, with

national lockdowns becoming the norm. This has placed serious restrictions on researchers for the foreseeable future. Having taken the time to assess and award these grants and bursaries, we remain committed to the eight recipients and we will work with each of them to ensure that their projects can be undertaken as soon as Covid-19 restrictions allow. If necessary, projects will be allowed to be carried over to 2021, to ensure each maximises the original aims of the project as submitted.

Member Travel Awards This year we were due to consider applications from members to attend the North American Ornithological Conference (NAOC) in Puerto Rico in August and the Pan-African Ornithological Conference in November. At the time of writing, decisions on whether these events are likely to go ahead have yet to be made, so in the meantime we have suspended the assessment of these awards. If either of these conferences do

proceed this year, we will assess qualifying applications.

Please contribute!

We’d like to hear from you! Share your milestones and news with other BOU members.

We want you to contribute, so, tells us about fieldwork mishaps, research adventures,

what inspired you to work in ornithology, challenges of running projects–especially in

another country, how you manage your work/life balance, etc.

MEMBER EXPERIENCES

Amparo Herrera-Dueñas PhD candidate, University of Groningen, the Netherlands

The BOU supported Amparo’s attendance at EOU2019 in Romania last year.

Attending to EOU2019 was a great opportunity to promote my work and to network with the most relevant European ornithologists. It was an exciting and inspiring conference, the perfect meeting point for an early-career researcher. The best place if, like me, you are looking for your place in academia.

To contribute contact Steve Dudley at the BOU Office address (see page 2) or at [email protected].


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And the winner is . . .

Best paper published in IBIS by an early career research in 2019 In 2019, IBIS published 55 papers whose first author was an early career researcher (ECR). That’s around 65% of original papers we published last year.

Our IBIS Associate Editors nominated their favourite ECR papers of 2019, and the top four papers were selected for an open vote. Over 1,600 votes were cast, and the winner is . . . Individual condition but not fledging phenology carries over to affect post-fledging

survival in a Neotropical migratory songbird

Dean R. Evans, Keith A. Hobson, Jackson W. Kusack, Michael D. Cadman, C. Myles Falconer, Greg W. Mitchell. Ibis 162: 331-344. doi:10.1111/ibi.12727

See Jente Ottenburghs article about this paper on page 15.

2019 science communication awards In recent years the BOU has been at the forefront of promoting science communication

within ornithology. We champion the use of social media for promoting and discussing research, and #theBOUblog is one of the most-read avian science blogs. Online mentions of research articles can now be measured using altmetrics. Since their introduction we’ve educated our community about the role of altmetrics, used them to

measure the overall reach of ornithological articles, and to investigate the key communication channels which contribute to the altmetrics of avian science articles. We have therefore introduced two awards that recognise science communication excellence in ornithology, focusing on the primary contributors to ornithological altmetrics–social media (specifically Twitter and Facebook) and blogging.

We sought nominations from the ornithological community from which our panel of experts selected five from each category and put the candidates to a public vote. And the winners are . . .

Best social media scicommer Emily Williams, Alaska, US

Best of #theBOUblog Kiran Dhanjal-Adams (Germany) and Tamara Emmenegger (Switzerland).

You can read more about our science communication award winners at bou.org.uk.

All three winners receive a pair of Leica binoculars kindly provided by Leica Camera UK.

Dean Evans voted best ECR paper published in IBIS in 2019

Emily Williams voted as the best social media scicommer of 2019

Kiran Dhanjal-Adams and Tamara Emmenegger voted the best article on #theBOUblog in 2019

Images © Steve Dudley/BOU


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Recent papers in IBIS Jente Ottenburghs Wageningen University, the Netherlands BOU Science Writer Jente publishes a new article based on a recent IBIS paper every two weeks on the BOU website (bou.org.uk/bou-blog). Fledging into the wild Evans, D.R., Hobson, K.A., Kusack, J.W., Cadman, M.D. & Mitchell, G.W. 2019. Individual condition, but

not fledging phenology, carries over to affect post-fledging survival in a Neotropical migratory songbird. Ibis. DOI: 10.1111/ibi.12727. Winner of Best ECR Paper in IBIS (2019) – see page 14.

Frustratingly, one of the most important stages in the life of a migrating songbird is

the least understood (Vitz & Rodewald 2011). It concerns the post-fledgling period when

juveniles have left the nest but have not yet migrated. Ornithologists divide this period

into two parts: the “parental care period” in which the young birds depend on their

parents and the “independence period” in which the juveniles learn to fend for

themselves. Estimating individual mortality during this period has proved extremely

difficult because researchers had to document the fate of numerous birds following

them on foot using radiotelemetry (think of the classic image of a scientist scanning the

surroundings with a large antenna). A team of Canadian ornithologists used a different

approach; they relied on an automated radiotelemetry array spanning 60,000 km² to record the fate of juvenile Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica).

Survival In 2016 and 2017, the researchers equipped 216 young Barn Swallows with a radio

transmitter and recorded their condition in the nest. As long as the swallows remained

within the 60,000 km² area around Ontario (Canada), they could follow the movement and survival of these small songbirds. The results revealed that nestlings in better

condition had higher chances of survival (an average 2% higher daily survival in 2016

and an average 5% higher daily survival in 2017). The link between body condition and

daily survival is logical, but there are several mechanisms that can explain this

relationship (Cox et al. 2014). Nestlings in poor condition are more prone to diseases

and vulnerable to adverse environmental conditions. In addition, a better body

condition might result in better cognitive abilities, which translates into more efficient

foraging and higher probabilities of escaping from predators.

Broods Barn Swallows produce two broods per years, allowing the researchers to investigate the

difference in survival between early and late nestlings. Because nestlings from the

second brood have less time before they have to leave on migration, they might show

lower survival rates compared to the early nestlings (Raja-Aho et al. 2017). As expected, the second brood birds spent about 3 weeks less on the breeding grounds

before migrating south. Unexpectedly, they did not show lower survival rates than birds

Figure 1 Locations of study sites (black/white dots) and automated radio receiving towers (red dots) within (a) southern Ontario, Canada, (b) Norfolk County and (c) Wellington County in 2016 and 2017.

Figure 2 Daily apparent survival probability for juvenile Barn Swallows in average condition during the post-fledging period in southern Ontario for (a) 2016 and (b) 2017. The dashed vertical line shows the transition from parental care to independence.


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from the first brood. It thus seems that nestlings from the second brood still have

enough resources to survive. However, it is possible that these birds started migration

in a lower body condition compared to the first brood birds and might thus suffer

higher mortality rates during migration or on the wintering grounds. This remains an

open question.

Three years Overall, survival rate was low among juvenile Barn Swallows. About 40% of nestlings

survive long enough to leave on migration, highlighting the importance of the post-

fledgling period on population dynamics. In Ontario, a nest produces about 2.1 female

fledglings (COSEWIC 2011). Taking into account juvenile and adult survival, this

amounts to 0.43 new recruits per adult female per year. This means that a female

should survive and reproduce at least three years to replace herself in the population.

The annual survival of adult Barn Swallows is only 48.7% (Garcia-Pérez et al. 2014),

making the survival for three consecutive years a challenging endeavour. These

numbers help explain the recent population declines in Canadian Barn Swallows

(COSEWIC 2011). This study indicates that measures that increase nestling survival

could be a crucial conservation strategy, although it is advisable to safeguard these

birds during their entire lifecycle.

An award winning paper This study provided key insights into the survival rates of juvenile Barn Swallows. It is

no surprise that the IBIS Associate Editors nominated this work as one of their

favourite Early Career Research papers of 2019. Following a open public vote for the

four short-listed papers, Dean and his colleagues paper were awarded the Best ECR

Paper in IBIS (2019)–see page 14.

References COSEWIC. 2011. COSEWIC Assessment and status report on the Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica in Canada.

Ottawa: Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

Cox, W.A., Thompson, F.R., Cox, A.S. & Faaborg, J. 2014. Post-fledging survival in passerine birds and the

value of post-fledging studies to conservation. Journal of Wildlife Management 78: 183–193.

García-Pérez, B., Hobson, K.A., Albrecht, G., Cadman, M.D. & Salvadori, A. 2014. Influence of climate on

annual survival of Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) breeding in North America. Auk 131: 351–362.

Raja-Aho, S., Eeva, T., Suorsa, P., Valkama, J. & Lehikoinen, E. 2017. Juvenile Barn Swallows Hirundo

rustica L. from late broods start autumn migration younger, fuel less effectively and show lower return

rates than juveniles from early broods. Ibis 159: 892– 901.

Vitz, A.C. & Rodewald, A.D. 2011. Influence of condition and habitat use on survival of post-fledging

songbirds. Condor 113: 400–411.

The BOU blog is open for anyone to write about their research or recent publication (regardless of where published). Please contact our Blog Editor, Christina Ieronymidou via the blog pages of the website at bou.org.uk/bou-blog/

IN THE NEWS

A BOU-funded study recently published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (Sayol et al. 2020) suggests that birds have two alternative strategies to live in cities - large brains or more frequent breeding. This work, led by Dr Ferran Sayol at the University of Gothenburg, is the final output from a BOU Career Development Bursary awarded to him in 2018. At the time of the award, Ferran had just defended his PhD at the University of Barcelona and travelled to the UK to work with Dr Alex Pigot (University College London) for this new project. During his stay in UK, Ferran visited the bird collection at the Natural History Museum at Tring, where he measured the brain size of one hundred species of bird for the study. On analyzing the data, Ferran and Alex found that both brain size and life-history explained urban tolerance in birds.

BOU funding made this study possible, enabling Ferran to acquire new skills. Ferran told us “with this award I learned new techniques that will be useful for my future research, and it was a great opportunity to start a fruitful collaboration with the team at UCL”. This collaboration did not end with the bursary project, as Ferran will soon start a postdoc with Alex at UCL, thanks to a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship, researching how species traits can influence the origin and loss of biological diversity in birds.

Sayol, F., Sol, D., and Pigot, A.L. 2020. Brain Size and Life History Interact to Predict Urban Tolerance in Birds. Front. Ecol. Evol. 8: 58. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2020.00058.

Follow Ferran on Twitter: @FerranSayol

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