Distracted by birds in South Africa - Megan Shersby

Distracted by birds in South Africa, by Megan Shersby

In the last few years, I have been to South Africa a couple times. Whilst I went there for mammalian purposes (studying the behaviour of zebras and then dwarf mongooses), I couldn’t help but be astounded by the beauty and diversity of the birds I saw there.
My favourite of the small birds had to be the Blue Waxbill (Uraeginthus angolensis). With roughly the same size and shape as our familiar House Sparrows, their chest is emblazoned with a fantastic powder blue colouration. Going around in flocks (again, similar to our House Sparrows), they provided small bursts of colour amongst the brown trees of the dry season.

Blue Waxbill (Uraeginthus angolensis)

 At the time of writing, I have not yet seen a kingfisher in the UK. A pretty shocking and shameful absence in my list, and I’ve made it a resolution for 2015 to see one here. However, despite this glaring omission, I have seen a number of kingfishers in South Africa, and they were just lovely birds. I can’t decide whether I prefer the Malachite Kingfisher (Alcedo cristata) or the Pied Kingfisher (Ceryle rudis). Both are beautiful birds and it was fantastic to watch them fishing. Now I’m hoping to see a British kingfisher!

Malachite Kingfisher (Alcedo cristata)

Pied Kingfisher (Ceryle rudis)

Another bird that has a special place in my memory is the Crested Barbet (Trachyphonus vaillantii)! I saw it first on my zebra-watching visit, when we managed to catch one in a mist net. What stunning plumage, and such a character! On my return to South Africa to study dwarf mongooses, I saw this species often. I remember one particular time when I sitting by one of the tree refuges, waiting for the dwarf mongooses to awaken. It was a cloudy day so the mongooses were having bit of a lie-in and I was attempting to plough my way through Les Miserables on my Kindle (a difficult task at the best of times). A Crested Barbet alighted in a tree nearby and we watched each other for a good while, curiousity abounding on both sides and the clicking of my camera filling the silence between us.

Crested Barbet (Trachyponus vaillantii) 

Whilst I didn’t see this next bird very often, my favourite bird photo from South Africa is of this species. It’s the Lilac Breasted Roller (Coracias caudatus), a myriad of soft pastel colours – cream, beige, blue and of course, lilac on its breast. This particular individual struck a fantastic pose within the sun-dappled branches, its eye framed within a beam of sunlight as it cocked its head to look at us. Thinking anthropomorphically, it almost looks like it is frowning a little at us, as if to ask “Well? What are you doing?”

Lilac Breasted Roller (Coracias caudatus)

Where to start with the birds of prey – there were owls, hawks, buzzards and vultures galore. Annoyingly they were often very far above me, and many of my blurry photos don’t even qualify as record shots, so most still remain unidentified. There is one distinct memory I have of a much closer encounter with a bird of prey. This day wasn’t much different from any other day out with the dwarf mongooses. They got up, they groomed each other and they set off for the day of foraging. However, partway through the day, they were foraging close to one of their refuges, when suddenly an alarm call rang out and they dived into the nearby safety. A fraction of a second later, an enormous bird appeared, swooping down by the refuge, a mere couple of metres from me. Then in a blink, it was gone again. I’d had no time to move, or react in any way; it was all over before I could register what was happening! Luckily (for the mongooses), the bird had missed and the group
eventually resumed their foraging. To this day, I still don’t know what bird species it was, but I know that I’ll have the blurred memory of it forever.

African Harrier Hawk (Polyboroides typus) 

Naturally, I couldn’t include all the bird species that I saw in South Africa, the previously mentioned birds are just a small fraction of the variety.

- Megan Shersby 
Want to read more on Megan's adventures in South Africa? Then CLICK HERE!

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Megan Shersby is an aspiring naturalist and science [particularly nature] communicator. She is currently based in Dorset, working as a Seasonal Assistant for Dorset Wildlife Trust at two of their centres. She is passionate about inspiring others to explore the natural world, and can usually be found in nature reserve examining the local wildlife. If that fails, look for the nearest moth trap, as she’ll probably be peering into its depths for the latest catch. You can follow her on Twitter at: @MeganShersby, or via her blog at:mshersby.wordpress.com

My uni birding experience

As September fast approaches, there are several NGBs soon to be starting their three or more year experience at University. Similarly, there are also many members at an age where university ends with a question mark and whether it is right for you.

I thought, as I am very close to finishing my research masters after a 4 year stint at university, I would give some of you an idea of what to expect from university as a serious birdwatcher through my own personal experiences.

So, way back in September 2010, I started at Bangor University in North Wales. I said goodbye to my parents for pretty much the first time in my life, sat down in my new room for the first time and said to myself ‘right…this is me for the next year!’, and so began my freshers week.

Being a birder, I really didn’t exactly have the stereotypical start to freshers, as on my first full day, I got a text from Chris Bridge saying ‘Grey Phal. Conwy RSPB’. Now unfortunately, I was getting a tour of the uni’s botanic gardens at the time, so I wasn't exactly free, and I ignored it…for as long as I could.

Chris proved to play a huge role in my first year of uni and how much I developed my passion as a birder. Chris was a 2^nd year at the time and was attempting to reach 300 for the year mainly done by public transport. That is no mean feat, so as you can imagine, he was a bit of a mad twitcher and went for almost anything that had a train station reasonably close by (with certain exceptions of the Frampton Marsh RSPB Oriental Pratincole).

I hadn't previously met Chris, but a few local birders from Lancs told me about him being at Bangor, so I added him on Facebook. It didn't take long for us to get out birding and I managed to get the Conwy Grey Phalarope in the end after seeing my first Lapland Buntings on the Great Orme down to 10 feet. Magic!

Next up to the table was my first long-distance twitch. I went round to Chris’s the night before to look into how exactly we’d get to the bowling green at Hartlepool Headland to see a long-staying juvenile Woodchat Shrike. Unfortunately, Chris’s Rare Bird Alert account threw a spanner in the works as we were scrolling down the news page when we came across bright red capital letters and double stars reading ‘**GREEN HERON**’. Our hearts stopped as this was a bird both of us wanted and was in fact the No2 on Chris’s bucket list (after Northern Parula…a fair No1). Reading it was in Cornwall, we shrugged it off as best we could and carried on planning Hartlepool. I don’t know what it was, but maybe the fact I’d already seen Woodchat Shrike and Hartlepool from North Wales seemed like a long way for yeartick, but I jokingly said "That Green Heron…..I’m up for it…". Well I’m not entirely sure what happened next as before I knew it, we were on a dark Bangor train station buying a ticket to St. Austell in Cornwall. Madness! After an overnight kip on Crewe station and 5 trains, a taxi and a walk that seemed to never end, we arrived at a group of birders overlooking a darkened pool in the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Before too long, we got superb views of the heron as it walked right out into the open some 30 feet away. Pure magic! A bus journey to St. Austell and 4 trains back home saw us arrive back to Bangor at 2am the following evening and I was up, bright and ready for my Friday 9am Chemistry lecture! I think I even took notes!

Green Heron!!

Anyway, I didn’t go to uni to spend all my money and time on train tickets to get some ticks on my list. I went to get a degree! I studied Zoology with Animal Behaviour which was quite vague in first year to get everyone on the course up to a similar level on everything, which was interesting in certain modules such as Organismal Diversity which covered the biology of pretty much everything from bacteria, to plants, to fungus to animals. At the time, I was really mainly interested in birds, so I guess I didn’t take full advantage of the module. I would probably have enjoyed it so much more now, with my wider interests.

As university life went on and the work load increased, I would ask to go birding with Chris and he’d regularly have to turn me down as he’d be going out bird ringing. This was something I’d previously tried once, but it never really grabbed me. After spending far too long looking out my window, I found a flock of Waxwings, during their wondering influx of Winter 2010/11. Before too long, I got an invite off Chris to come and try and catch some with him and a few mates. As Waxwings are one of my favourite species, I agreed, so to my amazement upon arrival, I was shown a Waxwing in the hand just like that…what a statement! Chris could see from there that I was hooked, I just didn't know it yet.

Waxwing - There are few things in this world better in my opinion

He kept pestering me to try and come out with him and his trainer. Finally, at the end of January, I went out with Steve Dodd to a local farm and experienced my first proper ringing session.  With an introduction to mist netting, and later several introductions to cannon-netting with the local wader ringing group SCAN, I was registered as an official trainee.

Now I’m not telling you to go to uni and become a ringer in your spare time. It is a massive commitment and incredibly time consuming if you've got other things important to you. I am mainly promoting getting into volunteer surveys, whether that be Wetland Birds Survey (WeBS), Breeding Birds Survey (BBS) or Nest Recording Scheme (NRS). I chose to do ringing because I felt this would give me an edge to my birding knowledge as you learn so much about bird biology and the complexities of the finer details in bird ID e.g. Marsh Warbler and Reed Warbler separation. Learning a lot of my previous bird knowledge through local patching Brockholes Quarry (now Brockholes NR LWT) in Preston, I developed a fascination for migration and through ringing, you get to have your hand in the hopeful discoveries of new and exciting information and knowledge about migration in the birds you handle. A super example of this is hand catching a Black-headed Gull in Cumbria, ringing it with a BTO metal ring and colour-ring and then 17 days later, it was seen in Oslo…how incredible is that!?

I used this extracurricular activity within my course too as I did my undergraduate research project on Blue Tits and Great Tits in a woodland in Greater Manchester investigating how territoriality of male tits affected the nest building of females. I did a colour-ringing project on the Blue Tits with thanks to Kane Brides in order to identify the sexes of the almost non-sexually dimorphic Blue Tits. I achieved a first class mark in this project.

In first year, I had basically given up local patching because I really missed my local patch back home and Bangor just didn't really appear to have the habitat that I wanted. I guess student life in 1^st year didn't exactly favour too many dawn raids on the windy front of Bangor Harbour though. In 2^nd and 3^rd year, I basically gave up twitching somewhat because it’s so expensive without a car and also, the workload was getting a bit more time consuming. I did find however that the work became easier to do as the course progressed for the simple reason that it became so much more interesting as it was more focussed and in depth. Twitching was out the window, so I had to fill the void somehow, so I decided I would focus on local patching a bit more. Matthew Bruce became my patching buddy as he was very keen to get better as a birder after having an interest for several years but not much of a drive to get out there having few birding peers.  We mainly checked Bangor Harbour and Bangor Mountain at first, but when the phenomenon of Footit was introduced to us, we turned up the heat of competition and ventured far and wide. The furthest we walked in a day was Bangor-Malltraeth Marsh and multiple walks along the coast from Bangor-Llanfairfechan. These two locations both caused serious mileage totalling 18 mile round trips each! Blisters and not all that much sleep seemed to be my main memory of January 2013! Into 2013, Ros Green joined the party. She was another different perspective of birding to add to the pot as she’d only really shown an interest in birds the previous summer, so unlike Matthew who had some decent knowledge but previously lacked enthusiasm, Ros had little knowledge, but lots of enthusiasm and it was soon clear she’d be a fast learner.  

Doing what I do best: Birdtracking.

Of course, there can surely be no single blog post, about being a birder at university, written by me. that does not mention Birdtrack! A Focus On Nature introduced the University Birdwatching Challenge to the table during late 2013 and I took it massively under my wing. Bangor University campus happens to be located next to some decent habitat and 2850+ records of 109 species later; I well and truly took full advantage of the competition. It’s not just UBC though as my patch covers a much larger area, so I have inputted over 12,000 records on patch to date in 2014 and  have learnt so much about the local birds as a result.

So, if I can give three main pieces of advice to people starting uni or thinking about it, they are:

• Make birdy friends. NGB was built up to what it is now, by friends from universities networking with other young birders. Your passion will rub off on others and vice versa so you will get better as a result.

• Make sure you don’t pigeonhole yourself on your course and get involved with volunteer surveys with BTO, RSPB etc. I strongly believe my experiences outside of uni, throughout my time at uni will help me get a job more than the course itself.

• Go birding! It’s easy to have a lie in, check Facebook, look in books, read up on birds etc, but you’ll never be a good birder if you don’t go birding! Birdtrack has massively opened my eyes and hopefully if you take it on board too, it will change yours.

I really enjoyed my time as an undergraduate and decided to stay on studying the Welsh Twite population in a Research Masters. I am very nearly at the end of this and close to starting out in the real world with lots of experience and seriously improved knowledge to help me land my dream job!

How will your decision to attend or opt out of uni affect you?

-Zac Hinchcliffe
When Zac's not counting birds on patch (or making references to Star Wars), he's usually ringing birds on his regular Bangor site or is depressed that he does't have the money or time to twitch the latest big thing. Zac is 22 and currently studying a Research Masters at Bangor University and investigating Welsh Twite; adding a touch of science to his birding.
https://twitter.com/Zac_Hinchcliffe
http://www.zacswildlifeblog.blogspot.co.uk/

What young birders can get up to after NGB: Matt Williams in Borneo

If you've ever been to a different country, or even a different site from your local patch, for birdwatching, you’ll know the feeling I experienced when I arrived in Indonesia.

You’re immediately immersed in potential new sounds and sights, confused and thrown off balance, but also more alert than normal.

Almost one year ago I came to Indonesia to work for a rainforest research and conservation organisation, and from the moment I landed in Jakarta I had that feeling. Ubiquitous tree sparrows were the first surprise. In the towns and cities this bird which is becoming increasingly scarce in the UK is more common than our own magpies or blackbirds.

Tree Sparrow

And today, ten months later, I find myself writing this to the backdrop of singing gibbons and the curt, electric buzz of Van Hasselt’s sunbirds. I work as the Communications Manager for the Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project, a research and conservation organisation based in the heart of the Sabangau rainforest in Indonesian Borneo.

The Sabangau rainforest is brimming with wildlife and is renowned for being home to the world’s largest populations of orangutans and southern Bornean gibbons. But it’s also a haven for birds. And even in our base camp on the edge of the forest, you can find a wealth of bird life.

Blue-eared Kingfisher

Borneo is one of the world’s largest islands, found in Southeast Asia, and its birds are a subset of the wider Oriental region. Alfred Russell Wallace, a contemporary of Darwin, identified the Wallace line, created by a deep sea trench, which kept many species from crossing to Borneo from nearby Sulawesi or New Guinea, and vice versa. This make’s Borneo’s birds very distinct in evolutionary terms from species to the Southeast of the island.

Rufous-backed Kingfisher

But during the last 50 million years Borneo has at many times been connected by land to other parts of Sundaland – the islands of Sumatra and Java to the West and South. And during the last million years repeated periods of global ice ages allowed Borneo to be connected by land, and species to cross over and (re)colonise the island.

For example, scarlet-headed flowerpecker and savanna nightjar are just two species that made their way to Borneo during colder periods with lower sea levels.

Savannah Nightjar

I often join our field staff, who spend much of their time following primates through the forest and collecting data. These ‘follow days’ start at 4am by the light of a headtorch and end 12 hours later when the primates head to bed.

And whether I’m in camp or deeper in the jungle, I’m always on the lookout for birds, as I have been since the age of five, when I first started clutching binoculars.

Orange-bellied Flowerpecker

I’ve had many of my highlights in camp, from the blue-eared and stork-billed kingfishers that flit in and out to fish in the swamp, to the greater coucals – brown and black members of the cuckoo family, the size of a pheasant. It has a very plaintive persistent hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo call that is almost a constant backdrop around camp.

One of my favourites are the nightjars. Savannah nightjars hawk over the sedge on the river’s edge while in the forest Bonaparte’s nightjar is a speciality in our forest and when it’s dark at night or early morning you can hear it’s alien-like call.

Regular visitors to camp are also another member of the cuckoo family – the chestnut-bellie malkohas, with their stunning iridescent green-black plumage, their white tail highlights, bluish bill and red eye ring.

Chestnut-bellied Malkoha

But perhaps the best place to birdwatch from is the tower. It’s a 30 minute walk from camp, and it’s best to get there as the sun rises at 5am, after trudging with a head torch through the knee-deep mud.

You can hear a recording from me sitting up the tower first thing in the morning here, with a backdrop of gibbons and cicadas.

The tower is a great place to watch birds in the early morning. The edible-nest swiftlets, whose saliva-based nests are farmed and collected for food in the local village, are the first to arrive. Soon woodpeckers begin to appear, including the great slaty, the world’s largest species.

Black and red Broadbill

And there’s always a chance a crested-serpent eagle will fly past, as has happened on a couple of my visits.

Blue-crowned hanging parrots, a bright green bird with a flash of blue, occasionally fly past and sunbirds or flowerpeckers buzz from tree to tree. And the black-winged flycatcher shrike, as you might imagine a pied flycatcher crossed with a great grey shrike might look, is a beautiful little bird I often see.

Grey-chested Jungle Flycatcher

Blue-throated bee-eaters and dollarbirds are often seen perching together on bare branches. The bee-eaters hawk for insects in a loop that brings them back to their original perch.

But the biggest spectacle is perhaps the hornbills. The Asian black hornbill has an unmistakable wretching sound that can be heard several hundred metres away. These birds are frugivorous, but specialise in different fruits so as each species can live alongside the other but avoid competition.

Olive-backed Sunbird

One morning, three of us stood at the top of the tower watching two adult wrinkled hornbills feeding with one juvenile. With our eyes glued to our bins we failed to notice what was happening to our right. A Storm’s stork, which obviously used the tower as a perch as well, had almost landed up there with us. It only pulled up at the last second, veering away when it realised its usually peaceful perch was otherwise occupied. This is one of the rarest birds I've ever seen, it’s classified as Endangered and there are only 500 of them left in the world.

The year I've spent has taught me, as it did scientists two decades ago, that peat-swamp forests might look like they’re fairly poor quality forest, but they’re actually invaluable for wildlife. And while the orangutans and gibbons might be the star attraction for most people, birds are no exception. And it’s a reminder to focus on songs and calls. In such a dense habitat birdwatching and finding new species can take a long time and be incredibly tricky. Familiarity with songs and calls can make all the difference.

Hasselt's Sunbird

I've still got a few birds I would love to see before I leave in June. Crestless fireback and any pitta species in particular. But even if I don’t get these I’ll feel thoroughly satisfied with the year I've spent in Borneo.

-Matt Williams
Matt is a conservationist and wildlife photographer. He began his conservation career early, joining the rspb at the age of five. He currently works for the Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project in Indonesian Borneo, as their Communications Manager. He's also part of The Urban Birder team and a Committee Member of A Focus on Nature. 
@mattadamw 
mattadamwilliams.co.uk.

NGB at Gullfest 2014: the Arctic birding festival! -Part 1-

Hello Varanger in March, where the reindeer roam, where the eiders are king and where where locals take 30 minutes off their journey by cutting across frozen rivers. A place where seabirds swamp the senses, where Cod Is Great and where your eyes tire from scanning the tops of trees for owls.

It was early February when Tormod Amundsen from Biotope; a pretty unique company of architects specialising on birds and birdwatching, sent Zac Hinchcliffe and myself the email that dropped like a big, Scandinavian bombshell: "Gullfest 2014 - you in?". 
There was really no question. To be in one of the coolest birding locations in the world, with some of birding's rockstars, watching the avian awesomeness of the Arctic - YES PLEASE!

18/03/2014
So little over a month later, we found ourselves Oslo bound, seeing the weather get colder and the ground snowier as we travelled Manchester - Stockholm - Oslo. Our final destination was Kirkenes, a town 69° North and close to the Pasvik taiga forest where we were to spend our first official day of Gullfest 2014, but that was tomorrow and right now our first night of the trip was spent in the Scandic Oslo airport hotel. A spot of compulsory evening birding in the surrounding snowy forest and fields brought Yellowhammers, Blue and Great Tits and Starlings doing a good job at imitating Redwing song. Most impressive, however, were the human head-sized Moose prints in the snow, as well as mounds of Elk-crement. Scarlet Elf Caps were found as a Sparrowhawk slinked through the trees.   

19/03/2014
Morning dawned with snow flurries over breakfast and a building sense of excitement. Before boarding the shuttle bus back to the airport for the flight to the Arctic Circle, we met Graham White and his partner Jacqui. Graham (aka The Grumpy Ecologist) is a senior wetland ecologist with the RSPB and would later show just what an incredible task the RSPB undertakes on its reserves -and beyond-! A very closely-cut sprint through security and customs was unnecessary when our plane was delayed some 40 minutes. 

The iced-cake scenery from Oslo - Kirkenes plane

Kirkenes is in a very interesting area of Norway. Further East than Istanbul and a stone's throw from the Russian border (in fact, for much of the drive to the taiga forest, the only thing separating us from Russia was a frozen river), it was occupied first by the Nazis, then by Russia's Red Army in WWII and it has a large Norwegian military presence even today, with watchtowers and cameo-clad Norwegians milling about the airport. We were met by Elin Taranger, of Biotope who filled us in on all things Varanger; the birdlife, human life and way of life (the mining side of this was evident, with large areas of scarred grey rockface in the snowy hills) as we drove to our first destination. 

It was here we had our first 'proper' Arctic birds, both causing us to lurch forward as the brakes were slammed on. Our first was sitting pretty at the top of a fir tree, like a fiery-eyed predatory Christmas angel: Hawk Owl or Haukugle (pronounced "Hurk Urgler"). The only time I've ever been stared at so terrifyingly was when I was caught cheating in a French exam. I would not like to be a lemming here. 

Hawk Owl cubism ©Jonnie Fisk

Our second Arctic special jumped abruptly in front of the car in a forested area. It could well have been a floating pair of eyes and a black beak, the Willow Grouse was Predator-like in its invisibility with the environment. It was followed by another and a few seconds later, a whole flock of 13 erupted from the birches like a barrage of fat, black-tailed white pigeons. 

We shortly arrived at the first 'base' for Gullfest 2014, the electricity and water-less Ellentjernkoia, where the toilets were outside and fires were perpetual. The first words we heard were from Jacqui who simply stated "It's birds on tap." That pretty much covered this place. I nonchalantly raised my bins to a nearby feeder and promptly had a visual assault of Pine Grosbeak, Siberian Tits and Coues's Arctic Redpolls alongside more familiar (but undoubtedly hardy) Great and Willow Tits. No words were exchanged between Zac and I, just witless grinning. 

What a feeding flock!

The cosy cabin was a very good way of getting acquainted to the other Gullfest 2014 contributors, who, for the moment, consisted of Graham and Jacqui, Tormod Amundsen and Elin (of Biotope), Norwegian birdguide and (often unintentional) comic Anders Mæland, artistic gull-god Hans Larsson from Sweden and the charismatic and characterful Richard Crossley (of Crossley ID guides), an Englishman living in the USA. Meals were hot and filling, cooked by Marit Sundt, owner of the cabin, who walked about the sub-10°C in just salopettes, thermal tshirt and a smile. 

Reindeer stew and incredible company

From introductions over food, the conversation remoulded into typical birder topics and I managed to capture snippets from subjects as diverse as modern field guides, albatrosses, thermal imaging cameras, the use of Twitter and cod. The Arctic nights fall quickly and the light fades to deep blue by 5pm, but this brought perhaps the most excitement: Aurora time! Hours of electrical-phenomenon-appreciative fun were had on a frozen lake by the cabin, as we watched the green troughs and spikes in a star-spilled sky, before breaking out the headtorches for some light-painting. 

Scandinavian sky-grafitti

©Zac Hinchliffe

The temperature had descended to -25°C, the coldest I had experienced and it showed - inhalation through the nose became painful as ice crystals formed. Our custom Gullfest hats were very welcome! After a good few nocturnal hours in the taiga, and with the aurora imprinted on our eyelids, we turned in for our first Norwegian night. 

Ellentjernkoia - magic!

20/03/14
The clear ringing song of Pine Grosbeak filters through the wood panels and I'm wearing 3 layers in my sleeping bag; no, yesterday was not a dream. Biting cold pre-breakfast birding gives a good chance to fully appreciate the Arctic taiga specialties. The 15-or-so Pine Grosbeaks hop about the feeders like inflated sparrows; part Bullfinch, part Crossbill, full raspberry, being the messiest eaters of any bird I've seen, dribbling sunflower husks everywhere. One female bird had no tail, looking even more like a small avian balloon than the rest of them. 

Female Pine Grosbeak ©Zac Hinchliffe

Male Pine Grosbeak ©Zac Hinchliffe

Tits were well represented with the charming Siberians (or Lappmeis) and frosty Willows, which opened up a taxonomic paradox as to whether they were race borealis (Northern Europe and Arctic) or uralensis (SE European Russia and W Siberia), joined by 2 puffed-up Great Tits (Kjøttmeis). Just to further add to the party, a pair each of fat Northern Bullfinches and Arctic Redpoll plus a vocal GSWoodpecker and an icy two-toned Red Squirrel joined the massed ranks. 

Abominable Snowpoll/Arctic Roll  field sketches ©Jonnie Fisk

Siberian Tit ©Zac Hinchliffe

A jaunt across the frozen lake was halted when a stream of reindeer crossed in front of us, some sporting GPS collars, others spray-painted hides - all in the arsenal of a modern Sami herder. 

Zac and the reindeer train

A minibus pick-up later and we were on our way to Kirkenes to board the Coastal Express ferry which would take us to Vardø - the 'home' of Gullfest, via a few choice birding stops. Siberian Jays, three of them, were eventually tracked down yapping to and fro across a forest road and the first of many Richard Crossley "STOP THE BUS!" moments brought us a pale male Sparrowhawk perched in a tree - a very scarce bird in the Pasvik area. 

At Kirkenes docks we met Mark Thomas, Senior Investigator at the RSPB, a man who's had to deal with enough brutal bird persecution cases to stop a lesser birder sleeping for life. Introductions were sporadic on the Coastal Express as every hundred metres of black sea would throw up another storm of Brünnich's Guillemot or Long-tailed Duck squadron. Keeping tally of the journey's birds became death by lines of 5. 

NGB Coastal Express seflie - deckchair birding

Point to the Brünnich's Guillemot...and the other...and the other...

The sea-crossing took a turn for the phenomenal upon nearing Vardø, as we entered the realm of the 'Eider Vortex'. The name is not an exaggeration; the entire sea seemed to lift upwards as several thousand each of King and Common sprung from the water simultaneously, like a summer English river thick with mayflies. Even non-birders on deck were pointing. 

(From L to R: Tormod Amundsun, Hans Larsson, Zac Hinchliffe)

After that experience, I have to admit that our first Steller's Eider, a loly drake bobbing about Vardø harbour after docking, seemed a little tame in comparison, even when joined by 2 friends. 

Home for the night was the Vardø Hotel, right on the harbour front, complete with a stuffed Shag in the reception. After unpacking, a bit of bonding with the locals was had as I was taught the Yukidance routine, part of the Yukigassen competitive snowballing festival held in Vardø, by a group of girls. Naturally Zac filmed me dancing for future embarrassment/blackmail. 

Vardø Hotel - Zac and a skyscanning mate (he was a little inanimate)

A fantastic meal consisting of 2 different species of fish as well as Sea Urchin roe was wolfed down before skidding down the road to the Nordpol Kro (= North Pole Pub) for the first of the Gullfest Talks. The pub was stuffed to bursting with international memerobilia and locals, as well as the recreated skin of the World's last Great Auk (RIP the 5 Razorbills it took to make it). 

Tucking into Scandi scran: Sea Urchin

After a warmup by Tormod, the artist Hans Larsson took us through 'The Joy and Obstacles of Depicting Gulls'. This Swedish Viking ("even if I don't look like one") was merciless with self-criticism of his frankly perfect plates but also regaled us with his knack for finding fantastic visual cues to help identify gulls. A Glaucous Gull is a "flying pig"; a Heuglin's a "bull terrier". Caspian Gulls resemble "Blanka Vlašić" and what do juvenile Herring Gulls look like? George Constanza of course!

Hans is currently working on a new seabirds guide, illustrating the gull, terns and skua families and we were treated to viewings of a few plates - original Larssons! 

Hans Larsson and his Black-headed Gull plate (with Med and Slender-billed Gulls looming behind)

Richard Crossley was up next with a rollercoaster of a talk covering bases from growing up, the psychology of bird ID, all things Cape May and even serenading us with the first verse of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons' "December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)". We were shown the meticulous process that goes into the Crossley ID guides and a taster of the birding scene in the USA, including an exciting sounding scheme called Pledge to Fledge, where a non-birder is taken birding by a friend in the hope that they will gain enthusiasm for the hobby. To finish, Richard recounted a poem that he felt reflected his favorite bird, the Sanderling, as stunning images of these clockwork-legged hydrophobics were shown behind him. 

The Nordpol Kro - with Polar Bear sign.

Our minds buzzing with euphoria for the future of birding, we made our way back to the hotel via the darkened star-shaped Vardøhus Fortress with Mark Thomas for a spot of light-painting photography with the Northern Lights, a lot fainter than in Pasvik but still (in the words of Tormod) "super amazing"!

Tormod rounding up the evening

-Jonnie Fisk and Zac Hinchliffe
Jonnie is an 18 year-old Yorkshire-based birder, invertebrate enthusiast and frustrated artist. When not being oblivious to every local rarity, he enjoys autumn vis-mig and being distracted by bugs. 
https://twitter.com/jonnie_fisk

When Zac's not counting birds on patch, he's usually ringing birds on his regular Bangor site or is depressed that he does't have the money or time to twitch the latest big thing. Zac is 22 and currently studying a Research Masters at Bangor University and investigating Welsh Twite; adding a touch of science to his birding.
https://twitter.com/Zac_Hinchcliffe
http://www.zacswildlifeblog.blogspot.co.uk/

(links to Zac's take on Gullfest 2014 can be found here, here, here, here aaand here)

Oliver Metcalfe in response to "Where is the UK's Youth Nature Conservation Movement" by Danny Heptinstall

This is a response to Danny Heptinstall's guest blog on Mark Avery's blog 'Standing up for Nature' http://markavery.info/2014/04/04/heptinstall/  and on his own website 'naturewarblings' http://naturewarblings.wordpress.com/2014/03/30/where-is-the-uks-youth-conservation-movement/ .
(Oliver's article reflects his own views and not necessarily the views of all NGB members.)

Every so often, an article appears haranguing 'today's youth' for their lack of engagement with nature. We sit on our Playstations all day, with an iPhone on our laps so we can flick between screens every second to absorb a constant stream of meaningless celebrity gossip whilst mutilating zombies, never having seen so much as a blade of grass in the flesh. As a young birder growing up reading this sort of article (or the endless, tedious Birdforum comments on the issue), I can only say that they are counter-productive and dispiriting for the very people they aim to encourage. To hear that there are no young birders around, that you are isolated and different, creates a barrier that is difficult to overcome. Why would you put effort in trying to find other people your age who share your passion when you have already been told there is none?

Danny's argument differs slightly from this familiar narrative, but I fear with the same negative, off-putting outcome. In this reading, there are plenty of 'interested' youths, signing up for conservation courses and over-subscribing any available jobs, but they are not of a high enough calibre to properly support the work of the current conservation NGOs, and they do not constitute a coherent (yet undefined) movement. The blame for this, rather than being the fault of the youth, is a lack of engagement from the large conservation NGOs, particularly within the 18-25 age bracket. Essentially there are too few engaged 18-25 year-olds with the ability to make a difference, and it is the responsibility of large conservation NGOs to resolve this problem.

From my point of view, this reading of the situation is wrong in several ways, and is even harmful in the way the older, more clichéd articles were. Whilst I don't wish to comment too much on an overarching 'conservation' movement, I do know a bit about the birding scene, and I suspect that it is reasonably reflective of any larger nature or conservation movement. Within birding, whilst it may have been true a few years back that there was no coherent, appealing youth groups within birding, it no longer is. Both Next Generation Birders and A Focus on Nature (for more general naturalists) provide a fantastic forum- one of the recommendations for action in Danny's blog- from which young birders can meet, share ideas and generally evolve a sense of community. To characterise today's young enthusiasts as naïve, un-knowledgeable people prepared to drop £30,000 on a university course they know very little about, is not only to ignore all the people on NGB and AFON who are the very opposite of this, but it will also actively discourage the less engaged and knowledgeable from looking for these communities by denying their existence.

It's not even clear that attempting to engage with this age group in the way advocated by Danny's article would be positive for the larger NGOs. It only takes a brief look through the annals of Twitter marketing failures to see just how hard it is to appeal to this age group, and it is often huge corporations with massive marketing budgets that are making this cock-ups. Do we really want our environmental NGOs diverting vital resources away from conservation in order to work out a strategy to appeal to an audience that is notoriously difficult to connect to? A large part of the problem is that those in this age bracket (including myself) often want to create our own identities, to differentiate ourselves from what went before, hence the advantages of groups like AFON and NGB. The RSPB have been remarkably and commendably quick in recognising this, offering assistance to NGB to grow support for conservation in a way that wouldn't work if operated through official channels like RSPB Phoenix. It may be in the nature of these newer 'un-official' groups to be somewhat ephemeral, with each new generation wishing to create new identities and doing things their own way, but surely it is better for NGOs to offer a dynamic, supportive response to these groups as a strategy, than to risk diverting £1000s of pounds of funding finding strategies that are always likely to prove unappealing to its' target audience.

That's not to say I disagree with all Danny had to say – or even the main thrust of his argument, that environmental NGOs are failing the 18-25 age group in becoming the future of conservation. To work out the best way for the RSPB and other groups to engage with this audience, it is necessary to  look at what young people have most to offer. Clearly it's not money, of the RSPBs million plus members only a small proportion are ever going to fit into this category, and they are going to be less well off. I would envisage that the vast majority of the RSPBs youth membership have their membership paid for by well wishing relatives, or as family memberships, regardless of any interest shown by the younger people themselves. The dynamics of birding have changed as well, it's no longer a hobby adopted at a young age and continued through into older age, there are now far more  beginners in the 40+ age bracket, replete with top range optics and DSLRs wandering round RSPB reserves. From a purely economic perspective, this should be the target audience for new membership campaigns, for finding new volunteers and support- instead of trying to develop a potentially non-existent loyalty from a dwindling group of youngsters.

Instead, what's there is dynamism, energy, new ideas and enthusiasm, the same young people have to offer any corporate company. Many industries and companies acknowledge this, and offer an array of internships and graduate roles to young people to gain broad experience in their chosen career paths. It is here that the RSPB and other large environmental NGOs (although not all) let young enthusiasts down the most.

The RSPB job application forms are an exercise in intimidation, with huge amounts of skills and knowledge required for often the most simple of roles. Invariably a degree in a related subject is required. Furthermore, it is often the case that months of free labour, in the form of volunteering, is often required before even being considered for a job. Volunteering in general is of course a good thing, but as a pre-requisite for a job, can become a hurdle that rules out many talented individuals if they do not have the wealth to work for free for extended periods of time, or suitable access to reserves etc. For those coming out of university with upwards of £20,000 debt, finding any sort of paying job can take precedence over months of unpaid labour, regardless of the calibre of the individual. All of this serves to put off many talented young people looking for work within conservation NGOs, and substantially narrows the pool of people likely to be applying for a role, thus unnecessarily ruling out people who could be doing fantastic work for conservation.

In my opinion, the best thing the RSPB and other large conservation NGOs could do to help and encourage young people is to establish an annual 6-month paid graduate internship programme, for those with a genuine interest in conservation and nature. Ideally this would be done in combination with several NGOs, allowing different experiences within different organisations, and spreading the costs. Roles could be offered in different areas, 'field and reserve work' for example, or 'research', 'campaigning and media engagement' and other important aspects of these NGOs work. Importantly, however, recruits should be drawn for the broadest possible of backgrounds, paid so as not to rule out people on a financial basis, and regarded as a way of finding the best 'raw materials' to train and teach, rather than as a route in for those already with huge skill-bases.

This in turn I feel would further encourage the 'youth movement' so advocated by Danny, by showing that efforts and enthusiasm can be rewarded and appreciated by the large NGOs, that what can be accomplished by young people is still valuable.

-Oliver Metcalfe
Oliver is a young birder employed as an Ornithologist by Arcus Consulting, a job that gets him out and about birding all over the North and East of England. He lives in York, so regularly goes birding in the Lower Derwent Valley and spends his winter birding time at Rufforth tip. Oliver's Spring and Autumns are spent trudging the cliff-top paths looking for migrants at Whitby.