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Blog post: The Gulf of Martaban, a critical habitat for a critically endangered species
I am away this week, so I am taking the opportunity to invite colleagues to tell you about some of our International Research. In today's guest blog, Rob Sheldon shares his experiences from the mudflats of Myanmar.
"SPOON-BILLED SANDPIPER!" shouted Christoph Zockler.
The 15 hour flight, 3 hour car drive and lack of sleep on board a local fishing boat suddenly became worthwhile. Just one hour into survey work and scanning the first flock of small waders Christoph picked out a single spoon-billed sandpiper, one of the worlds most endangered birds. My first sighting – amazing!
We are working with a multi-national team to survey one of the most important wintering sites, the Gulf of Martaban in Myanmar (aka Burma). The effort to save these birds is truly international, this particular survey team representing the UK, Germany, Bangladesh, China and Myanmar. Our group is made up of 8 boats, 15 surveyors, and 16 local villagers who are navigating and preparing a continuous supply of rice and noodles!
The survey team, ankle-deep in the life-giving mud of the Gulf (Rob Sheldon)
We’ve spent 5 days on these boats, living the life of waders - our daily routine determined by the rhythm of the tide. When the tide is on its way in, we return to the boats, eat and move on to the next area, and when the tide goes out and the mudflats become exposed we leave the boats to get on with survey work. The skill of the boatmen is truly amazing - they navigate purely by the way the water flows and through local landmarks, yet they are more accurate than our satellite images and GPS units!
Our home for the week (Rob Sheldon)
Not only is this vast 180 square kilometre estuary important for spoon-billed sandpiper, but also more than 150,000 waders are thought to use the area. It has an amazing tidal bore, more impressive than the Severn, and is one of the most dynamic estuaries in the world. The saltmarsh erodes and reforms incredibly quickly, so that from one year to the next the estuary is never the same. We can see saltmarsh being eroded in front of our very eyes. The place is a true wilderness and one of the most incredible places I’ve ever visited.
Over the 5 days, we had more than 100 sightings of spoon-billed sandpiper which highlights the importance of this fantastic area. We counted more than 15,000 waders, yet we only covered about 5% of the estuary.
Hard at work while the tide allows (Rob Sheldon)
As we returned to the mainland I reflected on the previous days, and I can’t help but reflect that the long-term future of the spoon-billed sandpiper and the Gulf of Martaban are intimately linked – saving this habitat is critical to saving this amazing bird. Maybe if I am lucky enough to return one day, watching a spoon-billed sandpiper will be a thrill because we succeeded in securing its future, not because of it’s a rare sight.
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Blog post: Ascension ? an update on the endemic plant project
[Posted on behalf of the project team, Catherine Supple and Liza White.] Since the RSPB’s visit to Ascension at the end of last year, the endemic plants project has progressed well (see previous blog for more info). The main aim of our work is to restore endemic and native plant communities in five areas of the island - within each, we have one site which will be fenced and planted, one site to be fenced and seed sown, and a third that will remain unfenced and planted to record grazing damage using an infra-red camera. The plant species we are working with are the endemic and Critically Endangered Euphorbia origanoides or Ascension spurge, the grass Aristida adscensionis, the salad plant Portulaca oleracea and the sedge Cyperus appendiculatus. 
Germinating plants at Chicken Run (I guess there used to be chickens there??)
So far we have collected seed from the wild populations and are now successfully germinating them, although this was by trial and error to start with - the seedlings need considerable care and attention so that they don't dry out. The whole conservation team has been erecting fencing on the five plots - approximately half is done, and although is has been hard and hot work, it's also been great for team-building! We are now putting out invertebrate traps, using bait, pit fall traps and sweep nets to set a base-line, and will repeat when the plant communities are established to see the effect of the vegetation on the bug life. We also collected data on light levels, soil and air moisture and temperature, soil pH, nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus levels – all things important for plants. 
Stedson, Dane and Nathan helping with the heavy work (mind Stedson's head!)
Stedson Stroud has been training us on fern propagation using both spores and corms, and we are looking forward to Dr Alan Gray coming to the island to teach us bryophyte identification, surveying techniques and recording. We may also have a fantastic opportunity to visit Kew Botanical Gardens to undertake some additional training in general propagation and micro-propagation, seed collection and storage and herbarium work. As well as the seed propagation, we get to help out with the turtle counts on Pan Am beach, planting the Critically Endangered Pteris adscensionis fern and endemic Sporobolus caespitosus grass on the Green Mountain restoration site, helping out with the bird monitoring, and taking visitors on tours of the island – on Ascension, you have to try your hand at everything! 
Jolene and Liza planting
Pteris on the Green Mountain restoration site
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Blog post: What do leopards eat?
I am away this week, so I am taking the opportunity to invite colleagues to tell you about some of our International Research. In today's guest blog, Jeremy Lindsell reports on a recent fieldtrip to Sierra Leone in West Africa.
As any parent knows, the content of a child’s nappy can tell you a good deal about what they’ve been eating. So when I saw the toenails of an antelope in the scat of a leopard last week, I shouldn’t have been surprised - after all, what else would they eat? But it was a bit of a reality check for me – we were tracking through dense tropical forest inhabited by a powerful creature willing to swallow even the indigestible bits.
Antelope toenail, with a pen-cap for scale (Jeremy Lindsell)
The discovery of leopard scat was one of a number of exciting observations made during my recent trip to the Gola Rainforest National Park in eastern Sierra Leone. Not much further down the track we also found the large and unmistakable evidence of elephants - a great encouragement that this threatened species continues to survive in the forest. This too gave us some insight into their way of life. We noted the seeds of Parinari and Klainedoxa trees in the dung, evidence that the elephants are an effective way for these imposing trees to disperse through the rainforest.
The long term prospect for large and charismatic species like leopard and elephant, and the great array of other rare and threatened wildlife that live in Gola Rainforest National Park, will depend as much on the nature of the wider landscape in which the forest exists as on the protection of the forest itself. Animals of this size need space to move and that's why we are working beyond the boundaries of the National Park to try and ensure that Sierra Leone’s Gola Forest remains connected to large blocks of forest to the east, in Liberia. There are extensive areas of community forest that should provide such connectivity and my role it to oversee biological surveys in these areas to assess their importance for wildlife.
 Away from tarmac, average speed on the roads was 10 kph, but that still didn’t keep us entirely out of trouble (Jeremy Lindsell).
For sure these are not easy places to work – in my two short weeks we had to contend with a wheel falling off the car, a colleague taken ill with Yellow Fever and a national fuel shortage – and many may question the priority of biodiversity conservation in such an impoverished country. But Sierra Leoneans are all too familiar with outsiders coming to extract their natural resources, as we saw in a gold mining area in the central region of the country, so perhaps our efforts to encourage the protection rather than the over-exploitation of their natural resources will strike a different chord. If you would like to post a comment, you'll find simple instructions here.
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Blog post: Looking for love
 Sleek skylark with GSOH seeks warm-hearted farmer with a small plot of undrilled land to share lazy summer days for singing and possibly more. Text 0800 111 to come fly with me Bright meadow buttercup looking for a foxy foxtail to share lady’s bedstraw for a bit of variety. All welcome to make hay with us – diversity makes life richer. Call 0800 222 for a summer of love. Lonely turtle dove WLTM salt-of the earth type with own hedgerows. Coo in my ear on 0800 222 Stylish short-haired bumble bee looking for a caring landowner to share the nectar of life with. Own beetle bank an advantage. Give Honey a buzz on 0800 333 Enthusiastic RSPB Farmland Advisors seek wildlife-loving farmers everywhere for a future richer in wildlife. Share the love and find your nearest advisor here. Happy Valentine’s Day to all the UK’s fabulous farmers helping to keep our countryside fit for wildlife. Show your love for wildlife today by entering the RSPB Telegraph Nature of Farming Award Photo: Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
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Blog post: Looking after 'our' birds in Africa ? local support for local projects
I am away this week, so I am taking the opportunity to invite colleagues tell you about some of our International Research. In today's guest blog, Danaë Sheehan shares her experiences in Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in Africa.
I work on issues related to the decline of African-Eurasian migrant birds – those that fly back and forth between Africa and Europe or across to Asia - and I've just returned from a trip to visit the Living on the Edge project sites in the Sahel of northern Burkina Faso.
Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, is a hot, dusty, chaotic city – tiny compared to some of the major African metropolises, and precariously perched on the edge of the great desert. Life can be pretty harsh here, and conservation a challenge. I visited two local volunteer Site Support Groups (SSG) – one working at Lake Higa, near the border with Niger, the other at an Important Bird Area in the Sourou Basin, next to Mali. The Living on the Edge project represents a unique collaboration of local, national and international partners working together across the flyway to find solutions to a shared problem – protecting migrating birds. 
Site Support Group members surveying for birds (Danaë Sheehan)
SSGs are about biodiversity AND people - they support local communities to implement conservation actions that provide benefits for people as well as migratory birds. The Living on the Edge project promotes sustainable land use, aiming to enhance livelihoods while restoring and protecting important habitats. Everyone wins.
Watching Eurasian turtle doves feeding alongside resident Sahelian doves on the northern shore of Lake Higa, I reflected that this bird is now a rare sight, having had population declines of more than 70% over 30 years. I'm lucky that a few pairs still breed around my village in Cambridgeshire, and seeing them here now brings home the distances they travel, twice each year – an incredible journey that we need to understand better. This spring, RSPB scientists will be working on its breeding grounds in East Anglia, and will track individuals using small satellite tags as they return to Africa in the autumn. There is still a great deal to learn about the ecology of many species of migrant birds on their African wintering grounds, including exactly where different populations go, when they arrive, the habitats they use, how they move around Africa, and the threats that they face.
 Turtle dove (Danaë Sheehan)
The RSPB works closely with organisations in both Europe and Africa to improve our ability to explain the alarming population declines and conserve migrants. Exciting and very important work...and something that can only be done if local people at both ends of the journey are actively involved and passionate about protecting these wonderful birds.
 Landscape from Burkina Faso (Danaë Sheehan) If you would like to post a comment, you'll find simple instructions here.
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Blog post: Mind the (Hungry) Gap
Is it nearly Spring yet? Well, it depends who you ask. While we patiently hang on for the 21 March, optimistic Celts have already celebrated Imbolc on 1 February. Its arrival was also heralded on 1 February by chicken farmers the world over, as they celebrated the day of their patron saint, St Brigid (it's on Wikipedia, it must be true...). Candlemas on 2 February is regarded as the last day of winter by some, especially any Groundhogs that awoke to see their shadows. For wildlife, this time of year is known as the ‘hungry gap’ – at the moment it looks more like winter than it has all year and Nature’s larder is looking depressingly empty. For farmland birds, this is when planted wild bird seed mixes come into their own. They contain a mixture of seed-bearing plants and can be designed to take a number of things into account, including the rate at which plants drop their seeds, the dietary preferences of target bird species, and the soil properties of the area. Location of the mix is key to the usefulness of the mix – some species prefer to be in the open so they can see predators coming, while others prefer a place where they can remain secluded for much of the time. The amount is important too, with larger blocks suffering less from edge effects and able to host larger flocks. So for example, if you want a fat, healthy population of corn buntings ready to get stuck straight in to the breeding season, establish a couple of acres of mix containing some of their favourites such as barley, oats and triticale, in an area that’s mostly open with a few isolated bushes. It can be quite technical stuff - as a farmer, it could prove one of the more complicated crops you grow if you don’t have the proper guidance on what to include and how to establish and manage it. Luckily, free advice is something that’s readily available through several RSPB projects. Mixes are proving to be a great success wherever farmers have worked with us to get them right.  With the right components, game cover can provide lots of seeds for small birds. Could you keep yours a little longer..? Another early February date is the end of the shooting season on 1 February. Do you have game cover containing the kind of seed bearing plants that can help small birds survive the winter? You may think it’s now outlived its usefulness, but I know of a small flock of 90 corn buntings in the game cover near my office that would disagree with you! If you can, please consider keeping it until the weather starts to improve. That way, as spring really kicks in, our corn buntings will be well fed enough to turn their thoughts to other things. After all it is nearly Valentine’s Day. Now there’s a date we can all agree on.... Do you have wild bird seed mixes on your farm? What birds have you seen using them this winter?
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Blog post: An Ethiopian mystery is solved!
I am away this week, so I am taking the opportunity to let colleagues tell you about some of our International Research. In today's guest blog, Paul Donald talks about the mystery of the charismatic Ethiopian bush-crow...
Today was a great day – an email from the international Journal of Ornithology confirming that a scientific article by my colleagues and I has been accepted for publication. Not a massively rare event for an RSPB researcher as our department produces many such papers each year, but this one is a bit special for me because it answers one of the great mysteries of African ornithology, one that has intrigued me for years.
The conundrum is this: why does the Ethiopian bush-crow have such a restricted distribution? Or, put another way, why should a smart and adaptable bird that eats almost anything, that can survive happily in even the most heavily degraded habitats, that likes hanging around villages, have a world range so small it would fit comfortably inside Norfolk? Surely it should be common and widespread, like so many others in the crow family? In 1946, the formidable ornithologist Constantine Benson concluded “The reason for this remarkably restricted distribution is not at all apparent to me. There seems to be nothing at all unique or distinctive about its environment”. He was stumped, and since then others have looked and failed to find an answer. But the reason they failed, we now believe, is that they were looking for a barrier invisible to the human eye, like a glass wall.
 Ethiopian bush-crow family (Paul Donald)
Increasingly desk-bound researchers like me love getting their boots dusty, and you don’t get dustier than by hacking through the bush in southern Ethiopia, recording the exact location of bush-crows and their nests. But it was only back in the lab that we spotted the big pattern that others had missed: the bush-crow’s range exactly follows the edge a unique bubble of cool, dry climate. Inside the bubble, where the average temperature is less than 20°C, the bush-crow is almost everywhere. Outside, where the average temperature hits 20°C or more, there are no bush-crows at all. A cool bird, that appears to like staying that way. 
Bush-crow habitat (Paul Donald)
Why is this species so completely trapped inside its little bubble? We don’t yet know, but it seems likely that it is physically limited by temperature – either the adults, or more likely its chicks, simply cannot survive outside the bubble, even though there are thousands of square miles of identical habitat all around. Whatever the reason, alarm bells are now ringing loudly, as the storm of climate change threatens to swamp the bush-crow’s little climatic lifeboat. And once gone, it's gone for good.
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Blog post: Getting in touch with your emotional side
Blogger: Erica Howe, Communications Officer Peering out of my window in the office today, the snow is starting to melt and the sun is streaming across our desks. It is certainly warming my heart, if not my red fingertips that have been pinched by the frosty air on my walk in. It is amazing what such a dramatic change in weather can do to your perspective though. With roads covered in inches of clean, white, fluffy snow last week, the world felt smaller. Like a simpler place to exist, a charming, quiet world where everything slows down to a more dreamy pace of life. It never ceases to amaze me how the natural world can keep inspiring us in this way; the feelings that it evokes and the sentiments it encourages. Do you think people become more romantic or childlike when it snows, more carefree when the sun shines, or more sensitive when it’s raining? You only have to look in any modern day fiction, Shakespearean play or poem from the ‘classics’ to see how much we’ve been inspired by the natural world and the changing seasons.
Hopefully, nature will continue to inspire creativity for decades to come, but we can’t escape the sobering fact that it is facing some of its biggest challenges yet. So, the RSPB is also getting in touch with its emotional side! We’ve launched our first ever nature poetry competition, in conjunction with award-winning poetry publisher, The Rialto, to encourage you all to express why the great outdoors is so special. Most importantly, we want you to share your passion for the environment in whatever form of verse you fancy. If sonnets and stanzas are not your thing, why not go for a limerick or a haiku? But, what is Nature Poetry? Well, the judges, former Poet Laureate, Sir Andrew Motion and the leading Nature Writer, Mark Cocker will give this pretty a wide interpretation. Your poems won’t have to be just about bitterns or badgers, pied wagtails or polar bears. Most people have walked in their local park, felt the roughness of a leaf or the heft of a stone and know how it can change a mood or express a feeling. You might just have to put pen to paper and see what comes to you! As well as offering poets the chance to win a cash prize and publication of their poems, the competition will raise vital money for conservation. Full details and the facility to enter online can be found The Rialto website here: www.therialto.co.uk/pages/the-magazine/nature-poetry-competition-2012/ If you would prefer to enter by post, that’s fine too, just get in touch with Matt Howard at our Norwich office on 01603 697515 or email at matt.howard@rspb.org.uk to request an entry form. Photo Credit: Adam Murray 
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Blog post: Heading North
Tomorrow I am heading off with the kids to the North-East to see family and to escape the Siberian weather of East Anglia. But, as a special treat, I have invited 5 guest bloggers who work in our International research and species recovery teams. Together they will try to give a flavour of the depth and breadth of RSPBs training and research in some far flung corners of the globe.
The RSPB prides itself on implementing evidence based conservation - policies or practical solutions that are underpinned by sound science. It's something that has proved its value over and over again in the UK. Science has, for example, been used to diagnose declines and develop solutions halt the decline of many of our farmland birds such as the corn crake and skylark. It is also been the the basis of management for key sites and habitats for some of our rarer species of high conservation concern such as capercaillie, stone curlew and bittern.
This is exactly the same approach we use and promote for our international work. Here the stakes often, but by no means always, seem higher simply because so many species or sites are so much closer to extinction or destruction and the technical and financial resources are often much thinner on the ground. However, by working alongside Birdlife International partners around the world RSPB is making a real difference in terms of saving species, sites and habitats and building in-country scientific capacity so these partners can sustain this work into the future
Why do we do it? Because 190 bird species are classed as critically endangered on the IUCN red list - species on the brink of extinction. Species like the magnificent Tristan Albatross restricted to on Island, Gough, in the south Atlantic. This has a global population of about 11,000 birds that has declined by almost 30% in the last 40-50 years. The tiny Liben lark (with a world population of about 90-256 individual birds almost entirely restricted to a 36 km2 small grassy plain in Ethiopia ) and the slightly bizarre northern bald ibis (a species that has undergone dramatic historic declines such that 95% of wild birds occur in one subpopulation in Morocco. The RSPB has the skills and expertise required to help restore the fortunes of many of these species. Indeed for all these three we are working with Birdlife partners in Tristan da Cunha, Ethiopia and the middle East and north Africa to do just that. Infact , scientists have estimated 16 bird species would have gone extinct between 1994 and 2004 were it not for conservation programmes .
But I would argue, for many species we have an international obligation to fulfil. Migrant species cross continents and cultures. To halt and ultimately reverse the declines of many of our migrant species such as the cuckoo and the wood warbler, we need to address the problems they face here on their breeding grounds, on wintering grounds is sub Saharan Africa and staging and stop over sites in between. Similarly species on the 14 UK Overseas Territories are 'our responsibility - the Montserrat Oriole in the Caribbean and the St Helena Wirebird in the South Atlantic - both single island endemics for which the UK has a clear duty of care.
But the world is a big place and we can only do this through partnerships and by building the capacity in countries where threats to species, sites and habitats are greatest. All our international research strives to do this be it by having local scientists or students embedded in field teams gaining first hand experience, supervising international PhDs, running training course or hosting internships. I hope you enjoy the week's blogs.
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