BWPA top prize for fellow earthinfocus photographer
Our very own Richard Shucksmith became British Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011 today. The image was also the category winner for Coast and Marine.
Richard said, “living on a boat the M/V Halton and diving some of the remote islands off the west coast of Scotland is an exhilarating experience. Sula Sgeir, meaning gannet rock, is 41 miles north of the Butt of Lewis. These wild and exposed islands provide habitat for an astounding variety and abundance of marine life. Places like these feel all the more special because, although remote and difficult to get to, they are a part of our heritage.”
Great news this from Ben Rawson (Conservation International) about gibbons in Vietnam. Gibbons are incredible animals and all species are threatened across their range. I was lucky enough to assist Ben in the field while he was conducting his PhD research on yellow-cheeked gibbons and black-shanked douc langurs in Cambodia. I’ll never forget the experience of hearing their loud and beautiful duet songs.
Gibbon Discovery Gives Hope for Survival of Species | Conservation International Blog.
I heard Bornean gibbons daily during my recent visit to Danau Girang Field Centre in Sabah, Borneo, but never managed to see one. Hopefully next year….
Fieldwork in Borneo
I have just got back from two weeks in Sabah, Malaysia (north east part of Borneo), where I was helping to run a Cardiff University field course on Tropical Biodiversity. Cardiff University runs the Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC), located by the Kinabatangan River.
Despite a great reduction in the area of Sabah covered by rainforest due to logging and conversion to oil palm plantations, the area is still rich in biodiversity. My role was to run the bird mist netting and supervise student projects on birds. We caught many beautiful birds, but most impressive was probably the black-and-red broadbill:
A 4 m long saltwater crocodile was radio-collared by DGFC, and is providing novel information on the ranging behaviour of these awesome reptiles:
The forest around Kinabatangan also hosts an impressive array of reptiles and amphibians. Many are nocturnal, but green tree lizards could be seen climbing high up into the trees in the day time. I came across this individual on the ground:
There were an extraordinary number of primates in the riparian forests, most easily seen by boat. I have never been anywhere with such sheer quantities of monkeys and apes. Proboscis monkeys have to be one of the strangest looking monkeys in the world. This is a bachelor male, who carried on stuffing himself with leaves while we looked on:
I am already looking forward to next year’s field course!
Levitating wheatear
While photographing Fair Isle wrens at the beach yesterday morning, I captured this levitating northern wheatear! He’s got a beakfull of ispods to feed to his nestlings hiding in a hole nearby (which I also ringed yesterday for my wheatear project).
Male northern wheatear
Back to the cold
One of the wheatears myself and Ruth colour ringed in Greenland last year was spotted and photographed this morning by Mads at the Arctic Station. Outi has put an entry on the Arctic Station blog. Unfortunately it isn’t one that we put a geolocator on, but I wouldn’t expect those back yet as they were all younger birds.
The bird seen this morning is male 9Z35822, now in his third year (aged last year as fledged in 2009). He was greeted by, well, Arctic conditions – snow and ice. Just illustrates the difficulties that long-distance migrants have in timing their migration so that they arrive early enough to get good territories and rear chicks when food is abundant, but not so early that they can’t find enough for themselves.
Wheatears on the move
While wheatears have been arriving in the UK for the last month, they are only just starting to return to Fair Isle. The great thing about colour ringing birds is that you get more information about where they go than standard metal ringing alone. This is because any keen-eyed bird watcher can record the colours – which will be unique to the individual – without the need for recapture. Telescopes are usually needed though, and a camera with a long telephoto or digiscope helps even more.
Two colour ringed wheatears (both older males) have been seen back – the first arrival was recorded by Tommy Hyndman on 1st April.
Another male was seen at Barns Ness, East Lothian, Scotland on 3rd April and another was spotted and photographed on North Ronaldsay on 4th April.
Colour ringed birds can be reported to the BTO, and usually the reporter hears back about where it was first caught.
Musk ox
Back home now in Cardiff with a bottle of Becks and CSI Miami on the TV. I’ve got to admit I’m missing Greenland already!
Our last few days were spent in Kangerlussuaq, a town that was only founded in the 2nd World War when the US set up a military base there. The Americans have left, but town now hosts the country’s largest airport. And the surrounding hills are the best place in Greenland to see land mammals – our reason for wanting to spend several days there before coming home.
We managed to find about 20 huge musk oxen over the weekend. They’re impressive beasts, stocky doesn’t seem quite an adequate enough description. Some were warming up for the rutting season, which is just beginning. Shame we won’t see them in full combat.
We also saw arctic hares close to our hostel, and two different ptarmigan up at the radar from where we started our musk ox – watching trips.
So now there’s a PhD to write up – and a lot of photos to process! A few pics from the weekend:
Ptarmigan
Arctic hare
Musk ox
Musk oxen
Leaving Disko
So, this is our last day on Disko. Our last hour in fact – I’m writing this entry less than an hour before we head off to the ferry for Ilulissat.
The final wheatear ringing count is 131. We would have got a few more but the mealworms gave up on us before the end. Not to worry, I’m very pleased with how many we got, and never thought we’d exceed 100. Getting all the geolocators on was excellent too, leaving this story open-ended as there is still exciting data to retrieve from their memories next year. I hope.
I’ve been getting lots of snow bunting photos recently. I thought I might as well take advantage of them eating all the dried mealworms, and they’ve been easy to get close to near a couple of the feeders. One of these shots is below.
Greenland is still very much a hunting-oriented society. We haven’t seen a single living seal in our entire stay. The numbers killed are officially reckoned to be within sustainable limits, and given that the density of people in Greenland is the lowest of any country in the world, may be that’s true. The country’s population is estimated at 56,500 (Wikipedia!). You do have to wonder though when you don’t see any at all. It would be interesting to look at the population biology of the seals here, especially source-sink dynamics (perhaps someone already has? Any feedback on this appreciated – thanks). The second photo is a seal skin, complete with head, that we found on a tiny beach by some houses on the outskirts of town yesterday. Quite a grizzly sight.
The final photo is a gratuitous cute husky shot, to make up for the seal.
Now on to Ilulissat, and then Kangerlussuaq, where we are hoping to catch the musk oxen rutting season, and may be see some Arctic foxes. Apparently around the airstrip is a good place – no shooting allowed there!
Snow bunting
Seal skin
Cute husky puppy
In the news
Thanks to the Cardiff University and BES press offices, some very nice articles about my BES photographic competition successes have been published both online and in print.
Permafrost, sled dogs and winter
Brrrrrrr! The weather forecast was spot-on yesterday, predicting that last night would be the first dipping below 0°C since before the summer. Autumn doesn’t seem to last very long here, at least not in the eyes of a soft European!
We still have a few wheatears around the place, but only a handful. Getting the remaining few onto one of the feeders is proving rather difficult. Meanwhile, a raven has discovered Feeder 1, daintily picking up dried mealworms with its enormous beak (see below).
Yesterday we had a change of scenery, accompanying Outi and two of her sled dogs to a permafrost monitoring plot. Measuring the depth of the permafrost entails sticking a long and thin metal ruler into the ground and writing the number down on a sheet – trusty low-tech kind of science. The dogs had a great time and must have covered at least five times the amount of ground we did, running backwards and forwards all the way there and all the way back. The puppy, Lumi (a Finnish word for snow), was one tired little dog by the time we got back! Our whale sightings are not completely over afterall, as four fin whales were out feeding in the bay.
Raven at feeder
Measuring permafrost
Reading the measurement, with some canine help (pic by Ruth Lovell)
Susi (Finnish for wolf)
