Initial findings suggest that Lesser Black-backed Gulls in north-west England fly within wind farms, but may avoid wind turbines once there. Offshore wind farms may affect birds in many ways, such as stopping them moving between places, or restricting access to areas where they feed. Collision risk is a key concern for seabirds, yet there has been little study to date of the use of wind farms by birds from known breeding colonies. This study, led by BTO, provides a first look at the movements of Lesser Black-backed Gulls at a colony in north-west England and their interaction with five operational offshore wind farms. The birds were tracked with GPS tags which recorded location, speed and height. Out of the 24 birds tracked, 15 visited wind farms, and in total spent 1.3% of their time there. A detailed look at the movements of two birds that visited wind farms most often, showed that their flight heights were greater within wind farms than outside, particularly during the day, potentially placing them at greater risk of collision. However, within wind farms, their use of the zone swept by the rotor blades was significantly less than expected. Although preliminary, these results suggest that Lesser Black-backed Gulls at this site may not avoid wind farms, but could avoid individual wind turbines once inside the wind farms. Further work is now being conducted to verify these patterns, which will be important in improving our understanding of the likely collision risk for seabirds.

The BirdTrends 2017 report is a one-stop shop for authoritative information about the population status of the common breeding birds of the wider UK countryside. The report is based on data gathered by the many thousands of volunteers who contribute to BTO-led surveys.

A new paper, resulting from a collaborative study between BTO and Lancaster University showed that monitoring nests has no effect on daily survival rates of Whinchat nestlings. To ensure that monitoring efforts do not affect survival rate of nestlings and young birds, it is important to assess their impact. Nest monitoring could potentially lead predators to the nest or cause parents to desert or reduce parental care effort to their nestlings. This paper investigated 39 nests to determine whether monitoring has an adverse effect on daily survival rate in Whinchats at Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire. Nests were either visited only once upon their initial detection, or every two days during the incubation period. The visited nests did not have a lower survival rate than the non-visited nests, suggesting that there are no adverse effects of monitoring on incubation. During the nestling stage, the nests were monitored once a day on three consecutive days, by using a video camera to record the parents’ behaviour. This part of the study found that nest disturbance by setting up monitoring equipment temporarily reduced the feeding behaviour of the parents, but this only added up to 0.52% of total nestling time; a non-significant portion of the total time a nestling spends with its parents. In conclusion, this study found that monitoring Whinchat nests every two to three days has no negative effect on survival rate, and although birds can become slightly disturbed, they will soon resettle into normal behaviour. The authors emphasise that precautions to minimise potential impact on nests should always be taken and that guidelines for nest monitoring should always be adhered to.

Issue 6 features articles on whoosh netting in your garden, spring trapping Red Kites and developing a nestbox project for Willow Tits. It also contains details of how to get involved in a new research project on Blackcaps.

Management for conservation often attempts to replicate the practices that were prevalent in historical times. There does, however, appear to be a lack of understanding of exactly what ‘traditional’ management would have involved, meaning that current conservation interventions may not be adequate for achieving their goals. Paul Dolman, Tom Williamson, Rob Fuller and Gerry Barnes describe the characteristics of traditional landscapes that would have been favourable for biodiversity and, in light of this, suggest ways in which current conservation management could be improved.