We had a slow start to the day, spent waiting for a number of checks and biological samples to be taken. We put it all to good use by bringing out blogs up to date!
The weather here is still pretty lousy with strong winds and plenty of showers. We eventually began our first stationary point counts at 2 pm - and need to keep these going every five minutes for the next 25 hours. On the way to the observation point, Mark sees a sooty shearwater - quite an early record for the autumn. It is in the late stages of wing moult; I don't recall seeing moult in a sooty shearwater before.
By the end of our first two hour session, we have seen 12 Cory's shearwaters, including some quite close to the ship. Mark is replaced by Adam, and we see at least as many again, including a group of six, scouring the surface in search of food. All of the birds we have seen well look like the Atlantic race borealis with no indication that any are Scopoli's. By the end of the day, we see a total of 46 Cory's. Superb!
Sunday, 6 July 2008
5 July Saturday
We decided the night before to wake at dawn to practice doing "point counts" at fixed stations. These are to be a new technique as far as seabird surveys at sea are concerned, and we needed to be sure that they would work.
The ship was like the Marie Celeste, just a sign saying that deploying of moorings (aka throwing expensive equipment over the side of the ship) was suspended because of 40 mph winds. This seemed a bit odd, so we looked outside. Sure enough, the sea was rather white with foam and spindrift. Time to go back to bed me thinks.
We spent the day computer coding our data and updating the data entry programs. I managed to lock myself out of my laptop computer after trying to get it to connect to the ship's network. I sent a rather plaintive email to our IT support to get the administrator password. I heard choirs of angels when I checked my email later - both Carl and Sue had responded with help on a Saturday. What stars!
The weather eased off a bit in the afternoon, at least enough for us to practice the point count survey methods. There were a lot of birds associated with the ship, and lots of stormies feeding. Our first glitch - they were all getting excited by the food waste being jettisoned from the galley. We'll have to try and do something about that, considering the point of these counts is to show how feeding behaviour changes at different states of the tide. Apart from that, the method seemed to be holding up.
The oceanographers managed to deploy another set of buoys with instruments attached, so we steamed slowly to the final station. We saw a couple more Cory's shearwaters - both seemed to be the Atlantic race - which raised the spirits. I went through a ridiculous comedy routine of trying to stick a plastic bag to the desk in our observation box with Duck tape. Every time I tore off a strip, the wind would blow the sticky parts together, rendering it useless for fixing the plastic bag to its intended location. Classic comedy it wasn't, but it amused the hell out of us.
The ship was like the Marie Celeste, just a sign saying that deploying of moorings (aka throwing expensive equipment over the side of the ship) was suspended because of 40 mph winds. This seemed a bit odd, so we looked outside. Sure enough, the sea was rather white with foam and spindrift. Time to go back to bed me thinks.
We spent the day computer coding our data and updating the data entry programs. I managed to lock myself out of my laptop computer after trying to get it to connect to the ship's network. I sent a rather plaintive email to our IT support to get the administrator password. I heard choirs of angels when I checked my email later - both Carl and Sue had responded with help on a Saturday. What stars!The weather eased off a bit in the afternoon, at least enough for us to practice the point count survey methods. There were a lot of birds associated with the ship, and lots of stormies feeding. Our first glitch - they were all getting excited by the food waste being jettisoned from the galley. We'll have to try and do something about that, considering the point of these counts is to show how feeding behaviour changes at different states of the tide. Apart from that, the method seemed to be holding up.
The oceanographers managed to deploy another set of buoys with instruments attached, so we steamed slowly to the final station. We saw a couple more Cory's shearwaters - both seemed to be the Atlantic race - which raised the spirits. I went through a ridiculous comedy routine of trying to stick a plastic bag to the desk in our observation box with Duck tape. Every time I tore off a strip, the wind would blow the sticky parts together, rendering it useless for fixing the plastic bag to its intended location. Classic comedy it wasn't, but it amused the hell out of us.
4 July - Friday
I Thought I had better introduce you to the seabird and cetacean survey team
This is me, Andy Webb adopting a strapping pose at the entrance to a bird hide. My job title with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee is Knowledge Manager, which means as much to me as it does to you! But I do know that among other things, I run our somewhat limited "Seabirds at Sea" programme, organising surveys offshore, training others to use standardised methods and supervising movement of data into publicly available databases. I didn't know I was going to be on this trip until 10 days before we sailed!
Mark Lewis is employed as a Marine Surveyor by the JNCC following on from various jobs in Aberdeen working in bars, kitchens to head chef at Estaminet. He started doing survey work for the JNCC in about 2003 and other contracts for the renewable energy industry and other offshore users. Mark has his own blog - not for the faint-hearted - which he is also updating for this trip.
Adam Batty first appeared on my radar when he participated in one of the JNCC-run training courses on recording seabirds at sea. He used to work for the consultancy Environmentally Sustainable Systems, but went on to become completely self-employed, carrying out surveys for Environmental Impact Assessments and more recently surveys for Strategic Environmental Assessments (that was an impressive sequence of eco-babble).
Enough of this. About the survey. We started doing some seabird line transect survey at dawn, and the weather was reasonable with a slight to moderate sea. We were steaming westwards about 20 miles south of the Lizard. Before breakfast, we saw a (European) storm-petrel, a couple of Manx and a Balearic shearwater. The latter species is attracting interest in the UK because it is undergoing serious declines in the west Mediterranean Sea (due mainly to fishery by-catch, apparently) yet increasing in numbers in the UK, especially off Portland Bill and at seawatching points in Cornwall and SW Wales.
After breakfast, Mark and Adam saw a couple of Cory's shearwaters (I saw the a**e end of one of them disappearing in the distance). But I got reasonable views of another one after lunch. Gradually, the weather deteriorated, and it became too much for us to work in early afternoon. So we kicked our heels, started our blogs and did various jobs in preparation for the main survey work later in the cruise.
There are a few green faces, as the wind whips up to gale force. I'm doing OK, although I took a couple of Stugeron before joining the ship in Portland. They brought a fug down on me and it was a struggle to keep awake on the dawn watch, so I had to go to my bunk to lie down after breakfast. I can't recall Stugeron doing this to me as much as this before, so I'd rather trust my sea legs and do without from now on.
In the evening, the weather died down considerably, and we were able to do some more line transects from about 10 miles SW of the Isles of Scilly, continuing westwards to the Jones Bank. All three of us were treated to close views of a fourth Cory's shearwater "wing-walking" across the waves. It was close enough for us to get a decent view of the underwing pattern and be happy that this was an Atlantic race of the species, probably from one of the colonies in the Azores or Madeira. This race shows little white on the underside of the primaries, so shows a quite "full" dark tip to the wing with a rounded border between the dark grey tip and white underwing. The nominate race (Scopoli's shearwater, found mainly in the Mediterranean) should show a more pointed white part of the underwing at the tip because they show more extensive white on the primaries at the wing point. They should also be more energetic flyers with more vigorous wing flaps, rather than the lazy style of the Atlantic race. These subtle differences between races are still somewhat poorly known, and a lot more differences have yet to be described.
We arrived at our first station on the Jones Bank in the evening. Time for the oceanographers to start throwing very expensive equipment over the side of the ship.
This is me, Andy Webb adopting a strapping pose at the entrance to a bird hide. My job title with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee is Knowledge Manager, which means as much to me as it does to you! But I do know that among other things, I run our somewhat limited "Seabirds at Sea" programme, organising surveys offshore, training others to use standardised methods and supervising movement of data into publicly available databases. I didn't know I was going to be on this trip until 10 days before we sailed!
Mark Lewis is employed as a Marine Surveyor by the JNCC following on from various jobs in Aberdeen working in bars, kitchens to head chef at Estaminet. He started doing survey work for the JNCC in about 2003 and other contracts for the renewable energy industry and other offshore users. Mark has his own blog - not for the faint-hearted - which he is also updating for this trip.
Adam Batty first appeared on my radar when he participated in one of the JNCC-run training courses on recording seabirds at sea. He used to work for the consultancy Environmentally Sustainable Systems, but went on to become completely self-employed, carrying out surveys for Environmental Impact Assessments and more recently surveys for Strategic Environmental Assessments (that was an impressive sequence of eco-babble).Enough of this. About the survey. We started doing some seabird line transect survey at dawn, and the weather was reasonable with a slight to moderate sea. We were steaming westwards about 20 miles south of the Lizard. Before breakfast, we saw a (European) storm-petrel, a couple of Manx and a Balearic shearwater. The latter species is attracting interest in the UK because it is undergoing serious declines in the west Mediterranean Sea (due mainly to fishery by-catch, apparently) yet increasing in numbers in the UK, especially off Portland Bill and at seawatching points in Cornwall and SW Wales.
After breakfast, Mark and Adam saw a couple of Cory's shearwaters (I saw the a**e end of one of them disappearing in the distance). But I got reasonable views of another one after lunch. Gradually, the weather deteriorated, and it became too much for us to work in early afternoon. So we kicked our heels, started our blogs and did various jobs in preparation for the main survey work later in the cruise.
There are a few green faces, as the wind whips up to gale force. I'm doing OK, although I took a couple of Stugeron before joining the ship in Portland. They brought a fug down on me and it was a struggle to keep awake on the dawn watch, so I had to go to my bunk to lie down after breakfast. I can't recall Stugeron doing this to me as much as this before, so I'd rather trust my sea legs and do without from now on.
In the evening, the weather died down considerably, and we were able to do some more line transects from about 10 miles SW of the Isles of Scilly, continuing westwards to the Jones Bank. All three of us were treated to close views of a fourth Cory's shearwater "wing-walking" across the waves. It was close enough for us to get a decent view of the underwing pattern and be happy that this was an Atlantic race of the species, probably from one of the colonies in the Azores or Madeira. This race shows little white on the underside of the primaries, so shows a quite "full" dark tip to the wing with a rounded border between the dark grey tip and white underwing. The nominate race (Scopoli's shearwater, found mainly in the Mediterranean) should show a more pointed white part of the underwing at the tip because they show more extensive white on the primaries at the wing point. They should also be more energetic flyers with more vigorous wing flaps, rather than the lazy style of the Atlantic race. These subtle differences between races are still somewhat poorly known, and a lot more differences have yet to be described.
We arrived at our first station on the Jones Bank in the evening. Time for the oceanographers to start throwing very expensive equipment over the side of the ship.
Friday, 4 July 2008
3 July 2008
I go to visit Martin Cade at Portland Bird Observatory to discuss data they hold on Balearic Shearwaters.I get a phone call from the ship to say that the calibration work they are doing is going slowly. Beth Scott, who is in charge of collecting the fish data, and Clare Embling can't be enjoying this. The hopeful forecast for my transfer onto the ship are looking optimistic.
I take the hire car into Weymouth to drop it off at the depot, but not before I sneek a look at a Hooded Merganser that arrived at Radipole Lake in the town. It doesn't seem the best candidate for a wild vagrant from North America in this setting. The species was recently admitted to the British List, so unless someone comes along to reclaim his escaped Hooded Merganser, this one should be a kosher new species for me. I call a cab to take me back to the hotel - it turns out the driver is a keen birder.
I wait at the hotel in the afternoon for further news on the calibration work they are doing on the James Cook. I could see the ship off the Portland Harbour breakwaters. Mark phones to tell me that they have faced a number of technical difficulties, but that they will collect us at 8:30 pm whether they finish all the calibration or not. See Clare Emblings blog to learn more of their frustrations. I continue fiddling with the computer program for entering our seabird sightings data.
Eleanor and I are taken on a pilot's launch boat out to the waiting James Cook. The transfer goes smoothly, in spite of a choppy sea. I see a number of folks waiting on the ship's deck with cameras and I sense that one slip will be plastered across other blogs or appear on the Jeremy Beadle Show (that is if he weren't dead).
2 July 2008
We could all get into our cabins and unpack our stuff. However, two of us have to go to meet the ship further along the coast at Portland because our cabins won't become available until others have finished their work on board (more of that later).
We get a full safety briefing, show our travel documents to the ship's pursor. After lunch I meet up with Russell Wynn, who is the co-ordinator for Seawatch-SW, which aims to collate records from shore-based seawatchers around the UK
After this, Eleanor Howlett and I drive around to Portland to check into our hotel rooms. She is a student from Liverpool University, attached to the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory there. The hotel (The Heights) is perched on the edge of Portland and overlooking Weymouth, Portland Harbour and Chesil Beach. The view is stunning and we were treated to a fantastic sunset.
Meanwhile, the James Cook has set sail from Southampton to begin calibration of the acoustic equipment used to detect fish and other matter underneath the ship.
We get a full safety briefing, show our travel documents to the ship's pursor. After lunch I meet up with Russell Wynn, who is the co-ordinator for Seawatch-SW, which aims to collate records from shore-based seawatchers around the UK
After this, Eleanor Howlett and I drive around to Portland to check into our hotel rooms. She is a student from Liverpool University, attached to the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory there. The hotel (The Heights) is perched on the edge of Portland and overlooking Weymouth, Portland Harbour and Chesil Beach. The view is stunning and we were treated to a fantastic sunset.Meanwhile, the James Cook has set sail from Southampton to begin calibration of the acoustic equipment used to detect fish and other matter underneath the ship.
1 July 2008
I went down to the National Oceanographic Centre, where the James Cook is berthed. the dock-side and ship were a hive of activity with scientists unpacking equipment from crates, and stores being loaded for the duration of the cruise.
The observation boxes we had constructed were already on the foredeck and ready to be moved into their final position. These will hopefully provide reasonable shelter for us when out watching seabirds in all weathers. There are deflectors at the front which should keep the worst of the wind off us. There are nice doors on the side to allow us easy access - except someone put a fixing strap across them. So one of our jobs will to move those and tightend the bolts that hold the construction together.
The James Cook is a vast ship, just two years old
and very well equipped. It will be easily the most comfortable ship I've ever worked on, with individual cabins, high-speed internet access and a gym among many other facitilities. There will be three seabird and cetacean observers on board as part of a multi-disciplinary team to collect information on the physical and biological features of the Jones Bank in the Celtic Sea. The bank lies about 50 miles to the west of the Isles of Scilly and is known to have interesting tidal currents over it. We will be looking to see how these tidal currents bring nutrients to the surface and potentially enhance productivity and food supply for seabirds, whales and dolphins and other "top predators". Take a look at Clare Embling's blog for more detail.
Mark and I spent most of the morning helping with the box-lugging and familiarising ourselves with the ship. In the aftenoon we got remaining things we need for the cruise. In the evening we went for an excellent curry. I always have at the back of my mind "this could be my last ever curry so it better be a good one" before going to sea. Utterly ridiculous of course.
The observation boxes we had constructed were already on the foredeck and ready to be moved into their final position. These will hopefully provide reasonable shelter for us when out watching seabirds in all weathers. There are deflectors at the front which should keep the worst of the wind off us. There are nice doors on the side to allow us easy access - except someone put a fixing strap across them. So one of our jobs will to move those and tightend the bolts that hold the construction together.The James Cook is a vast ship, just two years old
Mark and I spent most of the morning helping with the box-lugging and familiarising ourselves with the ship. In the aftenoon we got remaining things we need for the cruise. In the evening we went for an excellent curry. I always have at the back of my mind "this could be my last ever curry so it better be a good one" before going to sea. Utterly ridiculous of course.
Now its really back 30 June 2008
I've started this blog to let people know what's happening during the next 3 - 4 weeks I'm away from Aberdeen.
I started the day with a dispiriting meeting about SPAs with Defra, Scottish Govt and Welsh Assembly, and witnessed the mealy words used to dismiss the scientific advice they were offered.
Still there was always this photo from today's Press and Journal to cheer me up!
I am now joining a NERC cruise on board the RRS James Cook, and re-aquaint myself with some real science.
I drove to Southampton, listening to the commentary on the fantastic Andy Murray v Richard Gasquet tennis match. I joined the other scientists who were having a meal at a restaurant in town later. Seem a nice enough bunch.
I started the day with a dispiriting meeting about SPAs with Defra, Scottish Govt and Welsh Assembly, and witnessed the mealy words used to dismiss the scientific advice they were offered.
Still there was always this photo from today's Press and Journal to cheer me up!
I am now joining a NERC cruise on board the RRS James Cook, and re-aquaint myself with some real science.
I drove to Southampton, listening to the commentary on the fantastic Andy Murray v Richard Gasquet tennis match. I joined the other scientists who were having a meal at a restaurant in town later. Seem a nice enough bunch.
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