The 2022 Annual Conference - News

Des’s enthusiasm and strong commitment to Scotland’s wildlife, in particular to raptors and the uplands, is inspiring, earning him election to the RSE Fellowship in 2015, and the Medal from the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management in 2019. He was founder chair of the Scottish Raptor Monitoring Scheme and is a Board member of the award-winning South Scotland Golden Eagle Project.

He works closely with government, developing the 25-year Scottish biodiversity strategy. Chair of the UN Convention on Migratory Species Technical Advisory Group supporting work on African and Eurasian raptors, Des interacts with numerous raptor policy and research specialists. He publishes widely, and the recent book Curious about Nature. A passion for fieldwork (edited with Tim Burt, CUP), arose from his stint as Chair of the Field Studies Council.

Des took his PhD and DSc from the University of Nottingham and joined the Nature Conservancy Council as Mountain and Moorland Ecologist working under Derek Ratcliffe (about whom he co-edited the book Nature’s Conscience: the life and legacy of Derek Ratcliffe). Des collaborates widely and enjoys nothing more than being with family and friends – not least in the field, and at a push, Celtic Park!

Katherine is a final year PhD student with broad interests in applied population ecology. She is particularly interested in the impact of ecological traps on population dynamics and how this can affect recovering populations. Twitter handle: @katieaugust15

Amy has worked for the Scottish Raptor Monitoring Scheme (SRMS) since 2014. Her role is to drive the work of the Scheme forward under the guidance of the Scottish Raptor Monitoring Group, which is made up of representatives from its nine partner organisations. Amy is passionate about nature conservation and since completing her PhD at the University of Stirling in 2007 has worked for RSPB in various roles in Northern England, Scotland and Wales

The Common Kestrel in Ireland has suffered a dramatic decline of over 50% in the past 30 years. Kez’s PhD aimed to understand the ecology of the kestrel in a unique island position on the most western point of its range, where much of its preferred prey is unavailable. Kez will discuss the results of her PhD research as well as discuss future work.

Kez is an ornithologist from Belfast who specialises in wetland birds and raptors. She is a C-licenced bird ringer working with the Northern Ireland Raptor Study Group and the Irish Brent Goose Research Group and has completed her PhD at Queen’s University Belfast where she investigated factors that might explain the decline of Kestrels across Ireland.

The COVID-19 Bio-Logging Initiative conducts large-scale collaborative analyses of how animals responded to altered levels of human activity during the pandemic. One of its sub-projects is an ambitious collaboration with the Global Anthropause Raptor Research Network (GARRN) and The Peregrine Fund that aims to understand how lockdowns affected raptor movements and activity patterns. Many raptor species are sensitive to human activities, making them ideal models for examining potential ‘anthropause’ effects. The international bio-logging and raptor research communities have come together to create a database of over 360 million GPS fixes for 3300+ individual raptors across 65 species, allowing global-scale comparative analyses across species, ecosystems and geographic regions. Rob will share the latest results from this exciting collaborative research project.

Rob finished his PhD in 2021 where he studied migration and dispersal in the Cyprus Wheatear. He now works as part of the COVID-19 Bio-Logging Initiative where he investigates avian movement patterns in relation to human activities.

A collaborative analysis of Raptor Study Group monitoring data over 25 years shows evidence of severe declines in Merlin territory occupation rates across the UK countries, but stable breeding success. We also use data on a habitat, weather, management, prey, and potential predators around each territory to test for correlation with territory occupation rates and breeding productivity. Our results identify a diverse and surprising range of candidate drivers of change, which could inform new work to explore underlying mechanisms of decline and ultimately develop conservation actions to benefit this species.

Ian studied zoology at St Andrews followed by a PhD on avian energetics at Stirling and started working for the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science in 1994 on foreshores shellfisheries in Wales. After the RSPB Cymru North Wales Office was established in 1998, he has worked on a wide range of conservation research and recovery projects that have focussed on species such as Chough, Black Grouse, Curlew and Yellowhammer. He also produces the Birds of Conservation Concern lists for Wales.

The South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project aims to reinforce the small, isolated and vulnerable population of Golden Eagles in the Scottish Borders and Dumfries & Galloway. Through a series of translocations over a period of six years, the project will look to increase numbers and prevent the loss of this majestic bird from southern Skies. This talk will explore the background to the project and provide an update on progress since 2017.

Cat holds a degree in Biological Sciences and a PhD in Recreation Ecology, specialising in the management of recreational activities in the countryside and the conflicts that arise from them. She has over twenty years of experience working and volunteering in the field of conservation ecology including on the ground-breaking Osprey Translocation Project at Rutland Water. Cat has specialised in raptors and the stakeholder and community issues involved in the controversial topic of Red Grouse moors and Hen Harriers at Langholm, managing the award-winning Making the Most of Moorlands Project, which worked alongside the Langholm Moor Demonstration Project. Cat is also a member of the Scottish Borders Raptor Study Group and Dumfries & Galloway Raptor Study Groups, involved in monitoring raptor populations, including Hen Harrier, Merlin, Barn and Short-eared Owls. and is an A ringing permit holder.

For the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project, Cat takes the lead developing and maintaining key relationships, managing the day-to-day running of the project and the translocation and subsequent monitoring of Golden Eagles released into the south of Scotland.

This work was done with the support from various members of the SOC, the Scottish Raptor Study Group, and members of the public. I looked at the health of raptors across Scotland by analysing both carcasses and live raptors. Presence of disease, heavy-metals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and parasites, along with the location where each of the birds were found, helped me build a picture of the health of the Scottish environment.

Gaby is a conservation biologist with a PhD in raptor health and environmental toxicology and a background in ecology and veterinary science. Her main interest is understanding ecosystem health and finding ways to address the loss of biological diversity. Gaby’s 17 years of professional experience predominantly focuses on endangered species, having worked on projects for reintroduction, translocation, supplementation and rehabilitation of over 15 endangered species. She has worked with birds, mammals, amphibians, marsupials, reptiles and insects found in locations from Mexico to Australia and the UK.

Northern Goshawks Accipiter gentilis typically prefer undisturbed woodland habitats for nesting and hunting. In recent decades, however, the species has started colonising urban environments in continental Europe and elsewhere, indicating a surprising degree of behavioural plasticity and tolerance of human disturbance. This talk will showcase a long-term study on urban-breeding Goshawks in the city of Hamburg, Germany, covering aspects of colonisation dynamics, movement ecology, diet choice and reproductive biology. Findings will be compared to those for other urban, and more typical non-urban, populations. As Goshawk populations start expanding in parts of Scotland, there are valuable opportunities to conduct research on this enigmatic species, using well-established monitoring protocols, emerging field and laboratory techniques, and collaborative approaches. An improved understanding of the Goshawk’s ecological needs, and its response to different types of human disturbance, is key to ensuring its effective protection. Perhaps, one day, Goshawks will breed in and around Scottish towns and cities, providing memorable observations for their human inhabitants.

Christian is an evolutionary and behavioural ecologist at the University of St Andrews. A keen fieldworker and explorer, much of his research is driven by a deep curiosity about, and desire to protect, the natural world. Well-known for his long-term studies of tool-using New Caledonian and Hawaiian crows, Christian conducted his doctoral research on urban-breeding Goshawks and has maintained a fascination with raptors ever since. He also has long-standing interests in advanced animal tracking technologies (‘bio-logging’) and led the teams that pioneered the use of video-, proximity- and audio-loggers for studying wild birds. Christian is Founding President of the International Bio-Logging Society, as well as Co-Founder and Chair of the COVID-19 Bio-Logging Initiative – a UN-endorsed global research consortium investigating how animals (including raptors) responded to lockdowns. He is a National Geographic Explorer and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, as well as a former Rhodes Scholar (University of Oxford) and Radcliffe Fellow (Harvard University).