Suffering from the winter blues? These dark, wet, blustery days getting you down? Why not cheer yourself up by looking forward to the warm, balmy days of spring and summer (well we have to be optimistic!) and get yourself signed up for some of the exciting events lined up as part of Festival Bowland

, organised by the Forest of Bowland AONB.

Especially look out for In search of Sky Dancers, a series of guided walks on the United Utilities estate run by the RSPB and United Utilities*. You’ll get to see and learn about some of the fabulous species that occupy our amazing upland habitats as well as learn all about the management of the estate, you may also be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a spectacular skydancing hen harrier!

© Amy Challis, RSPB 2008.

We'll look forward to seeing you!

* With support from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

[Posted on behalf of José Tavares]

“You are certainly aware that an oil palm plantation is the tropical equivalent of a corn field – almost zero biodiversity?”  Norbert’s directness in the long meeting with the Dutch manager of a Belgian-French palm oil multinational active in São Tomé could be seen as being too pushy, but the exchange had been really open and honest until now. “Your investment plan is late, you will not be able to reach the 5,000 hectare objective you set yourself – have you considered packing your bags and leaving?” I asked next.

Don’t worry - the palm oil big business still paid for lunch.  We left the pleasant meal, in an esplanade overlooking the sultry bay, alive and having had productive conversations.

The business of Agripalma (the joint venture between Socfinco and the São Tomé  Government) has been at the forefront of our meetings here. Agripalma has a 5,000 hectare concession from the Government to plant oil palm – the problem is that most of it requires cutting secondary forest, and a significant area of this is next to the core areas for the dwarf ibis. Unfortunately operations were not checked or evaluated when they started in 2010, and so a key area of forest has already been clear-cut.  

Last year the São Tomé government got their act together and now operations are closely scrutinised, and one of the main objectives of our meetings here with the ministry officials is to get political commitment that any future requests to cut areas of forest where ibis live will be refused!  The situation is complicated – Agripalma has a legal concession in their hands, and they will certainly ask for compensation.  Land swapping is a possibility, that is, if it exists - there are forest communities across the island, and it may not be easy to find suitable plots with the right mix of climate, slope and land-use. But we need to try.  As we repeatedly say to everybody, extinction is forever.  And we will be blamed for it. Tomorrow we meet the minister of natural resources and public works himself.  Extinction is forever, we will surely repeat there.

José Pedro Tavares

[Posted on behalf of José Tavares]

São Tomé’s world ranking – 196th.  About right, nodded Luis, as we stood in the exuberant crowd watching the São Tomé-Lesotho official qualifier for the next CAN (Africa’s nations cup).  It was Sunday, our only day free during the busy stay in São Tomé, and we could not miss the game of the year.  Last time the national team played an official game it lost 5-1 at home to Congo Brazzaville.  But hopes were high this time, judging by the noise of the happy crowed.  And yes, São Tomé won 1-0, the lonely goal scored by penalty after only 2 minutes.  Lesotho, 147th in the FIFA world ranking, were beaten.  São Tomé scored a rare victory!

It is easy to find São Tomé at the bottom of the world’s rankings.  After all, it is the second-smallest African country (the Seychelles being the smallest).  It is also the smallest country in the world in terms of population that is not a former British Overseas Territory, a former United States trusteeship, or one of the European microstates.  Its GDP per capita is the 192th in the world.

Yet, with one thing São Tomé ranks right up there.  Biodiversity.  Rare, unique biodiversity.  The list is extensive – 135 orchids, 60 endemic land snails, 70 endemic butterflies…and 28 endemic birds (all in an area a little over  1,000 km2).  The world-famous Galapagos have only 22 in 8,000 km2, and the well-know Seychelles only  11.   A recent paper by some of our own scientists (“Identifying Priority Areas for Conservation: A Global Assessment for Forest-Dependent Birds”) identified the São Tomé forests as the third most important in the world.  Everything points to the same fact – this is one of the top global biodiversity hotspots!

This is why we are here.  Birdlife Africa has listed São Tomé as one of their priorities for network expansion in the continent, hence the engagement with ABS.  The RSPB international species strategy has included three São Tomé species that we must try to save.  Because they really need saving.

Principe thrush – current estimates for the global population -  250 birds ; São Tomé grosbeak – 50 birds; São Tomé fiscal – fewer  than 50 surviving; São Tomé dwarf ibis – maximum 250 remain.  All in all, there were more people in our end of the football stand than the total world population of these 4 species put together.

José Pedro Tavares

PS – for those who like stadium lists, we saw 4 species while the exciting game was on – the endemic (and widespread) São Tomé prinia, both palm and little swift,  and a western reef heron flying over the football action.

The Laganscape and Lagan Valley Red Squirrel Group have teamed up to investigate how our local red squirrels have been holding up against two fierce winters in a row, aggressive grey squirrel competition and the challenges of being a small, mild mannered picky eater in a big bad world.

 LVRP Information and Countryside Officer David Scott tells us about their planned research project:

 One of the most frequent questions people ask about Belvoir Park Forest is “are there any red squirrels left?” Well we hope to answer that question soon.

 Working alongside the Lagan Valley Red Squirrel Group, the Laganscape scheme is involved in helping to conserve the red squirrel population in Belvoir Park Forest, one of the last strongholds of this native species in Northern Ireland.

As part of the project, expert David Tosh and his team will undertake an extensive survey of the red squirrels. Over the coming months he will observe the red squirrel population with a view to determining numbers and the capacity of the forest to provide a habitat now in and in the future.

 This information will be used to develop a conservation management plan to help protect this endangered species both here in Lagan Valley Regional Park and nationally.

Laganscape’s dedicated group of red squirrel survey volunteers, who tirelessly remain committed to the Lagan Valley red squirrel, are supporting this valuable project, going out in all weathers to survey the forest. 

Keep an eye out for future postings where I will give an update on our furry friends.

Along with the bluebells and the kingfisher, the red squirrel is one of the most loved and iconic features of the LVRP.  We’re all looking forward to a bright future for this adorable and very vulnerable Park resident.

Getting a new car was a traumatic experience for me so I decided to do it quickly by asking my four year old daughter to choose which car to buy. I think she did a good job. For others, buying a new car is pretty exciting, and it is especially so today for the RSPB because we get delivery of our first electric vehicle.

It’s great to be spearheading a new environmental revolution in motoring. Most of us cannot envisage our lives without some form of motor vehicle, so we need to make them greener. After many years of development and investment, electric vehicles are now crossing the ‘near market’ boundary and there’s a huge variety of makes and models available or ready for launch – from tiny city cars to the powerful Tesla sports adopted by green celebrities.

Ours is somewhat more prosaic. It’s is a Renault Kangoo ZE (see image attached) – that’s zero emissions, more on that later. It’s a five seat MPV and looks just like a normal car, but with an electric plug socket instead of a fuel filler. It has a somewhat limited range, just over 100 miles, but that will fine for local journeys, and the network of charging points is springing up across the UK surprisingly quickly. Lands End to John O’Groats by electric venhicle? It’s actually not that far distant.

I haven’t driven the Kangoo yet, but was surprised by the Nissan Leaf we had on a week’s trial last summer was to drive. Nice to drive, quiet – eerily quiet – and with plenty of torque for getting up to speed, which is a characteristic of electric motors. And the environmental benefits are huge. Like all electric cars, it has zero tailpipe emissions – the car itself doesn’t produce greenhouse gas emissions. Our Kangoo uses12.9 kiloWatt hours of electricity to drive 100 kilometres and that electricity has to come from somewhere. Using electricity from the national grid, that works out at 71 grammes of CO2 per km, which compares very favourably to the 137 g CO2 per km for a normal diesel Kangoo. As we move to greener electricity generation, this will fall, right down to a fat, round zero if plugged in to a renewable power source. Now that’s a dream worth working towards! Meanwhile, charging at night makes use of the ‘slack’ period of energy consumption, when there is plenty of spare power generation capacity.

So, a small step up for us in the climate war, and a potentially big one for the environment overall. We cannot have both our current richness of nature and dangerous climate change – like water and oil, they don’t mix.

But would you drive an electric car? What would make you consider one?

It would be great to hear your views.

(Please visit the site to view this file)

By Derek Gruar, Senior Researcher, Hope Farm

One of the core tasks here at Hope Farm is monitoring the numbers of birds that are actually using the farm. In summer this requires walking the farm boundaries and recording birds that are seen and heard onto maps. Compared to winter this is straight-forward as from spring-time onwards, birds are starting to hold territory and males readily sing to announce that this part of the field or hedgerow is theirs. Repeated visits over the summer allow maps to be plotted for each species and it soon becomes apparent that that individual birds are found in the same place on subsequent visits, the birds territory.

However in winter, most birds have no territorial hold on a discrete area and are free to roam where they like, the main driver of all this is of course food. Put food out in your garden and birds will soon take advantage of your generosity.

On the farm to determine bird numbers over the winter we conduct monthly whole farm counts where the farm is divided into small sections and is surveyed simultaneously by a small number of hardy volunteers that brave the weather and the mud! All birds seen using the farm are recorded on maps and after a thorough review to make sure that we don’t count the same flock of yellowhammers, or covey of grey partridges, twice; we calculate a figure for the numbers of birds seen on that particular day.

For example, in 2001 on the first ever January count 534 birds of 30 different species were recorded as using the farm. Woodpigeon was the commonest, contributing 216 of these birds. Of the farmland birds of conservation concern this count included 15 skylarks, only a single each of yellowhammer and reed bunting and no linnets or grey partridges. Common birds found included 50 blackbirds, 27 blue tits, 18 dunnocks and 16 robins.

In 2011 during one of the harshest winters in recent times, the farm attracted 1338 birds of 39 different species. Woodpigeon was again the commonest contributing 307 of these birds. Of the farmland birds of conservation concern this count included 113 skylarks, 157 yellowhammer and 49 reed bunting, 12 linnets and 31 grey partridges. Common birds found included 58 blackbirds, 57 blue tits, 14 dunnocks and 25 robins. These have shown some small increases but nothing in the scale of the increases of the birds that are dependent on farmland. We attribute these increases to the presence of winter bird food on the farm as in winter 2010/11 we had several small (0.5ha) areas of wild bird cover, unharvested crop strips (both winter wheat and oilseed rape) and 1ha enhanced fallow (EF22 Plot) all of these producing seed resources for farmland bird species.

After the harsh winter came the drought, and the associated problems with crop growth and establishment particularly of bird cover crops. For winter 2011/12 this has meant that we have a massive reduction in the area of winter bird food available with just one small wild bird cover plot and 0.5ha of unharvested winter wheat. With this lack of food the January 2012 count was lower than previous years with 1016 birds of 39 species, Woodpigeons the commonest bird with 178 recorded. 118 skylarks and 35 grey partridges were exceptional counts and only 16 yellowhammer and 3 linnets illustrated the lack of food available for these species currently on the farm. It’s interesting to see diversity has increased over time, but it is compelling evidence that winter food availability is a considerable factor in attracting birds onto farmland in winter.

Photos: Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)