SOS Puffin Update
SOS Puffin is a Scottish Seabird Centre project to save the puffins on the islands in the Firth of Forth. Launched in early 2007 by the Scottish Seabird Centre, with funding from Viridor Credits and Scottish Natural Heritage, the project aims to stop the dramatic decline in puffin numbers on the islands of Craigleith and Fidra near North Berwick. Numbers had crashed on Craigleith Island from 28,000 pairs to just a few thousand, due to an invasive plant, Tree Mallow. The plant had spread rapidly in recent years, helped by mild winters, choking the puffin burrows and preventing the birds from nesting and rearing their pufflings. The Seabird Centre has been delighted by the support for SOS Puffin with over 150 volunteers going out to the islands to cut down the tree mallow and clear the islands for the puffins.
Monitoring last year showed encouragingly that puffins were returning to the islands to re-use old burrows, where the mallow had been removed. To date about half the tree mallow on Craigleith has been cleared and further spread on Fidra has been halted. With the puffins returning to nest from April till July, work has stopped until the puffins have left. Below are the spring updates from John Hunt, Chair of the Craigleith Management Group, co-ordinating the project. We will try to keep you informed of the puffins' progress during the nesting season, but meantime, we're pleased to say that the puffins are now back in force and preparing their burrows for their pufflings.
If you are interested in getting involved in SOS Puffin please contact info@seabird.org or call 01620 890202 or, if you prefer, you can also support SOS Puffin by adopting a puffin online. Calculate your carbon footprint with the Green Insurance Company calculator.
Good To Be Back (28 March 2008)
“That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty” Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale
Absence may make the heart grow fonder but too long a period of inactivity can be very frustrating for enthusiastic tree mallow volunteers. More than five weeks have elapsed since we last managed to get out to an island and it looked as though the March winds were going to completely defeat us. However a lull on Tuesday night allowed the swell to settle and gave us a chance. Typically, as the time for departure approached the wind strengthened once more and there was a lively sea to greet a full boat load of volunteers as we motored out of the harbour. Would it be too rough to land on Craigleith? Morale plunged as the spray hit us and Paul Nixon was so certain the trip was doomed that he promised me a pint if we did manage to land. That offer should perhaps have been made to our boatman Dougie but in the event it was all we needed. As we approached the island our doubts and the waves receded and in no time we were all ashore.
It was good to be back and even better to find that the tree mallow had not grown very much in our absence. Most of us found a sheltered spot out of the wind and worked away by hand clearing areas of tree mallow which we had previously missed. David Ross, our most regular volunteer, completed his 15th working party visit and is well on his way to winning the prestigious MBA.
With only three weeks to go before we have to stop work for the breeding season, we are aiming to have as much ground as possible in puffin-perfect condition before the birds return. While we kept warm cutting mallow, Paul and Pete Barlow got very cold doing mysterious things to the cameras but they too seemed well pleased with their work at the end of the day.
Spring Comes Early to Craigleith (15 Feb 2008)
The tree mallow campaign for 2008 started slowly with just one visit to Fidra possible in January but things have really hotted up recently thanks to the amazingly benign spell of weather we have been having. This was obviously a great opportunity to get out to the islands and our volunteers responded magnificently to an appeal to come forward. We have had three trips to Craigleith in this last week with more planned on both days this weekend and into next week as well we hope.
To welcome the volunteers, Maggie has Spring cleaned the landing place on Craigleith, scrubbing down the seaweed and algae which can make the lower rocks incredibly slippery. This has been a great help though we have still had some interesting moments getting volunteers on and off the boat clad in footwear more appropriate to the dance floor than a rugged island. A curious grey seal has been watching these antics with amusement – they can get ashore without any hands or feet!
The tree mallow has also been enjoying the recent mild weather and is now growing again. Our priority over the next few weeks is to get the areas we have previously cleared thoroughly cut again so that conditions are ideal for puffins when they return in late April. We are concentrating effort at the moment on the highest part of the island as we need to finish here by the end of this month. This is so that we can then leave this area undisturbed for the nesting cormorants who start arriving in March.
We also need to move into new parts of the island and on Thursday we took out two boat loads of volunteers including a party of students from Edinburgh University. The tree mallow problem is included in their degree course so at last we have become a respectable part of academia. However there was nothing academic about the way the students laid into the mallow and great inroads were made into an area of virgin mallow forest on the north side of the island.
So morale is high and anyone wishing to join a winning team should contact johnf_hunt@yahoo.co.uk or 893431.
The Weather Watchers (December 2007 SOS Puffin Update)
“Some are weather-wise, some are otherwise” – Benjamin Franklin.
Finding the right weather to take out a party of volunteers to one of the islands in November and December is not one of life’s most rewarding pastimes. Maggie and I have spent a lot of time peering into the rather murky crystal ball marked weather forecast.
Thanks to the internet there is no shortage of weather forecasts to consult. Radar maps, satellite pictures, pressure charts and detailed predictions up to two weeks ahead create an impressive illusion of scientific precision which can deceive the unwary. However it soon dawns on even the most innocent observer that all these different forecasts rarely agree with each other while they are liable to change at a moment’s notice without any explanation. A healthy scepticism develops but you still have to try to make some sense of the often conflicting information overload that confronts you.
As you track another depression racing across the Atlantic apparently destined to arrive at the weekend, do you despair and cancel the planned trip several days ahead or hold on bravely hoping for a reprieve? At some point you have to reach a decision one way or the other knowing that last minute cancellations can be frustratingly inconvenient for the volunteers.
So, after five weeks of weather watching without a single trip taking place, the arrival of the recent settled spell of calm clear weather was a wonderful end of year gift. At last we could get moving and two work parties have been out to Fidra and one to Craigleith in the last week. We enjoyed the bleak beauty of the islands in the low winter sun and the bitter cold kept us working hard. It was the perfect antidote to Christmas shopping!
During the year Maggie and I have had the pleasure of leading parties of volunteers to Craigleith on 17 occasions and to Fidra on four in order to cut tree mallow. Over 100 different volunteers have taken part, many coming on repeat visits. Without their tremendous support, nothing would have been achieved and we owe them all a big thank you as well as our boatman Dougie for transporting us safely.
Storming the Castle (November 2007 Update)
At first light last Saturday a small but select group of volunteers sailed from North Berwick for the island of Fidra - their mission to exterminate tree mallow from Castle Tarbet.
Unlike Craigleith, Fidra positively reeks of history. The ruins of the 12th Century church of St Nicholas greet you on arrival, a reminder of the days when the island was a place of pilgrimage and later an isolation hospital for victims of the plague. Castle Tarbet is the southern part of Fidra and is cut off from the main island at high tide. A low rocky ridge, it leads to the Castle, a natural rock table 40 feet high which was indeed a fortified castle at one time, though it must have been one of the smallest ever since the top is no bigger than a tennis court.
These defences may once have repelled Viking raiders but they have proved useless against a more recent invader. Arriving about ten years ago tree mallow now covers a third of the island and already threatens the nesting seabirds as well as preventing access to parts of the island.
However, our party was in no mood for history lessons. Resolute and well armed, it crossed the rocky foreshore onto Castle Tarbet where it encountered fierce resistance from some truly formidable tree mallow – battle hardened veterans with stems more than four inches in diameter. These had to be hacked slowly into submission but, once they were overcome, progress was more rapid and we moved along the ridge dealing with isolated clumps of mallow to reach the smugglers cave at the foot of the Castle. Sadly this contained no kegs of brandy to reward us and we pressed on up the steep slopes that lead to the narrow path which is the only route through the sheer cliffs to the top of the Castle. The remaining defenders were sent tumbling down the slope in avalanches of tree mallow until breathlessly we emerged at the summit to discover the last stand of mallow huddled together. But no quarter was given and this too succumbed rapidly to a combined assault with the last plants crashing down the cliffs onto the rocks below.
At that very moment our boat was sighted and we hastened back to the jetty – mission accomplished.
The Thin Black Line by John Hunt (October)
Being a volunteer on Craigleith is not just about relaxing in the sunshine admiring the view, though that can take up a good deal of time if you play your cards right. But occasionally some work has to be done and it is then that the volunteer is exposed to dangers which even the best Risk Assessment cannot foresee. They can be dive bombed by an angry gull or fall into a puffin burrow. They may need counselling after the trauma of uncovering the rotting remains of a dead seabird or experiencing the humiliation of not being able to keep up with a volunteer twice their age.
Ten days ago a new hazard was discovered lurking in the tree mallow – long, black and very much alive. No, this wasn’t a new species of snake only found on remote seabird islands but something less natural and more sinister. It appeared that someone determined to protect the tree mallow had laid electric cables over a large part of the island with the intention of making life difficult and dangerous for mallow cutters. Needless to say our brave volunteers made short work of this obstacle with their shears and it was only on returning triumphantly to the Seabird Centre that we discovered that we had cut off power to the camera at the top of the island!
Last Saturday we returned, suitably chastened but this time better prepared for what we might encounter. The cables were located and marked with canes, the volunteers were exhaustively briefed and threatened with incarceration on the island if they cut any more cables. However, as in life, so in mallow cutting, the forbidden has a fatal attraction. There is something addictive about cutting tree mallow and once you get going it is hard to stop. Volunteers, head down, shears flashing seemed to be drawn to the nearest cable as though by a magnet. I was constantly turning back over enthusiastic cutters and setting them off in other directions but in no time they would be back. One even managed to cut down one of the marker canes before I could get to them. However, by great good fortune the thin black line was still intact at the end of the day.
