Nature-watching in Europe
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Nature-watching in Europe Welcome to this sample issue of Nature-watching in Europe magazine. The first issue is due to appear on the Apple Newsstand in early 2014. This magazine is produced specifically for the Apple Newsstand, although an Android version is under consideration. The focus of the magazine is places to enjoy nature in Europe. Nature includes animals (birds, mammals, insects, etc), plants, scenery, geology, etc. It can be on a grand scale, for example a national park, or on a small scale such as a garden. Nature can be enjoyed in many ways – hiking, photography, birdwatching, botanising, volunteering on a conservation project, scientific research, to name but a few. While you can travel independently to the areas written about here, for many people time constraints mean that an organised trip may be a better option. So we are looking to promote sustainable ecotourism, and the use of local guides.
Annie Haycock Nature-watcher
All material in this publication is Š Annie Haycock
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Contents Visiting the puffins on Skomer Island, Wales
Stoats in the Stelvio National Park, Italy
Barnacle Geese at Lauwersmeer
Puffins on Skomer Botanising in the French Alps
Castro Marim – Portugal
Puffins on Skomer
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Visiting the puffins on Skomer Island, Wales Before Annie’s first visit to the Pembrokeshire Islands, she had looked at the bird list and then the field-guide. As a novice bird-watcher looking at the picture of a puffin, she thought "No, surely we don't have anything that colourful and exotic-looking in Britain!" But she saw her first puffin from the boat on that first trip, and so began a thirty-year love-affair with these charming birds and their island home.
Skomer is reached by a 15-minute boat ride on the Dale Princess. As the Princess leaves Martin's Haven, there is no real hint of what is to come. A few herring gulls hanging around, perhaps a fulmar or gannet further out to sea, but that is about all. The boat chugs alongside Marloes Deer Park - a park that has never actually seen any deer, but the name has stuck since a wall was erected to keep the
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deer in the early eighteenth century. Beyond the Deer Park is Jack Sound a narrow channel with a rocky ridge across the middle causing turbulent water that has seen the demise of many boats. It is not until we are well across the Sound and approaching Midland Island that the first puffins are seen. They sit on the water, smallish birds with black backs and triangular orange beaks, contrasting with their cousins: the plainer razorbills (black backs, black beaks in the shape of an old-fashioned cut-throat razor) and guillemots (brown backs and pointed brown beaks). As the boat gets too close for their comfort, a few might scurry along the water surface and take flight, but most will dive - it takes less energy to escape that way. The lump of rock known as Midland, or Middleholm, has no fresh water supply and is difficult to climb onto, so humans have never lived there, leaving it for the birds and rabbits. And that is fine by the birds. Puffins sit on the grassy slopes, while razorbills and guillemots crowd the ledges. It is the main nesting site for shags too, and these small cormorants sit placidly on the rocks as the boat passes. Herring, and lesser and greater black-back gulls also become more obvious here.
We cross another small fast-flowing channel - Little Sound - and now Skomer Island is ahead. The name Skomer comes from the Viking word Skalmey, or cloven, and the island indeed seems to be cleft into two parts joined by a narrow isthmus. There are more puffins, and more of the other birds plus kittiwakes now, nesting low along the vertical cliffs and calling Nature-watching in Europe
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their name to tell us who they are. Fulmars sit on small ledges, or glide along on the updrafts. As the Princess crosses to the landing stage in North Haven, the term seabird city comes to mind. It seems that every piece of rock is home to somebody, and the grassy slopes show the entrances to thousands of burrows. The burrows are occupied by puffins, Manx shearwaters and rabbits, with the puffins standing around outside theirs, socialising with the neighbours, or just watching the world go by.
Guillemot
Razorbill
Next to the landing stage, a group of non-breeding razorbills and guillemots sit on a rock like a welcoming committee. Sometimes there is a puffin or two with them. More puffins are seen at close quarters as we ascend to the top of the island, stop to pay the landing fee, and to listen to the warden's introductory talk. He tells us that the island is a honeycomb of burrows, and that we must not stray off the footpath or we risk collapsing a burrow, perhaps killing a bird or its egg or chick inside, not to mention that we might twist our own ankle or break a leg.
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At the top of the slope, there are no more puffins. They nest only on the cliff tops and steep slopes from where they can easily take flight. Their wings are small and flying is hard work. They can reach speeds of 50mph (80kph) by flapping 300-400 times a minute. But although they are fast, they are not very manoeuvrable, so they choose to nest in places where they can easily gain airspeed by running downhill or jumping off a cliff.
Manx Shearwaters
There are more burrows on the top of the island, but these are inhabited either by the rabbits that were introduced around 700 years ago, or by Manx shearwaters. The shearwaters are medium-sized relatives of albatrosses, and Skomer is home to about 120,000 pairs, or a third of the known world population. They are the most numerous bird here, but the chances of seeing one alive are slim. They are very clumsy on land, and in order to evade predators (large gulls mostly) they nest in burrows and come to land only at night when the gulls are asleep. On most nights, however, a few birds get caught out at dusk or dawn, or by moonlight, and the island is littered with corpses, testimony to the success of the gulls. The numbers killed are, however, a minute proportion of the total population. Nature-watching in Europe
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But back to puffins, and the best place to see them on Skomer is at the Wick. Yes, there really is somewhere better than what we have seen so far. A wick is a tongue of water pushing its way into a narrow gully. There are several small wicks on Skomer, but the main one, known as The Wick, has a 200-foot (60m) cliff on one side with razorbills, guillemots, fulmars and kittiwakes nesting on every ledge, and a grassy slope on the other side, honeycombed with puffin burrows. At the inland end, puffins nest within inches of the rope barrier at the edge of the footpath.
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You don't need long lenses or camouflage clothing to get close-up photos here. The birds are well used to people, and seem to watch us as intently as we watch them. In fact, I'm sure that one day a puffin is going to whip a camera out of its back pocket and take a picture of the humans! If a puffin lands near the rope, and looks a bit lost, the humans are asked to move back to give it room to cross, which it does at some speed before disappearing into its burrow on the far side of the path. Now, a puffin is fully capable of digging its own burrow, and occasionally you do see soil being tossed out as a puffin does some house-keeping. But it does take half a season to dig a burrow about 3 feet (1 metre) long, so puffins will quite happily take over a rabbit burrow. The rabbit doesn't put up much resistance when faced with a large beak that can be used as a pickaxe and strong webbed and clawed feet that are used as shovels. Sometimes one burrow entrance leads to several chambers, each of which may be home to either puffins, or rabbits, or shearwaters. The burrow is a very safe place for the puffin's egg or chick. Safe from the weather, and safe from the marauding gulls. There are no ground predators on Skomer - no rats, cats, foxes, badgers, stoats or weasels. That is why it is such an important place for seabirds. As the puffin chick grows, the parents can leave it alone at home while they both go searching for food, often bringing back fish from several miles offshore.
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While the chick is safe from the gulls, the parents bringing in fish are not. Herring and lesser black-backed gulls loiter around the puffin colonies, waiting for a bird to return with fish. Then they give chase, hoping to scare it into dropping the fish before it reaches the burrow entrance. Sometimes a puffin will circle time and time again, waiting for a gull to move further from the burrow entrance, before bringing in its precious load of fish. If the gull succeeds, the puffin just has to go out again to find more fish. Even worse, some greater black-back gulls specialise in predating the adult puffins, which they are able to swallow whole, regurgitating the bones, beak and feathers later. It is easy to spend several hours at The Wick, just watching the puffins. Perhaps it's something to do with their upright stance that makes them so attractive to humans. They are sociable birds too, visiting each other, seeming to chat with the neighbours and move on. They are much smaller than most people expect, being about 10 inches (25cm) tall and weighing less than a pound (400g). Typically for seabirds, the puffin invests a lot of effort in producing a single chick each year. It takes six weeks to incubate the egg, which hatches in late May-early June, and a further six weeks before the chick is ready to
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leave the nest. Although the puffins are on the island from early April, the time to see them bringing fish to the chicks is in June and July. In June and July, the number of puffins on Skomer seems to increase quite a lot, from perhaps 7,000 pairs to 10,000. Like most seabirds, puffins take several years to reach maturity, and may live to 25 or 30 years of age. When the birds first return to the island to breed, they have to find a mate and a burrow. So their first return is made late in the season, when the older birds are established in their burrows. The young birds, teenagers, can then sort themselves out with a mate, find out which burrows are empty, or dig their own if necessary. The following spring, they return at the same time as the older birds, and are immediately ready to get on with the business of breeding. And then in early August, all the puffins disappear. They are gone, well out to sea for the winter. We know, from birds that have been ringed on Skomer, that they can go as far as the Canadian coast. We know, from surveys of seabirds at sea in winter, that they are scattered in ones and twos across the north Atlantic. But we don't know much about what they do out there. The new research, on Skomer and other islands, is to use geotagging, GPS recorders fitted to the birds’ legs, to record exactly where they go, and how long they spend there. But next spring, they will be back. And so will many people - back to watch their antics, photograph them, and generally enjoy their company.
Getting there Skomer is a National Nature Reserve It is owned by Natural Resources Wales It is managed in conjunction with the Wildlife Trust for South and West Wales. The Dale Princess is owned by Dale Sailing Company and runs from the first of April to the end of October, weather permitting, except on Mondays (so the puffins get a day off too!)
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Stoats in the Stelvio National Park, Italy August 1989 Driving in Italy in the August holidays wasn't much fun. Driving into the Stelvio National Park was a nightmare. We eventually found a designated parking area close to a hydro-electric plant, and then joined what seemed like hundreds of people on a footpath that seemed almost wide and busy enough to be a motorway. It was a cool, cloudy, muggy day - should have been pleasant conditions for a hike in the mountains, especially a not very strenuous one. Yet my legs felt like lead even walking on a fairly level track. The situation wasn’t improved by the presence of a helicopter taking supplies to somewhere much further up the valley - the noise hardly disappeared before the machine was back on its next run. There were few birds about - a pair of ravens, a few water pipits - but most were probably skulking quietly, hiding away while they moulted. There were plenty of plants in flower, but I was not inspired to photograph them. In fact, I was glad at last to reach a picnic site to have lunch - despite the crowds already there. And then, serendipity!
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Within minutes, we were delighted at the sight of a stoat scampering over the rocks. The animal was a gingery colour on top and pale 'custard' underneath, with a black tip to its tail. In Europe the easiest way to tell a stoat and weasel apart is by the black tip on the stoat's tail. This one had obviously learnt that there were good pickings in places where people picnicked. Twice it disappeared into a crevice between boulders carrying a discarded piece of someone's sandwich. More usually it bounded over the boulders, investigating the cracks between. The weak sun had more or less vanished behind clouds and the cold breeze was encouraging us to leave soon after we finished eating.
However, the stoat emerged again from its hole, this time with three youngsters in tow. These were more of a chocolate brown colour, with extensive white underparts. Two were slightly bigger than the adult, the other slightly smaller. She left them to play about 60 feet from the hole and we watched them chasing, tumbling, investigating holes, etc. for nearly an hour. It was hard to keep up with them as they bouncing around like rubber balls. They stayed mostly within 30-40 feet of my camera, once coming within 15 feet of me. Eventually mum reappeared and after a few minutes went off with two youngsters, leaving them to play farther from the hole than before. Several people had seen what I was photographing and stopped eating to watch the stoats, then suddenly some Italians realised that they were missing something. They had to get some pictures too - even though they had only compact cameras and short lenses. That meant they had to get closer to the animals, and in doing so made the stoats disappear back in Nature-watching in Europe
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among the boulders. The other people, mostly Germans, were also disappointed (to put it politely) at the disturbance. Another Italian came across and apologised for the behaviour of his countrymen - he said he wouldn't have seen the stoats at all if he hadn't wondered what I was pointing the camera at, so he wanted to thank me. By then I was cold and stiff and almost relieved to have an excuse to start walking back to the car park. The walk back was uneventful except for a dipper working its way up a stream, and tits, finches and treecreeper in the larch and arolla pine woods. Nutcrackers could also be heard. The helicopter was now nowhere to be seen.
Postscript Back in 1989 digital cameras and auto-focus were the stuff of science fiction, unless you had money to burn. My Olympus OM2 was loaded with Kodachrome 200, and a 400mm f5.6 lens, and that combination probably limited me to 1/125 second or less for exposure in the dull weather. These pictures are also heavily cropped. Now, after nearly ten years of using digital, looking at these photos was a stark reminder of the limitations of film cameras – but at least they preserve the memory. Thank goodness for the flexibility of digital photography now.
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Barnacle Geese at the Lauwersmeer, Netherlands It was cold, bitterly cold. The Dutch birdwatchers apologised for the cold – it wasn’t usually like this in November. The gas stove in the camper froze overnight and we had to wait for the sun to warm things up, just to get a cup of coffee. But, it was the cold that brought the barnacle geese southwards to winter here. And that was what Annie had come to see.
With much of the Netherlands at or below sea-level, flooding, and reflooding has been a common occurrence throughout history, especially as sea levels have changed naturally. The Lauwerszee was formed by a flood in 1280, and named after the river Lauwers that used flow through the area. Since Medieval times, bits of this flooded landscape were reclaimed on a piecemeal basis, but it was only after Nature-watching in Europe
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the disastrous floods of 1953 that a large scale scheme for the area became a reality. The options were to reinforce the existing 32km of dykes around the Lauwerszee, or to build a new 13km dam to separate it from the vast mudflats of the Waddenzee. Local people preferred the latter (more expensive) option, and the new dam, complete with a new harbour at Lauwerzoog, was closed on 25th May 1969. Since then, it has been called the Lauwersmeer, which is more appropriate for a freshwater lake. New flora and fauna made use of the site, and to protect this new nature area, it was declared a national park in 2003. Around the Lauwersmeer, there are 5000 ha of tidal sandflats where vegetation has been allowed to develop naturally, and 2000 ha of heavier soils reclaimed for agriculture, while the original system of creeks and gullies adds up to another 2000 ha. Within a few years over half of the sand-flats were covered with salicornia. With no grazing or mowing of the area, there was a huge stock of food for autumn waterfowl. Up to 60,000 teal (photo below), 65,000 wigeon (photo overleaf), and 50,000 barnacle geese took advantage of the bounty each autumn in the 1970s.
The Barnacle geese had previously wintered in western Germany, where they were hunted. However, increased disturbance plus drainage of their traditional wintering grounds forced them to move. Damming the Lauwersmeer created a large area of suitable grazing, so the geese, sensibly, moved to the Netherlands, where they were protected.
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In addition to providing food for wintering and migratory wildfowl, it has also become an important breeding area for many waders, eg lapwing, avocet, black- tailed godwit and redshank, and for raptors such as kestrel, short-eared owl and marsh harrier. Over the years, the large crop of Salicornia and other halophytes (salt tolerant plants) inevitably diminished as the salt content of the soil reduced and plant succession progressed. The site management plan includes keeping some areas in a young productive stage as a feeding ground for the wildfowl grazing with livestock. By the early 1980s much of the Salicornia fields had been replaced by perennial grasses. In autumn this provides food for the 25 - 30,000 greylag geese which passed through on migration. They strip the seed-heads but left the grass blades untouched. Then they moved on south, leaving the grasslands to the barnacle geese. Some of the brackish areas were extensively colonised by Phragmites and willows as they dried out, although management is aimed at a fairly constant high water table with much of the area flooded during the winter. This taller vegetation is uninviting to waterfowl and breeding waders, so now grazing by cattle is used to keep the vegetation open and low. As the creeks and channels of the old inlet became fresh water, they have been colonised by water plants such as Potamogeton pondweeds. The leaves and seeds of this submerged vegetation are consumed by coot, wigeon and gadwall; then, in mid-October, up to 700 Bewick swans arrive in the area to feed on the tubers, before moving on to farmland to feed on the remains of sugar beet and potatoes after harvest. Nature-watching in Europe
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Now, in November, huge flocks of barnacle geese begin to arrive from the north.
The geese can recognise the most nutritious vegetation, perhaps by its colour, and so large flocks will descend on the best fields available. They can thus appear to be a domestic flock in a field surrounded with wire netting. . . . Until they take flight. Barnacle geese, with their small bills, prefer short grassland that is regularly cut or grazed in summer. They like the fine leaves of meadow grasses, but feed principally on stolons of clover (starch rich storage roots), probing their short bills into the mat of grass stems for the stolons lying beneath. Geese of all species commonly graze young sprouts of autumn grown cereals, moving onto such fields as soon as growing shoots are a few centimetres high. After a few days a field appears brown, but the crop is not destroyed - the shoots sprout again, often more strongly than if geese had not been there (sheep grazing and mechanical rolling have the same effect). If grazing takes places later when the plants are taller, the crop can be set back permanently but, fortunately, geese are less attracted to taller growth. When the other species of geese have finished with arable crops they, too, switch to grass. As the grass is hardly growing at this time of year, they cause little damage, but it is common practice for farmers to fertilise a few fields each winter to encourage early growth. Such fields look brighter green and the geese recognise them as good feeding, then there is conflict between farmer and goose.
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It is not easy to assess damage to crops; experiments use domestic geese penned on plots to simulate effect of wild flock. The results show no measurable differences when the crop starts growing again, even when the flock feeds at a density unlikely to be reached in the wild. Apart from the damage mentioned above, the crop can be puddled into the ground in prolonged wet weather, and geese can strip the unripe seeds of grain if they arrive very early or if the harvest is very late. There can be several thousand geese in a single field, though counting is next to impossible when one was faced with such a seething mass. They keep up a constant bickering, threatening any neighbour that comes too close. The birds on guard duty (usually males) watch carefully as other large birds flew overhead. They believe in safety in numbers, so if one is spooked, they whole flock take to the air. It is much more difficult for a predator to pick a victim out of a moving flock.
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Other skeins of barnacles came in, the groups getting larger as the light faded. Eventually the cold got the better of us again and we left. Suddenly the noise increased and half the flock took to the air in a swirling cloud, victims of their own nervousness. Within a few minutes, they settled back into the field to feed again. Nature-watching in Europe
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Lauwersmeer: getting there
The Lauwersmeer, on the north coast of the Netherlands Gray: Old sea dyke Black: New sea dyke Light blue: Wadden Sea Dark blue: Lauwersmeer Orange: Main roads Map from Wikipedia
Lauwersmeer National Park website
Barnacle Goose winter sites Barnacle geese breed in four main areas: Svarlbard, Greenland, Arctic Russia, and the Baltic. The move south in winter with the main areas being the Waddensee (including Lauwersmeer) for the Russian birds, while the other populations head for the Solway Firth (eg Caerlaverock), Islay, Wales (RSPB Ynys-hir), and the north-west of Ireland. Smaller numbers are seen elsewhere in Britain and Ireland. There is also a naturalised population in the UK, so small numbers of birds can be seen right across the country at any time of year.
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Botanising in the French Alps In July 2005 I was privileged to be co-leader on a botanical week in the French Alps. The group was based in the Hotel Edelweiss in the village of La Grave. As well as walks in the surrounds of the village, we took the telepherique up the mountain to la Meije to view the glaciers, and see high level plants. We also visited the Alpine Garden at Col du Lauteret, the Col du Galibier, Mont Charvin, and the Romanche River. As co-leader, my job was taking care of people and helping to identify things – birds and insects as well as plants (leader Rob Wilson was the real botanist) and so photography with limited to a few snaps with a compact camera. Here is just a taster of the area. The Alpine Botanical Garden at the Col du Lauteret is well worth a visit – and all the plants are labelled!
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Round-headed orchid Traunsteinera globosa
Fragrant Orchid Gymnadenia conopsea
Man orchid Orchis anthropophora
Vanilla orchid Nigritella rubra
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Unbranched Lovage Ligusticum mutellinoides
Great Burnet Sanguisorba officinalis
Alpine Avens Geum rossii
Mount Baldo Anemone Anemone baldensis
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Great Yellow Gentian Gentiana lutea
Straw Foxglove Digitalis lutea
Creeping Bellflower Campanula rapunculoides Nature-watching in Europe
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Chequered Skipper Carterocephalus palaemon
Ringlet Aphantopus hyperantus
Apollo Parnassius apollo
Marbled White Malanargia galathea
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La Grave – getting there See it on Google maps La Grave – information in Wikipedia Telepheriques des Glaciers la Grave/la Meije Hotel Edelweiss – There is other accommodation in the village, but this is where I stayed – very comfortable and friendly. The Col du Galibier is on the route of the Tour de France cycle race, but still great for wildlife and scenery. The Botanical Garden – in French or in English The Parc National des Ecrins is immediately south of the road, and is a my favourite French National Park – scenery, wildlife, walking etc. The company I travelled with ceased trading when the owners retired, however there are many other companies offering botanical holidays in the French Alps.
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Castro Marim – Portugal The reserve at Castro Marim takes its name from a small town nearby, and includes a series of shallow lakes and lagoons, many of which are commercially exploited for salt. It is used by many water birds on migration during the winter. The emblem of the reserve is the black winged stilt the area is said to have the largest colony of this species in the country. We arrived in the area with just enough daylight left to find the old buildings that had been suggested as a campsite. This was next to an area of open water with a dozen or so little grebe fishing close by and three or four hundred coot flying in circles looking like huge moths fluttering on and off the water surface. At least half were in the air at any one time and the whole group moved slowly past us.
Five large birds flew over as it was almost too dark to see. Jim pronounced flamingos, so I grabbed my binoculars for a look and saw strange shaped pinkish birds with dark flight feathers.
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The next morning we drove around the saltpans and found one with a track nearby so we could watch from the van. From our vantage point we could see that people jogging or walking dogs along the road caused more problems for birds than motor-bikes or cars. However, the greatest disturbance came from a shepherd letting his flock of sheep and goats out of the shed where they had spent the night. Most of the livestock anywhere in Portugal seemed to graze open fields, orchards or scrub during the day, with one or two people and their dogs in attendance, then all were shut up at night. Amongst the people walking along the road was a man with a cat and a dog. Apart from climbing a tree, the cat acted more like a dog, following its owner and coming to heel when called. When they got back to the village the trio climbed a path up a hill to what looked like a chapel and sat down on a bench outside in the sun.
The birds were, as usual, more interesting that the people. The saltpan we were watching contained two black-tailed godwit plus ruff, redshank, spotted redshank and a few stilt. In the next pan there was a flock of about thirty
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godwits. If any of the flock tried to land in the first saltpan they would be vigorously chased off by the two resident godwits. One of these was particularly active, he stopped feeding and crouched in readiness to attack if another bird even flew over, and if it looked like landing he would chase it off with a war cry of ee-ya-da-cha-cha-cha (according to Jim). The second godwit occasionally chased others off, especially if several tried to land together. Even when all the waders in the first saltpan were put to flight the two godwits would be the first back and defending their patch again. They also expelled intruders venturing into the small saltpan next to the one they were feeding in, but showed no interest in any of the other wader species. A godwit who tried to sneak in on foot was also chased off.
Two ruff caused us some problems in working out their plumage. They were slightly bigger than redshank which made them both males, and both had the pale fore face indicative of adult birds, but one was buff and the other grey. The buff bird had feathers with brown centres, black sub-terminal marks and broad pale fringes, with the grey bird had dark feathers with narrow grey-white fringes. It also had white underparts when compared with the other; the variability of ruff obviously extends to winter as well as summer plumage.
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There were more and more people about with dogs, motorbikes etc so we moved on, and found ourselves another track among the saltpans. Some distance along this track Jim saw a godwit in a wet area farm effluent on his side of the road so we stopped to photograph it. It was in winter plumage and close enough that we could see the dark feather shafts quite clearly. The day was quite windy, the bird seemed to have its legs braced and was reluctant to move. Going back along the track we found another godwit in a more pleasant area of water. This one was in summer plumage. It spent some time preening and oiling: wiping the middle section of its bill on the preen gland then wiping the oil onto its breast feathers. Its toilet complete the bird yawned, scratched its head and flew off. We moved on down to the coast, to where a long sea wall protects the mouth of the Guadiana River from wind-blown sand. There was a force six westerly blowing during the afternoon and even with the windows closed, a lot of fine sand worked its way into to the van. Two dozen little terns were feeding off the mouth of the river. Seeming to make slow progress into wind, they allowed it to toss and flip them back to the beginning of their feeding run. Then they bobbed up and down like yo yos to pick items from near the water surface until they were ready to do it all again. The nearby sandwich terns looked huge and cumbersome by comparison.
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Other birds out in the gale included thirty Balearic shearwaters, sixty common scoters, a handful of razorbills, two bonxies and a variety of gulls. We headed back for another night at Castro Marim, to get some shelter from the wind and sand. This morning we found a little egret that had taken shelter in a burnt out shed. Its white plumage was covered with fine soot, and it looked generally quite miserable. It was almost reluctant to leave the place, but eventually we persuaded it to go out into the sun, where it stood outside the building as if waiting to go back in. There was nothing obvious wrong with it, and we left it to its own devices. A pale phase booted eagle flew high overhead; followed later by a dark phase bird, flying much lower and showing off all flight identification points.
Castro Marim – getting there Castro Marim nature reserve is now far more accessible than when I visited in 1989. It is conveniently situated close to the A22/E-1 road that runs more or less the length of the Algarve, becoming the A49/E1 on the other side of the Spanish border towards Seville. If your bird-watching takes you from the Algarve to the Doùana National Park in Spain, Castro Marim is along the route. Map Castro Marim website about the general area Castro Marim nature reserve website
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Protected areas in Switzerland Despite its small size, Switzerland manages to squeeze in a number of major sites of ecological importance. Perhaps that is not so surprising in a country where 25% of the land is categorized as "non-productive", ie high mountains and lakes. However, until 2007, there was only a single national park. Now there are a total of 18 areas designated or proposed for designation as national or regional nature parks, each of them at least 100 square kilometres in area. There are also a handful of nature discovery parks - relatively small areas of only a few square kilometres within densely populated regions, offering intact spaces for local flora and fauna and improving the life quality of the urban population. Their primary purpose is to allow the public to experience nature and receive environmental education. Interactive map http://www.paerke.ch/en/schweizerpaerke/karte.php In addition (or sometimes incorporated within the above) are 40 water and migratory bird reserves. Of these, 11 are Ramsar sites, and a further 11 sites of international importance (water bodies with a population of at least 20,000 birds). The oldest protected areas are some of the 41 federal hunting reserves in the alpine areas. These were inaugurated in 1876 in order to prevent excessive depletion of wildlife by hunting, ie, they were game reserves where hunting was prohibited. Many of these still exist today, but have been integrated into the new, larger, protected areas.
Swiss department of the environment, transport, energy and communications website http://www.bafu.admin.ch/index.html?lang=en Protection doesn’t stop with the parks system. There are over 1500 small areas protected as local nature reserves, and sites of natural interest.
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Parc Naziunal Svizzer - Swiss National Park 2014 marks the centenary of the Swiss National Park. It is not only the oldest national park in the Alps, but also the most protected. Located in the canton of Graub端nden or Grisons, in the Engadine dolomites, it extends over more than 170 square kilometres, and includes 7000 habitants in five municipalities. Since its inception, all human intervention has been forbidden, thus allowing natural processes to take effect without hindrance. No animals are hunted, no trees are felled, no meadows are mown, and visitors must keep to the 80 kms of walking trails. These unique protective measures create what is known as "strictly protected nature reserves" where wild animals can be easily observed. The objective of the nature conservation pioneers of a hundred years ago was to leave a piece of Switzerland's mountain landscape entirely alone, to develop naturally. The result is one of the most significant "open-air laboratories" in the Alps. Then as now, great importance is given to educating the public, and keeping them informed on how this national park is developing.
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Opened in 2008, the new national park centre at Zernez attracts some 40,000 visitors a year. It’s well worth visiting for up-to-date information, and for maps and route guides from the shop. There is a comprehensive, interactive exhibition on permanent show, with various digital information systems, temporary exhibitions and a theatre, all of which provide a set of interesting alternatives for when the weather is too wet for hiking to be pleasant. Every year some 5000 visitors take advantage of a guided tour. A guide can give so much extra information and interpretation about the landscape. But not only are there human guides, you can also rent an electronic guide – a gps device that will provide information as you hike along your route. Both kinds of tour provide an opportunity to uncover some of the secrets of the astounding abundance of flora and fauna – all to be found in the Swiss National Park. www.nationalpark.ch
Photos of Val Trubchen, in the Swiss National Park
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The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, called the Ramsar Convention, is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. The Ramsar Convention is the only global environmental treaty that deals with a particular ecosystem. The treaty was adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971 and the Convention's member countries cover all geographic regions of the planet.
The Ramsar mission The Convention's mission is "the conservation and wise use of all wetlands through local and national actions and international cooperation, as a contribution towards achieving sustainable development throughout the world". The Convention uses a broad definition of the types of wetlands covered in its mission, including lakes and rivers, swamps and marshes, wet grasslands and peatlands, oases, estuaries, deltas and tidal flats, near-shore marine areas, mangroves and coral reefs, and human-made sites such as fish ponds, rice paddies, reservoirs, and salt pans.
The Wise Use concept At the centre of the Ramsar philosophy is the “wise use� concept. The wise use of wetlands is defined as "the maintenance of their ecological character, achieved through the implementation of ecosystem approaches, within the context of sustainable development". "Wise use" therefore has at its heart the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands and their resources, for the benefit of humankind.
The above definition was taken from the Ramsar website
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News release from the University of Basel 09.01.2014
Climate changes the Distribution of Plants and Animals Swiss plants, butterflies and birds have moved 8 to 42 meters uphill between 2003 and 2010, as scientists from the University of Basel write in the online journal “Plos One”. Climate warming is changing the distribution of plants and animals worldwide. Recently it was shown that in the past two decades, European bird and butterfly communities have moved on average 37 and 114 kilometers to the north, respectively. Tobias Roth and Valentin Amrhein from the University of Basel now found that in Switzerland, plant, butterfly and bird species also moved uphill. At an altitude of 500 meters, plants have on average shifted uphill 8 meters, butterflies 38 meters and birds 42 meters. The study was based on data collected between 2003 and 2010 in 214 sample areas up to an altitude of 3000 meters, covering all major ecosystems of Central Europe. “An average of eight meters difference in altitude in eight years and across all plant species is quite impressive for the often not very mobile plant communities”, says Valentin Amrhein. “The results show that the biological impacts of climate change will not only become apparent in the long term. Animals and plants are already today adapting to the rising temperatures at a surprising pace.” Different Trends above the Tree Line While birds also moved uphill at higher altitudes, plants and butterflies surprisingly showed no significant changes in altitude above the tree line. Contrary to the developments in lower altitudes, alpine plants and butterflies even showed a tendency towards a downhill movement. Explanations for this phenomenon have yet to be found. “It is possible that land-use related changes in habitats near the tree line outweigh the effects of climate warming. For example, many alpine pastures have been abandoned in recent years”, says Tobias Roth. “It is also possible that alpine plants are better protected against changing climatic conditions, due to the highly varied surface of alpine landscapes.” In any case, the fact that plant and butterfly communities have changed towards warmdwelling species at low altitudes but remained relatively stable at higher altitudes cannot be explained with different temperature developments across altitudes. The scientists also studied data on air temperature of 14 meteorological stations: During the 16 years between 1995 and 2010, the summer temperatures in Switzerland rose by about 0.07 °C per year at all altitudes. Original Citation Tobias Roth, Matthias Plattner & Valentin Amrhein Plants, birds and butterflies: short-term responses of species communities to climate warming vary by taxon and with altitude Plos One, published January 8th, 2014 | doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0082490
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News release from University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, 11.08.13
Winter wonderland? Mountain hares feel more comfortable away from winter tourists The mountain hare is rarely seen in the wild. It lives in the higher regions of the Alps and is famous for its beautiful white winter coat. Now, however, climate change and winter tourism are threatening the mountain hare’s natural habitat. Researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna) have confirmed for the first time that mountain hares suffer more stress in areas that are visited by large numbers of tourists than their conspecifics in quieter areas. Stressed hares expend more energy, and that can be life-threatening in the cold Alpine winter. The results of this research are published in the prestigious Journal of Applied Ecology. In the Alps, mountain hares (Lepus timidus) live at altitudes of 1,300 metres and higher, but the mountain hare population in the Alps is now under threat for various reasons. One cause is climate change. Rising temperatures are forcing the hares to migrate to higher altitudes. At the same time, the expanding winter tourism industry is an additional stress factor for these animals, although their physiological and behavioural response to tourist activity had not previously been studied. Biochemist and stress analyst Rupert Palme, from the Institute of Medical Biochemistry at the Vetmeduni Vienna, teamed up with the Swiss Wildlife biologist Maik Rehnus to examine the stress levels of Alpine mountain hares in the Swiss National Park in Graubßnden and in neighbouring skiing resorts.
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Stress can be detected in the hares’ faeces Maik Rehnus, a mountain hare expert, went for a long mountain hike in search of Bölleli – the Swiss German word for hare faeces. In the winter of 2011, he collected 132 faecal samples while hiking a total distance of 43 kilometres through areas that had no, medium or high levels of tourist activity. The researchers then measured the levels of faecal glucocorticoid metabolites (GCM) in the samples in order to determine the stress levels of the animals. Biochemist Palme analysed the samples and concluded: “Faecal samples that were found in areas with high tourist traffic indicated higher stress levels than samples found in areas further from tourists. It made no difference whether the winter tourists were skiers, cross-country skiers or hikers using snowshoes.” Stress alters behaviour and food intake To double-check their findings and investigate the behaviour of mountain hares further, the researchers conducted controlled trials with six mountain hares in captivity. These hares were exposed to stress stimuli, such as a dog and a paper kite which served to mimic potential enemies. The researchers collected and analysed faecal samples, both after the stressful situations and also after periods of rest. The faecal samples showed increased stress levels after the stressful situations, but the animals also changed their behaviour. Under stress, the mountain hares rested less and spent less time grooming. What is more, the stressed hares were less likely to consume their own faeces, a phenomenon known as coprophagia. Coprophagia is a natural behaviour which allows the animals to maximize the amount of essential nutrients and vitamins that they absorb. Particularly in winter, when food is scarce, this behaviour is a crucial source of extra energy. If coprophagia is disrupted for whatever reason, it means that the hares’ intake of nutrients and calories drops during the cold and barren winter, and this can easily become life-threatening. “We assume that the behaviour and physiology of stressed hares in the wild will be similar. Stress leads to increased energy consumption in the mountain hares. This could threaten the reproduction and survival of hares in winter and also negatively impact their reproduction. We therefore recommend that forests inhabited by mountain hares are kept free of tourism infrastructure, and that areas of undisturbed forest are created in skiing areas. Other endangered species in the Alps could also benefit from these measures", explains Rehnus. Rupert Palme of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna collaborated on this project with the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research and the Landscape and Animal Park Goldau.
The Study „Mountain hares Lepus timidus and tourism: stress events and reactions”, by Maik Rehnus, Martin Wehrle and Rupert Palme was published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.12174/abstract
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What is this magazine? • This new magazine will launch on the Apple News-stand in early 2014 • The aim is to promote the enjoyment of European nature – places and wildlife. • We will promote sustainable ecotourism, especially using local guides • Each issue will carry up to ten articles, each of which will be followed by one advert relevant to that article. • Each article in any one issue will be about a different country. • Each article will be about a place, and the author’s enjoyment of the place. • The article can be about the place itself, its birds, botany, butterflies, mammals, or just enjoying the scenery. • An article could be a gallery of photographs with extensive captions. • Only articles about European places or European wildlife will be included. • Possible themes: • Researching a particular species or habitat • Birds, Butterflies, Botany, Places, etc. • Overview of protected places in a particular country. • Tales from the bush • Photo gallery - extended captions • Best five sites in Europe to see . . . . . • Hiking in. . . . . .
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Who can contribute? • Individuals can contribute illustrated articles. • Special offer for first three issues: • Businesses can contribute articles in return for advertising space at the end of the article – eg a photographer provides an article in return for a link to download an ebook, or to a website advertising their workshops – preferably linked to the place or subject they are writing about. • Tour companies can provide articles about their destinations, but these must NOT be the tour itinerary that appears in the brochure. • For example, you can write about your enjoyment of a place to encourage others to visit, then put an advert at the end which includes a link to your website
Advertising Adverts should be simple one-page flyers with links to your website. As this magazine is designed for the iPad, only one page is viewable at a time. Contact me directly for advertising rates – annie at rushmoorphotos.co.uk
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