‘It’s a constant worry’ Mass deaths spark concern for Scottish bird population
Nature workers tell The Herald on Sunday of the immense emotional toll of devastating outbreaks of avian influenza
THE exhilarating sight of guillemot chicks taking their first brave plunge from St Abb’s Head’s rocky cliffs and into flight is a highlight of the year for nature lovers and birdwatchers.
“Chicks as young as 15 days old fling themselves off cliffs straight into the sea,” says St Abb’s Head nature reserve ranger Ciaran Hatsell.
“The noise is phenomenal with adults calling trying to encourage chicks to jump and chicks whistling away.
“Normally it’s my favourite time of the year,” he adds, “but this year I was almost willing the birds to leave the cliffs and get away.”
The wonder of witnessing nature in full, noisy flight at the reserve – and at dozens of Scottish nature havens – have been replaced by the grim task of shoving scores of dead seabirds and their chicks into bin bags.
At St Abb’s, avian influenza tore through thousands of guillemots, kittiwakes and the National Trust for Scotland reserve’s newly-established gannet colony.
On one day alone, 113 guillemot chicks perished. Before it was done, from 106 gannet nests just a single chick had, against the odds, survived. Hatsell, usually reluctant to give birds names, couldn’t help but call it “Miracle Chick”.
It was one positive moment in a year which has seen the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus devastate colonies of geese, sea birds and raptors across Scotland, leaving nature workers hundreds of miles apart dressed in protection suits with the grim task of piling countless dead birds into bags for incineration.
16,000 dead
A YEAR to the week since avian influenza emerged among migratory geese on the Solway Firth and eventually claimed 16,000 birds, they have told of the immense emotional toll of dealing with the devastating outbreak and their fears that what lies ahead could be even worse.
Of mounting concern is confirmation that the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus has now been found in seals in Canada, a bottlenose dolphin in Florida, and a porpoise in Sweden, igniting fears it may do similar damage to marine mammals as it has inflicted on tens of millions of wild birds. On land, the virus has also been confirmed in wild foxes in Michigan, Minnesota, Ontario and the Netherlands.
Also worrying are findings that the H5N1 virus can survive for 200 days – and perhaps even up to a year – in freshwater. Certain seabirds, such as bonxies, or great skuas – a rare seabird devastated by the virus and of which Scotland harbours about 60 per cent of the world’s dwindling population – favour freshwater sites for bathing and socialising.
It means birds which survived the virus this year may simply return in spring to infected waters, raising fears that further losses to the bonxie population may leave it extinct in some locations.
Seal risk
MEANWHILE, at St Abb’s Head, attention is on the seal pup season and the worry they, too, might be at risk.
The reserve was a success story: in 2007, there were no seals in the area’s beaches and by 2020, some 1,806 grey seal pups were recorded.
Last year, however, Storm Arwen devastated the colony. “We lost 849 pups – 42% of the pups – in that one storm,” adds Hatsell.
“When you work with nature, you get used to seeing death quite regularly, but there were piles of pups floating in the water on a scale we’d never seen.” The first signs of what lay ahead for St Abb’s Head had already been played out at places like the Solway Firth, where RSPB staff dealt with 16,000 dead geese, and at WWT Caerlaverock where one-third of the 40,000 barnacle geese were lost.
Dr Paul Walton, head of species and habitats at RSPB Scotland, says its rangers are braced for what is to come. “The Solway Firth barnacle geese returned to Svalbard in Norway in summer and the researchers there agreed the breeding population is down by one-third,” he said. “Now they are back for winter and while we can’t see any obvious symptoms of avian influenza in the population, this is the week it started last year.
There’s a feeling of being helpless and anger at humans having put this onto these birds that only give us joy
“We are watching carefully to see what will happen.”
In Mull, bird lovers who have strived for four decades to revive the white-tailed eagle have been devastated after having first thought they were set for record numbers of chicks then discovering they, too, had been hit by avian influenza.
Chicks from at least four white-tailed eagle nests died either shortly before or after fledging. RSPB Scotland’s Mull officer Dave Sexton – who monitors the birds on the island – has said the losses are “heartbreaking”.
And at the Bass Rock, in East Lothian, normally home to 150,000 gannets and where hundreds of birds perished, events over summer were said to have been “soul-destroying” for staff.