Hello everybody, Kieren here again.
So its dawned on me that my apprenticeship is nearly at an end. In fact it’s nearly been a year since I first set foot on Uist with John back in early July 2009. I was just fresh from a trip to California and I was knackered but I soldiered on and we made it out here in the best weather possible for the UK. It was stunning. It still is.
So we had a minor issue with my apprenticeship, something I suspect the other apprentices will have at some point. Let’s call them creative differences into where the apprenticeship should go. As the RSPB is very bird orientated (though not 100%) I felt that I was missing out on the other taxa, which haven’t been studied nearly as well as the birds have out here on Uist. Anyway to cut a long story short we had a frank chat about the apprenticeship and it was decided to carry on as we are. The main reason being that practical skills are as important as ID skills when you are working as a warden, which is true. It’s all fine and well being able to spot a golden plover at 500m but if you don’t look after your reserve then you’re not helping the cause.
I’m happier now that it was discussed openly, it has reignited that drive and passion to spend the next 4 months and 2 weeks just soaking in everything possible. There’s still talk of a potential job at the end of this apprenticeship but I am not going to get carried away, if it happens it’ll happen.
Anyway the main part of this blog is to talk about what I did last week. I had an amazing trip out to my two sea eagle nests (yes they are my responsibility, how awesome is that?) and thanks to Archie who owns a boat I got to take a trip with the two John’s. John Brayne (hope I spelt that right John) is a ringer who used to work on Uist. He makes regular visits back and in the summer he rings some birds. Since he wasn’t sure where one nest was I got to tag along. There was also John Love, THE sea eagle guy. The guy that made it all happen. Now that was impressive and the fact that he’s 60 if he’s a day and had hip replacement surgery 6 years ago make it even more impressive. You should have seen the cliff face we were scaling to get to the nest and he was right behind us.
I’m not one for heights but I soldiered on because I know that is potentially a once in a lifetime event and it was so worth it. With my legs dangling over the edge and John in the nest, he let me ring one of the twins. I didn’t do it properly and he took over the second ring but that bird should not be touched by another person again. That’s awesome.
We went to the next nest and it was a 5 minute walk and this nest only had one chick, same again and off we went. I’m not kidding when I saw how awe inspiring it was. Made ALL the better by the boat. Those 2 nests were visited, rung and back within about 3 hours, 30 minutes. If you had to walk them it’d take about 8 hours to do one of those nests and then another 8 hours another day to do the other. Not that I’m shirking my duty and it wouldn’t matter how far it was, I’d have gone but man that boat was nice.
This week we have some big head honchos coming out so we’re panic stations getting things ready for them. I’ve also completed my second of my three corn bunting visits which involves walking the length of south uist and benbecula. It’s not looking amazing but we’ll know more when we finish the third visit. I would put an estimate of around 200 birds on Uist which is pretty low.
Upcoming stuff, UIST BIOBLITZ on the 11th to the 16th of August. Anyone is welcome, we can and will accommodate everyone. Be it in a tent, a house or a shed – I don’t know yet but it will be something special and it’s a great excuse to visit Uist at arguably it’s finest time.
Suggestions welcome at Kieren.Jones@rspb.org.uk
