• When here in the Outer Hebrides and looking at a bird, have you ever wondered how rare it is? The status of all species can vary enormously from island to island. How rare is Shoveler on Barra, has Stock Dove been seen on Harris, does Dotterel occur on Benbecula in the autumn, and how common is Blue Tit on North Uist? Well, fret no longer! The Status and Distribution of birds here on the Outer Hebrides has been completely updated and summarised for every species and each of the main islands and outliers. Available as an online resource at https://status.outerhebrides-birdreports.org/ or via our shop

    New - now available as an ebook

Prickly Problems for Waders

Hawkeye

Eyes and Ears Everywhere
Graham Appleton's piece on his blog "Wadertales" back in 2016 summarises the results of the most recent surveys to be carried out in relation to hedgehogs and waders. A timely reminder in this, National Hedgehog Awareness Week

"The chain of Hebridean islands from the northern tip of North Uist to the southern tip of South Uist are special places to visit in the summer. Nowhere else in the UK will you find higher concentrations of breeding waders. In 1983, Fuller et al. estimated that this region held a third of the UK’s breeding Dunlin and a quarter of its Ringed Plover

The islands are still special but, as a consequence of the spread of hedgehogs, following the introduction of just four individuals in 1974, numbers of breeding birds have dropped dramatically. The addition of this extra predator, which can feed by day and night and possesses a coat of spines that can withstand aerial attacks by parent birds, has long been associated with the decline. But how much of the blame lies with the hedgehog and what can be done to support wader populations?"

Read the full article here
 
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