Spreading the thermal word!!

 I need to apologise again for the lack of posts......in my defence it has been Christmas, but most of all we have been a bit consumed in putting together our annual report of ringing for 2022. It's in the final stages now and should be available very soon.

However, a couple of weeks ago, farm manager Tim had a visit from Georgina and Sophie, the farm manager and her assistant manager from the very well known, flagship RSPB Hope Farm in Cambridgeshire. They had come to find out more from Tim about his no-till farming strategy and how it could be adopted by them to further increase the wildlife friendly regime they run at Hope Farm.

During their talks Tim mentioned about the data we provide him from our thermal imaging sessions--things developed, and from that I was invited across earlier this week to demonstrate for them how thermal imagery can be used to monitor the night-time bird and mammal populations on Hope Farm. I was able to let Georgina and Sophie use my imager as we walked their fields--because our very generous supplier, Danel James of Shooting Sports UK, loaned me another imager to enable me to guide them to heat sources. It wasn't long before they got the hang of things and were finding Grey Partridges and Skylarks in the stubble fields, and roosting Reed Buntings, Blackbirds, Redwings and Yellowhammers in the small reedbed and well managed hedgerows. 

Here they are having a practice run before we set out.....

 They've already got smiles on their faces--and that's how a very enjoyable and eye-opening evening continued.

This picture of a Skylark, taken with a mobile phone, amply demonstrated to them how well camouflaged these birds are--and therefore how difficult they are to census without the aid of a thermal imager.

It's right in the middle of the frame--and still quite difficult to see!!

Although the evening went really well, we were all puzzled as to why we hadn't seen any of the woodcock that they had seen regularly coming out of the woodland areas. Until the last field we scanned! We had seen lots of rabbits during the evening, and the initial thought was that there were quite a lot of them in this field too. However, as we moved closer it became clear that although there were some rabbits, there were also 7 superb Woodcock feeding amongst them. As a final thought -provoking moment to end my trip this was perfect. We had been discussing the stark differences in how many and what species of birds we had seen depending on the crop and soil treatment--and this field being so attractive for Woodcock really emphasised the point.

I do hope Georgina and Sophie will decide to join the 'thermal family' -- we'll certainly keep in touch and provide whatever help we can to them and any of their RSPB colleagues.