Even though we have all spent much of 2021 in yet another lockdown, the team in HORC have been busy writing grant applications, papers and theses and pushing on with the MOTUS project in the UK. We have also found time to explore the impact of some of our research work on local and national policy.
The team have delivered a number of talks in the past 6 months, starting with the Humber Nature Forum. Wes Payne, Lucas Mander and myself, Lucy Mitchell, all gave talks on our work to online attendees in February. Here are the links to the talks:
Wes Payne 'Birds after dark; nocturnal surveys on the Humber': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2oXhmEEmj0
Lucas Mander 'At home in a small range: Curlew movements on the Humber': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj162acEYmg
Lucy Mitchell 'Tracking our flying visitors: a Motus automated VHF network in the UK': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_jjoRCTLJE&t=908s
Then in April, we ran our policy workshop, where a number of online attendees from statutory bodies and local and regional charities joined us for presentations from the cluster, along with some really fascinating discussion on the benefits to policy work of our Ornithology cluster research. This video is also available to view here on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv87x-4LDeQ
Then the excitement of fieldwork began and the first birds to be tagged using Motus coded Nanotags in the UK were captured, first at Landguard Bird Observatory, and then at Spurn Bird Observatory.
The two images here are of the bird - a young male - tagged at Spurn BO at the beginning of May. We are yet to analyse the data from their departures but we hope that this is the start of some really fascinating and useful data gathering to understand more about their migratory diversity (as part of this BES funded project).
Lastly, some really exciting news for the future of the Motus network in the UK, we have received some capital funding from Yorkshire Water, as part of a fund to understand habitats and species on their land, and how these connect to other sites. HORC has been awarded £23,000 to install 3 new receivers at Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve, Tophill Low LNR, and The Deep in Hull. We're really excited to be partnering with these organisations and can't wait to get tagging some more birds and increase the size of the UK network.
Finally, we'll leave you with the exciting news from members of Norfolk Bat Group and our collaborators at Wageningen University Research, that a Nathusius pipistrelle tagged with a miniature Motus tag, has been documented crossing the North Sea, from its deployment location in Suffolk, arriving on the Dutch coast around 4 hours later. This incredible information has not ben documented previously, so we are really excited to be associated with this pilot project: https://www.wur.nl/en/news-wur/Show/Nathusius-pipistrelle-crosses-the-North-Sea-in-one-night.htm