RSPB Seabird Tracking Study at the Flamborough and Filey Coast
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Hornsea Project Three Offshore Wind Farm Hornsea Project Three Offshore Wind Farm Appendix 7 to Deadline 2 Submission – RSPB Seabird Tracking Study at the Flamborough and Filey Coast Date: 21st November 2018 RSPB Seabird Tracking Study at the Flamborough and Filey November 2018 Document Control Document Properties Organisation Ørsted Hornsea Project Three Author Wischnewski et al, 2017 Checked by n/a Approved by n/a Appendix 7 to Deadline 2 Submission – Title RSPB Seabird Tracking Study at the Flamborough and Filey Coast PINS Document n/a Number Version History Date Version Status Description / Changes 21/11/2018 A Final Submitted at Deadline 2 (21/11/2018) Ørsted 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG © Ørsted Power (UK) Ltd, 2018. All rights reserved Front cover picture: Kite surfer near a UK offshore wind farm © Ørsted Hornsea Project Three (UK) Ltd., 2018. i Seabird tracking at the Flamborough & Filey Coast: Assessing the impacts of offshore wind turbines Pilot study 2017 Fieldwork report & recommendations Wischnewski, S., Fox, D.S., McCluskie, A. & Wright, L.J. RSPB, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire SG19 2DL [email protected] RSPB Centre for Conservation Science Report to Ørsted ©The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire, SG19 2DL ISBN 978-1-905601-30-1 2 Cover pictures courtesy of: David Aitken (top left) and Saskia Wischnewski Contents Contents ........................................................................................................................................................ 3 Executive summary ....................................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 7 Background ............................................................................................................................................... 7 Aims & Objectives ..................................................................................................................................... 7 Long-term aims & objectives ................................................................................................................ 8 Short-term aims and objectives (2017 work) ..................................................................................... 10 Methods ...................................................................................................................................................... 11 Field methods ......................................................................................................................................... 11 Site selection ....................................................................................................................................... 11 Network set-up ................................................................................................................................... 14 Tag setup ............................................................................................................................................. 14 Tagging procedure .............................................................................................................................. 15 Productivity monitoring ...................................................................................................................... 17 Colour ringing ...................................................................................................................................... 18 Analytical methods ................................................................................................................................. 19 Tracking data analysis ......................................................................................................................... 19 Productivity analysis ........................................................................................................................... 21 Results ......................................................................................................................................................... 22 Trip characteristics and behaviour .......................................................................................................... 24 Utilization distributions ........................................................................................................................... 26 Overlap with Hornsea ............................................................................................................................. 29 Productivity and tagging effects ............................................................................................................. 30 Discussion.................................................................................................................................................... 32 Recommendations for future work ............................................................................................................ 35 Recommended data analysis .................................................................................................................. 35 Analytical work included in the current contract ............................................................................... 35 Analytical work that would require funding for additional staff time ................................................ 36 Recommended continuation of strategic seabird research ................................................................... 37 References .................................................................................................................................................. 40 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................... 42 Appendix I. .................................................................................................................................................. 43 3 4 Executive summary Hornsea Project One agreed to contribute to ornithological work at the Flamborough and Filey Coast potential Special Protection Area (pSPA), specifically a colony monitoring campaign and tracking work as part of a wider strategic study. It was agreed that the data would be made available for wider strategic research. The implementation of a strategic monitoring programme for the Hornsea Zone is to improve the understanding of the populations of key species (kittiwake, auks and gannet) at the pSPA and any possible dependence on the Hornsea Zone. The objectives of the strategic programme will be to improve understanding, through the collection and analysis of robust data, of: 1) abundance and trends in abundance of the species populations (and assemblage) of interest features of the pSPA. This would be achieved through contributions to whole colony counts that are more comprehensive and regularly undertaken than is currently the case. 2) population processes, which would include the collection of more data on the productivity and survivorship of key species breeding at the pSPA. 3) connectivity of the pSPA populations and the Hornsea Zone, through tagging which can reveal the movements of individuals between the colony and the zone and wind farm project areas within it. As part of this package of monitoring, 20 adult kittiwakes breeding within the pSPA were fitted with lightweight, remote-download GPS-accelerometer tracking devices during the 2017 breeding season, just after their chicks hatched. Nest monitoring, for tracked and control birds, was also conducted in order to determine whether the tracking devices had any effect on bird welfare or breeding success. The three principal aims of the 2017 work presented in this report were: (a) to collect baseline tracking data before turbines are in place (so that, in future, the behaviour and area-use of tracked birds can be compared before, during and after turbine construction); (b) to pilot the use of this tracking system on this species and at the Flamborough and Filey Coast, and methods of data analysis, in order to refine methods for future strategic or post-consent tracking work; and (c) to collect information on some of the parameters that feed into collision risk models in order to test the assumptions of these models and so that the models can be based on improved data in future. All 20 tracking devices were deployed successfully at Flamborough, Filey and a new catching site at Speeton, and data were obtained from 18 of these. The new (for this species) medium-term tag attachment method we used worked very well and allowed tracking data to be collected for several weeks, and much later into the breeding season than has been achieved previously for kittiwakes (which had previously only been tracked for a few days at a time early in the chick- rearing period). The remote-download system also worked well in our study area, once we had determined suitable locations for the receivers. We were able to use an additional catching site at Speeton due to the system’s ability to bounce data from a receiver near the nests at Speeton, to another on Filey Brigg 9km away, and then to a base station (connected to the internet) in a house 7km away from that. The two trackers that did not produce data were attributed to tag failure (potentially due to birds damaging the devices