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Mark Bolton: My life with seabirds
Hi. I'm Mark Bolton. I spend a lot of my time wrapped up in waterproofs on remote coasts and islands for the RSPB. I'm a seabird ecologist.
Seabirds are very special to me. My career as a researcher began with a seabird, or rather a seabird's foot.
I was 15, and on a biology field trip to the Island of Lundy - a lump of granite off the North Devon coast, famous for its seabirds. I found a gull pellet with a storm petrel's foot in it, which was more significant than you might think.
It suggested storm petrels land on the island and possibly even breed there, which no one knew at the time. The excitement I felt in that moment of discovery is something I look for again and again. It's the reason I'm a scientist.
Right now, my work is cut out for me. The UK's marine life is facing an unprecedented challenge – adapting to climate change.
Many seabirds have had a disastrous year – one of the worst in living memory, suffering huge breeding failures. Some sites fledged no chicks at all. Not one.
Worryingly, in recent years this has become a trend, with some species suffering failures at more than one of their breeding sites. We're only just beginning to understand why this is happening.
By becoming a Sea Life Guardian, your monthly donations will help give seabirds and marine life the best chance of adapting to climate change.
Below, I've highlighted three reserves so that you can see first hand the trouble our seabirds are in.
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This tiny island off the Northumberland Coast is a special place for me – I visited it in 1991 while working on my PhD on lesser black-backed gulls. More... |
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The Shetland Isles may see a long way 'up north', but the fate of seabirds here has been some of the worst in the UK. More... |
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Moving south, over the Irish Sea and down to North Wales, we reach the good news story. South Stack is a reserve at the edge of the world - the land falls into a restless sea that gleams all the way across to Ireland, and the wildlife flourishes under our care. More... |
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