 |
| Fascinating insights - Richard Boon's delightful new book |
A SOMEWHAT surprising (and dismaying) statistic is detailed in Richard Boon's absorbing account of a summer spent as a shorebird warden near Spurn on the Yorkshire Coast.
It was birdwatchers and photographers who proved to be among the highest number of those causing disturbance to a colony of a small but important colony of shingle-nesting Little Terns.
The number was 17 - way below the 49 recorded for dog disruption - but significantly higher than that, for instance, of off-road vehicles or horse riding (both five).
Boon confesses that he finds it not easy to forgive "birders and photographers who get too close and are seemingly oblivious to the alarm calls of the birds they have flushed".
He says: "They should know better."
At this point, it needs to be stressed that Clinging to The Edge is not a preachy or self-righteous book.
It is a crisply-written and often amusing account of the numerous challenges that the author and his fellow wardens had to overcome to safeguard these tiny, enchanting and incredibly vulnerable seabirds.
Diligence, stamina and ingenuity were the watchwords.
Methods explored for keeping at bay predators - raptors, mammals and reptiles - included the use of lions' dung, sonic alarms, fake predator eyes, air horns and tying rags to long bamboo canes, then waving them furiously at any approaching kestrel or sparrowhawk.
In the final analysis, however, it was the electric fence that proved most effective, albeit that it was time-consuming and complicated to maintain.
At just 134 pages, this is not a long book but it is packed with fascinating information both about the breeding behaviour of the terns and also about the daily trials and tribulations (and rewards) of being a shorebird warden.
Subtitled A Year in The Life of a Little Tern Colony, this entertaining (and amply-illustrated) paperback is published by Pelagic (www.pelagicpublishing.com) at £25.
No comments:
Post a Comment