Are you a climber and a keen birder, or know someone who is?
Each year our resident ringer Robin Husbands (fully licensed with the BTO and Natural England) rings a large number of young birds of prey over the course of the breeding season here in Gloucestershire. Although Rob is not the only licenced ringer here, he covers a wide area of land and covers a many British raptor species which keeps him, and the rest of the GRMG team helping him with this, very busy. Many of these species are urban and nest in accessible buildings however in the more rural locations our county’s raptors do not make it easy for ringers and nest high in the tops of trees or in a quarry/cliff face.
Benefits of ringing are numerous and include; monitoring numbers of the county’s raptor species, contributing to knowledge of numbers of successful nests and fledged young, supporting understanding of migration and movement, having a central place for many records, building up a long-term dataset – and many more. When ringing raptor young we can also analyse nest size, nest material, dietary information and other data when accessing a nest.
In order to support Rob, the GRMG is looking for a qualified climber to help climb trees/abseil in quarries or on cliffs over the course of each year’s breeding season. The birds would then be passed down to Rob/those acting under his license to ring the young who will then, once all scientific data had been collected and recorded, pass them back up to be put back in the nest by our climber.
We would also like support with our winter work (collecting nest material, building basic nest frameworks to support some species in starting nests and installing cameras at roost sites).
The GRMG would welcome a climber to support us in gaining invaluable data on our county’s raptor species and our climber would be classed as an integral part of our organisation.
If you are interested, or would like some more information, please contact us on the usual email [email protected].