Lundy 2014

I have just spent five days on Lundy with Drs Steve Kett and Yvan Russell.  For some time now I have been running animal behaviour field trips on Lundy. These trips normally run in the summer, and this year will be no exception with eleven students travelling to the island on 14 June 2014. But, this trip will differ as it is a joint venture between Psychology and Biology at Middlesex University. 

The ambition is to encourage collaboration between the students as well as between staff.  Steve Kett will be bringing the biologists - he is a fresh water ecologist by disposition and training - and Yvan Russell will be aiding the psychology students in the second week. Yvan has a PhD in primatological matters. As both have never visited the field site before this trip was their orientation. Also, I am unable to attend this summer, for my own fitness maximizing reasons, and I therefore felt the need to give my colleagues some extra time and support.

Drs Russell (left) and Kett working hard at a kittiwake colony

We had fine weather and thus the opportunity to fully explore the island. During the course of our activities we spent some time watching a kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) colony.  These birds have been in population decline for a while now and this has been linked to a crash in the sand-eel population, a principal component of their diet.  Many of the colonies on the island have disappeared, including that of Puffin Gully, to the north east of the island. This was the colony my father, David Dickins (University of Liverpool) worked on with colleagues, during the 1980s.

Whilst I have just begun to work on other gulls, I have retained an interest in kittiwakes and I hope to generate some more data through student projects on Lundy over the next years, and in collaboration with my colleagues.  With this in mind I produced an impromptu and very short documentary about some of the kittiwakes we observed on Lundy this April.  My hope is that it will spark some interest in our students and seed some questions before they visit the island with us.  Here it is (with apologies for the odd shudder):