Native Wildlife Monitoring

The survey species

• Orkney vole

  With the help of volunteers, the project is carrying out annual vole surveys at 31 sites across the Orkney Mainland, the linked isles and four stoat-free islands (Eday, Rousay, Sanday and Westray).

  Vole surveys are done in spring and autumn by searching for fresh vole signs (poo and nibbled grass) in multiple 25 x 25 cm areas spread along a fixed 1 km route.

  Finding both freshly nibbled grass (known as clippings) and fresh vole poo is a good indicator that Orkney voles are close by.

• Skylarks, meadow pipits and wheatears

  Surveying the same 31 sites as for Orkney voles, the project aims to estimate the density of breeding skylarks, meadow pipits and wheatears by looking for nesting behaviour in early spring.

  It will also attempt to assess breeding success by looking for young birds (fledglings) in these same areas later each spring.

• Waders

  Surveys to establish the numbers of breeding curlew, lapwing, oystercatcher, redshank and snipe take place each spring at various locations across Orkney Mainland, the linked isles and other islands.
  
  The team also monitor whether breeding attempts are successful by monitoring some nests until they succeed (young can fly) or fail.

  In addition, large-scale population monitoring surveys were undertaken in the first year of the project (2019) and will be repeated in the final year. During these surveys, less widespread species such as dunlin, golden plover and ringed plover are also recorded.

• Seabirds

  Annual monitoring of fulmars, shags, kittiwakes, guillemots and razorbills takes place at four sites across Orkney mainland, led by RSPB Scotland and their volunteers.

  At the end of the project, productivity (number of chicks raised per pair) will be compared between before stoats arrived, and before and after the eradication.

  This will also be compared with Fair Isle, a stoat-free island where seabirds are likely to experience similar levels of food availability each year as those in Orkney.

• Hen harrier

  Annual hen harrier surveys to estimate productivity (number of chicks per nest) are carried out by the Orkney Raptor Study Group (ORSG) and RSPB Scotland across Orkney. They are kindly providing this data to the project team.

• Short-eared owl

  Short-eared owls are very difficult to monitor and there is currently no standard method.

  The project is using a combination of community sightings and survey data collected each year, and kindly shared, by the Orkney Raptor Study Group to calculate population size estimates and assess changes over time.

  Anyone who spots a short-eared owl can share that sighting information on the Short-eared owls in Orkney Facebook page.

• Red-throated diver

  Each spring, several red-throated diver nests are monitored by RSPB Scotland on their Mainland and island reserves. They are sharing this data with the project team to allow a comparison of productivity (number of young raised per nest) between before stoats arrived and before and after the eradication of stoats.