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Bird disturbance – causes and impacts

Bird disturbance – causes and impacts. Rebecca Moberly Planning & Advocacy Lead (Kent, Sussex and Surrey). Birds and disturbance. What do we mean by disturbance? What activities disturb birds? What are the impacts of disturbance? Housing, access and disturbance.

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Bird disturbance – causes and impacts

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  1. Bird disturbance – causes and impacts Rebecca Moberly Planning & Advocacy Lead (Kent, Sussex and Surrey)

  2. Birds and disturbance • What do we mean by disturbance? • What activities disturb birds? • What are the impacts of disturbance? • Housing, access and disturbance

  3. What do we mean by disturbance? • Human activity that may influence a bird’s behaviour or survival

  4. What activities cause disturbance? • Site specific as to where and when they occur • Difficult to generalise about activities • Most common on estuaries: aircraft, baitdiggers, vehicles, boats, walkers and dogs

  5. Impacts of disturbance • Stress • Direct mortality • Avoidance of suitable habitat • Behavioural response • Change in food intake rate Population consequence ?

  6. Interaction of factors • Baie de Somme, Oystercatchers • Disturbance influenced mortality only when cockle stocks low

  7. A matter of choice • By feeding turnstones and then disturbing them it has been shown that the birds that fly away 1st are those that are full….. • Birds can react as they would to a predator & make choices according to risk

  8. Examples • Breeding Little Terns: birds avoid busy beaches, signage and wardening leads to increased success • Breeding Ringed Plovers: avoid busy areas, trampling of nests, marked population consequence. • Wintering geese & swans: avoid disturbed sites • Wintering waders: mortality in some circumstances

  9. Links between housing, access and birds • People visit the countryside and coast for a wide range of reasons. Visitors at sites will often be a complex mix of local residents, day trippers and tourists. • How does housing relate to visitor numbers? • What is the link between visitor numbers and impacts on bird populations?

  10. When is access a problem? • Access is important for well-being, conservation, education etc. • In general, potential threat caused by: • Large groups • Faster moving • Accompanied by dogs • Erratic • Adverse effect when survival or breeding success affected • Responses site and species specific

  11. Finally • Disturbance and urban effects need to be considered in context with other threats • Climate change may result in different birds present and different access patterns • Difficult to define specific distances for urban development • There may be existing impacts from which difficult to separate impacts of new housing

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