Suffering for his science: student counts seabirds

It is not surprising a University of Otago student had a few bouts of seasickness in the past year.

Master’s in marine science student Felix Borrowdale has been counting seabirds in Foveaux Strait.

He made 114 trips on the ferry between Bluff and Stewart Island/Rakiura.

On some of the days there were some big waves that made counting birds difficult, Mr Borrowdale said.

‘‘It didn’t just impact my ability to look through my binoculars ... I was seasick quite a bit.

‘‘I got pretty used to surveying in really bumpy conditions in the end. ‘‘

His goal was to create baseline data for seabirds in the strait to be used for conservation management and threat assessments for offshore wind farms, he said.

It was important to have the information if an offshore wind farm was proposed for the area.

Research from the northern hemisphere showed sea birds were affected in several ways by wind farms.

Some birds were attracted to the turbines and were killed after hitting them, while some deviated from migration routes and foraging areas to avoid wind farms.

Forty-two species were recorded as living in the strait, of which 11 were threatened and 26 at risk.

From July last year to June this year he travelled on the ferry and conducted between six and 14 at-sea surveys every month.

While he had not ‘‘really dug my talons into analysis yet’’ he counted a minimum of 9358 birds and about 31 species.

‘‘Throughout the whole year, we saw birds in pretty much every part of the strait, which was cool.’’

The dominant species seen in summer were sooty shearwaters and in spring it was diving petrels.

‘‘We had a lot of birds in summer compared to autumn and winter, especially around the lower half of the strait,’’ he said.

• About 150 people attended the NZ Marine Sciences Society’s annual conference from July 1-3, which was held in Invercargill for the first time.

Conference chairman Ash Rabel said the gathering was a great chance to celebrate what was happening in marine research, especially in Fiordland and on Stewart Island/Rakiura.

‘‘It is an immense investment in our region,’’ he said.

About 40 university students shared the findings of research they were involved in.

‘‘It’s a nice and supportive environment to do it, because all of us that have been in this space for a while have been through this multiple times and we still get nervous.

It was also a good opportunity for networking and finding ways to work together, he said.

‘‘While we’re all in the marine sciences space. We all have our own little speciality areas.

‘‘It’s amazing to have that cross-pollination of knowledge and disciplines.’’