Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation: hands-on conservation
20 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingThere's a lot of talk about conservation, but this really is the hands-on kind. Follow wildlife conservation in the field, as Roy Dennis, based in the Highlands of Scotland, works with his team on the restoration of species in the UK and abroad.
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Episodes
A honey buzzard on its first migration
September 23, 2020 19:00 - 19 minutes - 13.3 MBThe honey buzzard is one of Britain's most enigmatic and elusive birds, poorly named (being neither a buzzard nor an eater of honey) and under-reported. In August, Roy Dennis and his team, having discovered a honey buzzard nest in woodland in Moray, where Roy lives, fitted a highly sophisticated satellite transmitter to a female chick. A month later, the bird left on migration for Africa, but experienced the most dramatic start to her journey, blown eastwards across the North Sea to Denmark...
White-tailed eagles: a project milestone
September 18, 2020 22:00 - 19 minutes - 13.3 MBThe project to reintroduce white-tailed eagles to the Isle of Wight continues, and in this - the second year of five - seven birds have been released. This podcast picks up the story from when they were taken south from Scotland to their new home - pilot Graham and his daughter Helen Mountford of Civil Air UK making two voluntary trips to fly the birds to the Isle of Wight - but instead of focussing on the fortunes of this year's birds, we look instead at a major milestone in the project ov...
White-tailed eagles: from Scotland to the Isle of Wight
September 05, 2020 12:00 - 22 minutes - 15.6 MBIn the previous podcast, Ian Perks described his work collecting eagles for translocation from nests in the Western Isles to a new home on the Isle of Wight. Now, the chicks safely collected, it's time to care for them while they wait to be taken south. This is the 2020 cohort for the white-tailed eagle reintroduction programme, a joint venture between the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation and Forestry England which had a successful start twelve months ago. In this year of lockdown, though, i...
White-tailed eagles: collecting chicks for translocation
August 28, 2020 17:00 - 20 minutes - 13.9 MBIn early August 2020, seven white-tailed eagles were released on the Isle of Wight in the second year of a five-year project to establish a breeding population there. Using an audio diary recorded by Ian Perks of the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, this podcast looks back at the early stages of this year's work, and finds out how some of the chicks were collected from their nests. The podcast follows Ian and Justin Grant as they travel to the Western Isles, where with the help of Robin Rei...
White-tailed eagles, one year on: learning the landscape
August 20, 2020 23:00 - 23 minutes - 16.2 MBIt's exactly a year since the release of six white-tailed eagles on the Isle of Wight, a return to a place where they last bred in 1780. It's a good moment, then, to take a look at the progress of the birds released in 2019, and to hear about the impact they have had on some of the people who have encountered them. In this five-year project, working in partnership with Forestry England, the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation aims to translocate up to sixty white-tailed eagles from Scotland ...
The new season starts: rebuilding an osprey nest
April 08, 2020 18:00 - 21 minutes - 14.6 MB8th April 1960 was the day when Roy Dennis saw his first ever osprey, while working at the famous Loch Garten site in the Highlands of Scotland. Sixty years on, he's still working with the birds, and this podcast was recorded in early March as (with colleagues Fraser Cormack and Ian Perks) he sets out to rebuild a local osprey nest which is in danger of collapse. It was built back in 1967 by only the second osprey pair in Scotland and rebuilt by Roy seven years later, after it crashed to th...
The white-tailed 'eagle effect' on the Isle of Wight
October 25, 2019 01:00 - 20 minutes - 14.2 MBThis week's podcast hears from the Isle of Wight, ten weeks after the release of six white-tailed eagles in the last place they bred in England, 240 years ago. Two of the project's volunteer team - biologist Tracy Dove and ornithologist Jim Baldwin - and Forestry England's White-Tailed Eagle Project Officer, Steve Egerton-Read, talk about whether there has been an 'eagle effect' on the island since their release. Has widespread interest in the birds spread out to a broader interest in na...
White-tailed eagles: their reintroduction to Scotland
October 18, 2019 00:00 - 20 minutes - 13.8 MBThe white-tailed eagle had been absent from Scotland for forty years when the very first attempt at reintroduction took place in 1958. A later project, led in 1968 by Roy Dennis and George Waterston on Fair Isle, between Orkney and Shetland, was groundbreaking but also unsuccessful, due largely to the very small number of birds involved. This podcast, though, hears from John Love, in conversation with Roy, as he talks about his ten years on the Hebridean island of Rum, site of the first suc...
White-tailed eagles: side by side with other species
October 11, 2019 01:00 - 21 minutes - 15.1 MBThe release of six white-tailed eagle chicks on the Isle of Wight in August this year was just one of the early steps on a very long road. The ultimate goal of the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation and Forestry England is to see the species breed again in England after an absence of 240 years, but first the eagles have to learn where they fit in this unfamiliar landscape. The podcast hears about the experience of the Irish White-Tailed Eagle Reintroduction project, which released 100 chicks o...
White-tailed eagles: side by side with other species
October 11, 2019 01:00 - 21 minutes - 15.1 MBThe release of six white-tailed eagle chicks on the Isle of Wight in August this year was just one of the early steps on a very long road. The ultimate goal of the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation and Forestry England is to see the species breed again in England after an absence of 240 years, but first the eagles have to learn where they fit in this unfamiliar landscape. The podcast hears about the experience of the Irish White-Tailed Eagle Reintroduction project, which released 100 chicks o...
The adaptability of ospreys
October 04, 2019 04:00 - 20 minutes - 14 MBAs the satellite-tagged osprey Deshar continues to seek a permanent spot in West Africa in which to settle, this podcast looks at how ospreys on their first migration have to compete for space with older birds unwilling to give up prime locations. Roy Dennis explains how ospreys learn to adapt to fishing in foreign waters, facing new hazards such as crocodiles, and hears from The Gambia on how juveniles cope with the hostility of more experienced birds. Because each bird is an individual...
The hazards of osprey migration
September 27, 2019 03:00 - 25 minutes - 17.9 MBWith the migrations of young ospreys Carr and Deshar being followed step-by-step online, with detailed data fed back via their satellite tags, this podcast hears what has happened to them, and looks at the dangers faced by all young birds as they fly south to Africa. Starting with the example of one young osprey, translocated from Scotland to Poole Harbour by Roy Dennis and his team, along with ten other chicks, the podcast looks at the slim chances of a safe arrival at their wintering gro...
The migration of young ospreys Carr and Deshar
September 20, 2019 03:00 - 20 minutes - 14.4 MBTwo juvenile ospreys - Carr and Deshar, satellite-tagged by Roy Dennis in the summer - are on their way from the north of Scotland to their wintering grounds in Africa. Migrating for the first time, and entirely on instinct, the birds, both from the same nest, are flying independently and taking very different routes. Crossing sea, desert and mountain ranges, the birds are being followed online by the children of two local primary schools, closely associated with the nests and the local ...
White-tailed eagles part 3: Culver's flight to London and beyond
September 13, 2019 02:00 - 25 minutes - 17.6 MBOf the six white-tailed eagles released on the Isle of Wight in August by the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, in partnership with Forestry England, five have been content to remain largely on the island. The sixth, named Culver after Culver Cliff, the last place in which sea eagles bred on the Isle of Wight more than 200 years ago, set off for a mammoth journey to London and beyond, returning after eight days to where he began. This podcast talks to people who saw him pass overhead - and s...
Ospreys part 3: the young birds are released at Poole Harbour
September 06, 2019 04:00 - 26 minutes - 18 MBContinuing the story of the translocation of eleven osprey chicks from Scotland to Poole Harbour on the south coast of England. The birds are released but stay close by, until the urge to migrate sends them on a hazardous journey to Africa. Producer: Moira Hickey Contributors in order of appearance: Fraser Cormack, Ian Perks, Alan Campbell, Tim Mackrill, Roy Dennis, Jason Fathers, Lucy Allen, Paul Morton, Brittany Maxted, Liv Cooper. Music credit: Realness by Kai Engel, from the Free Mu...
Ospreys part 3: the young birds are released at Poole Harbour
September 06, 2019 04:00 - 26 minutes - 18 MBContinuing the story of the translocation of eleven osprey chicks from Scotland to Poole Harbour on the south coast of England. The birds are released but stay close by, until the urge to migrate sends them on a hazardous journey to Africa. Producer: Moira Hickey Contributors in order of appearance: Fraser Cormack, Ian Perks, Alan Campbell, Tim Mackrill, Roy Dennis, Jason Fathers, Lucy Allen, Paul Morton, Brittany Maxted, Liv Cooper. Music credit: Realness by Kai Engel, from the Free Mu...
White-tailed eagles part 2: the birds' release on the Isle of Wight
August 30, 2019 00:00 - 28 minutes - 19.4 MBContinuing the story of six white-tailed eagle chicks, translocated by the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, working in partnership with Forestry England, from nests in Scotland to the Isle of Wight, off England's south coast. This project aims to re-establish the birds in the place where they last bred in England, 240 years ago. The podcast records the work that went into preparing the birds for their release, and hears how emotional it can be to see these majestic and long-absent birds ret...
White-tailed eagles part 1: the journey from Scotland to the Isle of Wight
August 23, 2019 01:00 - 29 minutes - 20.2 MBThe release of six white-tailed eagle chicks on the Isle of Wight has made national headlines, as it's a reintroduction of Britain's largest bird of prey after an absence of 240 years. The white-tailed eagle was killed out by man, rather than by poor habitat or inadequate food, and it's hoped that the 60 birds which are due to be released in the five years of this project will go on to establish a population, building on the success of similar reintroductions in Scotland. This podcast loo...
Ospreys part 2: the chicks leave Scotland for Poole Harbour
August 16, 2019 00:00 - 23 minutes - 16.2 MBContinuing the story of a batch of osprey chicks being translocated from the Highlands of Scotland to Poole Harbour on the south coast of England, this podcast explains how to care for young birds, and how Roy Dennis learned the skills he has needed to carry out successful translocation projects over many years. Music credit: Realness by Kai Engel, form the Free Music Archive https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Contributors in order of appearance: Ian Perks, Tim Mackrill, Roy ...
Ospreys part 1: collecting chicks for Poole Harbour
August 09, 2019 01:00 - 27 minutes - 18.8 MBRoy Dennis specialises in the translocation of species: moving birds, in this case osprey chicks, from one area to another, to help grow the population. This is hands-on conservation: the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation prides itself on its direct and proactive approach to wildlife conservation. It is year three of a five-year project, with the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, working in collaboration with the conservation charity Birds of Poole Harbour, aiming to send a total of 60 young osp...