Scott talks guano islands with the Broomfield Birding Club
Scott recently gave a talk titled "Guarding the world's finest guano: a story of ecology and economy" to the Broomfield Birding Club. The talk was focussed on the islands that Scott visited during his PhD fieldwork in Peru and Chile. These islands, the famous guano islands, have an amazing history of human use and host some of the largest colonies of seabirds on the planet. During his time on the islands Scott collected blood samples from blue-footed and Peruvian boobies, as well as gathered tracking data from foraging adult boobies. All of the stuff that looks like sand in the photo of Isla Lobos de Afuera below is actually guano! Birds you can see in the photo include blue-footed boobies (in the air), Peruvian boobies (on the ground) and Peruvian pelicans (the dense patch in the distance).