ENHG Lecture July 1: Caught on Camera--The Habitat and Habits of the Secretive Sand Cat, with Alex Brighten

Dear all

For our last lecture of the 2020-2021 season, we have a slight change of routine, holding the talk on a Thursday evening. As always, the zoom link will be emailed prior to the lecture to all those who register, and the zoom will open at 7 pm for a quick catchup chat with members, with the lecture beginning sharp at 7:30. Looking forward to seeing you then. 

About the talk: Little is known about the ecology of the Sand Cat Felis margarita throughout its range in the deserts of North Africa through to Central Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. In this talk I will present our observations of Sand Cat in the southern Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan, Central Asia. Specifically, I will discuss our paper where we detail Sand Cat potentially preying on a large bird and the rare trail camera footage we were able to get of the cat returning to the kill on subsequent nights. This is an exciting record of this understudied, elusive cat and contributes to the knowledge about the feeding ecology and varied diet of the Sand Cat and its opportunistic hunting strategy.

About the Speaker: Alex Brighten is a field biologist specialising in the study of movement and breeding ecology of birds. She has worked as a research assistant on projects using radio- and satellite-telemetry, bioacoustics, cameras, and varied techniques in tagging and tracking owls Ninox novaeseelandiae and Brown kiwi Apteryx mantelli in New Zealand, European nightjar Caprimulgus europaeus and Western jackdaw Corvus monedula in the UK and Asian houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii in Uzbekistan. This latter project provided the opportunity for the Sand Cat paper after spending considerable time in the Kyzylkum desert conducting fieldwork. It is also through this work that Alex discovered a fascination and love of desert ecosystems and animals which live there. Very different to her green and rainy upbringing, she loves the extremes and contrasts of deserts and is intrigued by the challenges faced by desert inhabitants.   

Alex’s current role as Aviculturist and Monitoring Officer for Project Godwit (England, UK) involves hatching, rearing and releasing wild-laid Black-tailed godwits Limosa limosa and then monitoring the released birds in the wild. This project aims to assist population recovery of this endangered migratory bird in the UK. When not doing fieldwork, Alex can be found biking, running, photographing nature, or trying hard to progress beyond beginner level in playing electric guitar.