Erasmus Staff Mobility visit to Centre for Evolutionary & Functional Ecology
(CEFE-CNRS) associated with the University of Montpellier 2, Montpellier,
France
By Martyn Stenning
This visit was the realisation of a long standing ambition of mine, namely to work and learn with a
dynamic research group on the functional ecology of blue tits (mésange bleue) in France and Corsica.
I had originally applied for a Leverhulme grant to work with the group some years ago, but
competition for these grants is extremely strong, and it was not funded. So when I discovered there
was an Erasmus scheme for staff I was really excited and applied quickly. My reason for wanting to
go was that CEFE/CNRS at Montpellier is the centre of the Universe for blue tit research, and I had
done my University of Sussex D.Phil. on blue tit population ecology, and I wanted to extend my
knowledge and network with other blue tit population biologists. The grant from Erasmus and paid
leave from the School of Life Sciences gave me the opportunity to work with the world’s top
scientists on this species. Being a training visit, it enabled me to learn the best techniques there are
for studying blue tits.
British (Sussex) Blue tit
(Cyanistes caeruleus obscurus)
Another objective was to identify any differences between British (above), French (Cyanistes
caeruleus caeruleus) and Corsican (Cyanistes caeruleus oligastrae) blue tits. So I timed my visit to
coincide with the blue tit breeding season, and arranged to be there from 14th May to 9th June. I
spent 3 weeks working from Montpellier and one week on Corsica. Plus there was some travelling
time either side of those dates. I had equipment and books to take with me, so I decided to drive
rather than fly. It also meant that I did not have to hire a car, and would be independent when it
came to mobility, as most of my work was in wild and remote places. This was apparently unusual
for Erasmus visits, but the staff were very helpful and accommodated this little eccentricity. My wife
came with me as my assistant (unfinanced) and was a great help with navigation and other logistics.
I had arranged to arrive at the department at 09:00 hrs on Monday 14th May and report to Dr Marcel
Lambrechts, an ex-patriot Flemish speaking Belgian (also fluent in English) who has studied blue and
great tits for many years. He took me straight out to his field sites with his post-graduate (Virginia)
where he was investigating nest-cavity selection by urban great tits. He had established triplets of 3
sized boxes on trees in a variety of urban and sub-urban open public spaces, and was taking
measurements (tarsus length, age) and blood samples for DNA analysis from the birds that occupied
the boxes to look at the relationships between box size and fitness measurements of the occupants.
He also put numbered rings on the birds’ legs. Marcel also estimated the amount of disturbance the
birds were getting from cars and people nearby. I learned several new techniques from Marcel and
had many interesting conversations about bird science.
Nestbox triplet for great tits
Taking a blood sample from a great tit
As my main interest was in blue tits, the following day, and for most the rest of my visit, I was
working with a group of 6 researchers at a forest field site called Rouviére near Montarnoud on the
mainland, north-west of Montpellier, and a different group of 5 near Calvi on Corsica. These
locations had been furnished with hundreds of concrete nest-boxes, which were mainly occupied by
blue tits with the occasional great and coal tits. On the mainland, all boxes were established on
metal poles, and were enclosed in wire cages that excluded most predators, but let the birds
through. Please see map of Rouviere site below.
Nest-box at Rouviére
Day old baby blue tits and one unhatched egg
M. Stenning at work reading a blue
tit’s ring.
Corsican blue tit
(Parus caeruleus oligastrae)
Annick Lucas with nest-box etc
In order to monitor these boxes, it was necessary to carry an aluminium ladder which I had to climb
and extract the box from the cage and open it on the ground so that we could process the contents.
If they were blue or great tits, the chicks were counted, ringed with individually numbered metal
rings, weighed and returned to the box. Another scientist was catching, ringing, weighing,
measuring and taking blood samples from the adult birds. These data are then analysed for
variation and related to the timing of the breeding attempt and the quality of the local habitat.
During this exercise, I was allowed to perform all of the procedures with the exception of blood
taking, which I observed on numerous occasions. The field sites were laid out in blocks of 50 nestboxes, and sub-groups of the team were allocated to different blocks. The blocks had marked out
standard routes to allow efficient inspections. The way this was done was extremely professional.
Blue tit having its beak measured
At the CNRS campus, the chief Ingénieur Philippe Perret pioneered techniques for keeping blue tits
in aviaries, and described to me in detail how to do this. He also taught me how to catch blue tits
using various techniques. Philippe is due to retire in about 2 years, so it was a unique opportunity
for me to learn techniques that may soon be lost. He has written a booklet on these techniques
which I now have. Another important person that I met was Professor Jacques Blondel. Jacques has
worked on blue tits and Mediterranean ecology for many years, and gave me a signed copy of his
excellent book Biology and Wildlife of the Mediterranean Region. Dr Marcel Lambrechts spent many
hours at the end of fieldwork sessions describing techniques that he uses for identifying suitable
subjects for research and consequent publications. He and others also gave me copies of
publications that they had written.
One of my other main contacts was Dr Ann Charmentier, who was in the process of being promoted
during my stay to a position where she was qualified to supervise research students of her own. She
gave an excellent talk on her research to date and emphasised the need to distinguish between
micro-evolution and local phenotypic plasticity. I learned many new facts from this talk.
On my last day at CNRS I visited the new CNRS Ecotron, and had a guided tour with Dr Jacques Roy
who I had met before when he came to Sussex and spoke at a conference I had organised on
Controlled Environments for Conservation. An Ecotron is a building where a scientist can do
replicated experiments on modules of ecosystems.
For the final week of my visit I drove via Corsica Ferries from Tulon to Bastia and then to a field
station near Calvi in the north of Corsica. Here I liaised with Dr Denis Reale and Christophe De
Franceschi. These two were my main tutors for the week, showing and discussing a wide range of
techniques including how to monitor the main food of insectivorous birds, namely caterpillars.
Tulon from the Corsican ferry
Christoph with the equipment for
catching caterpillars.
I also learned how to collect and purify caterpillar droppings in order to estimate the number of
caterpillars in any given tree.
Caterpillar frass collector, left out
for 3 days.
Philippe Perret purifying caterpillar
frass (droppings).
While on Corsica, I helped a D.Phil. Student called Gabriella Dubuc-Messier who was doing research
on bird personalities. She was quantifying the reaction of blue tits to a stuffed jay, a predator on
blue tits.
During my visit to CEFE/CNRS Montpellier I did give a seminar about my own work on nest-box
populations of pied flycatchers and blue tits to an audience of about 30 people. The talk was well
received, and I was informed that at least some attendees had learned things from me. I had
already co-authored a paper with Dr Marcel Lambrechts, and he encouraged me to publish more of
my data. Which is my intention now along with writing a book on blue tits. I now have much
information on the different sub-species from the French mainland and from the island of Corsica. It
just remains for me to turn this into an acceptable document.
One of the 22 aviaries at CEFE
Glass houses at CEFE
The CNRS Ecotron