Back to the Beaches

With the gull ringing season behind me, it was a case of back to the beaches with the telescope this morning – and my goodness…it was very enjoyable! I was at Pembroke Beach just before 0600. I stayed for 40 minutes watching the gull flock on the sand swelling as more and more birds dropped in. 72 gull colour ring reads were taken – 47 Herring, 20 LBBG and five GBBG. The pick of the bunch were my first three juvenile cr Herring Gulls (two from Jethou and one from Lihou). It is always such a thrill to see these first youngsters on the beaches in mid-late July.

I then spent nearly an hour at Chouet Landfill Beach recording another 87 colour rings (76 LBBG, 10 Herring Gulls and one GBBG). Amongst the Herring Gulls were two more juvenile birds from Lihou Island. Although no colour ringed LBBG juveniles were seen today, there were a few fledged youngsters on the beaches, some begging from their parents as only gull juveniles can!

What a lovely morning – and all before 0800!

The End of the Gull Ringing Season Approaches

Wow..it's been a really difficult season to get the ringing work completed...but we are just about there now. Trips to Burhou, Alderney and Sark have resulted in just over 200 Lesser Black-backed Gull chicks being ringed, which given the persistently wet, windy and cool weather throughout the season has been something of a triumph for the parent gulls! As a finale the small Guernsey Gulls Team took a catch of 50 full grown gulls in the garden this morning - a wonderful end to a very rewarding season!

A Couple of Old Gulls

Unfortunately we're not making much progress with the seabird monitoring given the incredible run of  windy weather and rough seas, preventing us from landing on most of the colonies. Time is beginning to beat us now...and more and more birds are fledging unringed! At least we managed a gull catch in the garden over the weekend. After several hours with no luck we thought we would draw a complete blank...but in a manic two minute spell we took a large catch and ringed c 65 gulls including 11 Lesser Black-backed Gulls! Amongst them was a metal-ringed bird E4637, which I had ringed as a chick in one of the Sark colonies in July 1990 - making this gull almost 22 years old! In the same catch was a Herring Gull (Yellow 4B8) colour ringed by the late Bob Burrow in June 1999 in Jersey. Amazingly this bird had not been recorded at all in the intervening 13 years...how can that be?!

 LBBG Black 8AN3 (Jersey E4637) a 22 year old bird! 

P.S. Non gull footnote! - Two Kestrel chicks have just fledged from the "owl" box in the background of the photo!

A Tricky Seabird Season

The weather continues to make completion of the seabird monitoring this year very difficult, and as the days and weeks pass more and more information is lost as the young birds begin to fledge unrecorded. Notwithstanding this the small Guernsey Seabird Team continues to do its best. Over the past week some gull monitoring has been done around Guernsey and in Sark. This is confirming the pattern showing earlier where Great Black-backed Gulls (one of the top local marine predators) appear to have had a very poor season, while Herring Gulls show a mixed result with some colonies producing a reasonable number of young while others very largely fail. It's still too early to confirm the position with Lesser Black-backed Gulls. Most Shags have now fledged - a moderate season with general productivity and broods of one or two chicks in most active nests (but hardly any threes). Cormorants bred early again and were successful. No recording of auks has been done this season. When the season is over I'll put a link to all the Seabird Trip Write-ups.

Chouet Comes Good!

A trip to Chouet Landfill Beach early this morning resulted in around150 gull ring reads, and the opportunity to take some close up photos. Amongst the gulls was a single 2nd summer Yellow-legged Gull. Yesterday Chris Mourant and I took the opportunity to continue the 2012 gull monitoring around Guernsey, by ringing another 29 chicks - 17 Herring and 12 Great Black-backed Gulls.

 2nd Summer Yellow-legged Gull

First Gull Chicks Ringed

In what is turning out to be a difficult season for ringing gulls, largely because of the highly unpredictable weather, Jamie and Mish Hooper and I took the opportunity on Monday (with the necessary permissions)  to undertake the annual seabird monitoring in Jethou. The results were interesting with signs of European Shag having a reasonably productive breeding season. We only ringed 36 chicks, but the majority of young had already fledged and we did not visit Grande Fauconniere at all. Great Black-backed Gulls appear to have fared poorly though with only seven chicks ringed (and one fledged bird seen on the wing). Herring Gulls once again showed a modest season, with some colonies (e.g. Grande Fauconniere Beach) almost completely deserted, while others (such as the house colony) had chicks that were two thirds fledged. 48 Herring Gull pulli were ringed, almost all with colour rings.  17 Puffins were recorded offshore.