The 2015 Seabird Season Gets Well Underway

2015 is a very important year for monitoring nesting seabirds in the Channel Islands, because this is Year One of the next British National Seabird Census. Most of our seabird colonies have not been accurately censused since the last national initiative in 2000!
Our earliest nesting seabirds are usually Great Cormorants, and this year is no exception. Our visits to the small colonies north of Herm and on the west coast of Guernsey resulted in counts of 36 and 16 active nests respectively...giving a total of 52 breeding pairs. There will be some birds to add to this Bailiwick total from Alderney, and possibly a few more from other tiny colonies. The nesting productivity seems up to par with recent years too.
In total 27 chicks were colour ringed on our first visit to the largest colony north of Herm.

The first seabird monitoring trip of 2015.