Terns Fledging!

 

 
We've put a lot of effort into our Terns this year. Lucie and Paula have been both watching the colonies for  up to three hours a day before they first started laying eggs. We've also put down shelters, put in canes to confuse the gulls and kept the photographers from venturing too close.

We are finally seeing the fruits of our labour. At the time of writing at least 13 youngsters have fledged and hopefully more will come.

This was the first bird to fledge near the tractor shed

It is funny watching them take their early flights. Their wings are not pointed like the adults and have more of a rounded shape. They get attacked by the adult terns, confused by seeing different coloured birds in their colony.

We've even had more eggs laid this week too. We're wondering just how long and protracted this tern season will be. LAst year only one chick was raised.

These two fledglings near the Beacon were enjoying a bath in a puddle

There are still chicks going about of all sizes

Hopefully with increased understanding through observation we can improve productivity for these birds for the coming years.

A few more random shots from this week.

Ian Fisher borrowed the moth trap and caught this Lime-spec Pug. What a stunner! He also took the photo.

Arctic Terns continue to hatch young and even still laying eggs. New nests were found on Wednesday.

This Razorbill jumped just hours after Carrie captured it with my camera!

 Many Kittiewakes are fledging this week.

Last weeks rescued Shag looks no worse for wear after the ordeal it has been through.

We were double figures at the weekend. Like the birds on the cliffs, we are all jumping too. We were down to 6 on Thursday.

Compost Gull and Seawatching

It's often a subject around the dinner table between the summer residents of the Isle of May on whether it is always the same Lesser Black-backed Gull that visits the compost heap that is just outside the Lighthouse Keepers cottage.

The compost heap mainly consists of a few rotting citrus fruits and spent ground coffee, but the odd bit of left over pasta or dead bird keeps the gulls returning daily.

About a week ago Mark successfully trapped a gull in the heap and Carrie got to ring her first Lesser which was seen returning to the garden within a couple of days.

It became quite obvious there was more then one gull using the compost heap as unringed birds were noted daily, so while I was having a post dinner seawatch from the veranda I decided to try and catch an unringed bird that was using heap.

 

I hid in the mothtrap shed and waited for the signal from Mark and Lowlighters, Steve and Ian who had come out to join us looking out to sea. After about 15 minutes the bird dropped into the wooden frame so I decided to go for it.

 

The bird panicked on my appearance and got stuck, it's path blocked by my considerable bulk flying over the side. I landed ankle deep in some pretty rotten horrid filth of the heap, but the bird was secured.

 

 We took the bird to the ringing hut where it was ringed by Ian and released.

Close up the bird was quite stunning. Close up you can see the details of the eye and the wings. The bird was not too pleased about being caught and really gave as good as it got.This bird is marked with a green colouring with the letter M on it. We shall keep an eye on the compost heap to see which birds return the compost heap.

The fun did not stop there either. While we were watching the sea, we noted Arctic Skua, Manx Shearwaters, a probable island record count of Common Scoter, Harbour Porpoise and a Minke Whale.

Minke Whales are noted off the island regularly throughout the season with an increase of sightings from mid July onwards. Tonight's sighting was quite special as the Minke was jumping right out of the water! It leeped out near a fishing boat. Even though the animal was over a mile away you could see the tidal wave splash with the naked eye! It almost made me jump out of my skin as it came right up in my field of view in my telescope.

We don't watch the TV out here but with that kind of nightly entertainment who needs to?

I'd like to thank Ian and Mark for contributing photographs for this blog entry.

Pufflings - The effort we go to....

We're still seeing plenty of fledge Puffins (pufflings) around the Isle of May NNR at the moment. These are birds that get confused after they leave their burrows and don't make it to the sea.

Here is a picture of me picking one up from one of the pools on the North Plateau

Once birds are caught they are ringed, weighed, measured and released safely at night.

Here is Calum releasing one from Cornerstone

The Heligoland traps are a place that pufflings easily get lost in.

Strimming the nettles back at the edge of the paths can help them as they can get stuck. We also went to extra effort this year by clearing round behind the engine shed because it's no fun lying on the concrete trying to rescue them from behind the air tanks.

It was funny when the builders opened up the tractor shed and out walked a puffling and equally funny was when one walked into the kitchen late one night. These birds are attracted to noise and light. We take extra care to make sure the generater is off at night too.

Wood Sandpiper

A little late night bonus blog here.... 

When a Wood Sandpiper flew into the pools on the South Plateau at Dusk, an island twitch was on. 

I managed to locate the Lowlighters and then run up Palpitation Bray to locate Mark who I'd seen at at Sheep Well from about 20 minutes before from the other side of the Loch. It was an Isle of May 'tick' for him.

We all managed to see the bird well. Hopefully the bird will be still here in the morning so we don't have to look at it in the half light.

Wood Sandpipers are a scarce passage migrant in the UK. They are a reasonably common breeding wader in Boreal forests in Scandinavia. This is only the 24th for the Isle of May though the last record was only in 2010.It is also the earliest autumn record for the island. The bird that was seen today was a moulting adult.

Unusual Guillemot

 This unusual Guillemot has been present on the Isle of May for the last three seasons. I've looked for it a few times but had not seen it until the researchers said it was present yesterday. Calum and I went up to the cliffs and despite the poor conditions I managed to capture a few images of the bird.

 The bird has an orange bill and orange feet. It lacks the black pigment in it's bare parts. These birds are not unheard of in the wild and aberrant birds of many species are known. It is a very nice bird to see indeed.

The Guillemot shares a ledge with a Razorbill

A close up of the head

 It has orange feet with black ends to the webs.

The bird has been affectionately named 'Penguillemot' by the researchers because of it's unusual appearance.

Fulmars

Fulmars

During my last few days of shore leave I was down at Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust doing a bit of birdwatching. As I was walking around the captive bird enclosures a bird under a bench caught my eye.

It was a Fulmar, a very scarce bird in Gloucestershire. This bird was unlucky enough to have been caught in gales that had blown up the Bristol Channel and got lost.

I managed to catch the bird safely but I then realised I'd never handled one before. The birds are naturally very light. They also had a very interesting fishy smell. It also had a very strong bite. It was not too keen on being handled and drew more blood then a any Puffin ever has!

We kept the bird for 24 hours and released it below the Severn Bridge where it flew away strongly.

So what's a story about about my holidays doing on the blog I hear the readers and particularly David asking?

Well, I found our first Fulmar chick today. Fulmars are our last birds to nest and hatch young on the Isle of May. This bird is at Burnetts leap. The bird had just finished hatching. It still had bits of eggshell on it's back. Here is a close-up of the bird

At the time of writing, as well as all the visitor management work i am also writing our annual report and have totalled up the Fulmar count on the island. The total is 286 occupied nest sites around the island which is down by 20 occupied site last year.

Shag GZJZ - Another rescue from discarded waste...

Another Lucky Shag

Visitors had been reporting a juvenile Shag with some rubbish around it's neck at The Alterstanes. It was looking bad for the bird. Now it was away from the nest it would be almost impossible to catch.

The bird had been ringed on the 2nd June near The Alterstanes at Horse Hole. It wore a ring with the letters GZJZ.

 

The bird  was expertly caught by Mark by climbing stealth like, as it sat on the rocks. He carried it up and we cut the detritus off it. It was likely that this rubbish was in the birds nest and this is where it picked it up.

 

The bird was released after it's ordeal. The bird was still in relatively good condition. It had been managing to catch fish even with this rubbish round it's neck.

This is a perfect example of how throwing litter into the sea can have a direct impact on the birds of the Isle of May.

This bird and the now famous 'Beer Shag' that we wrote about last year were lucky ones. How much of our other sea life is not so lucky?

What's going on this week then?

The seabird counting has finished for the season for now so with less fieldwork, but we are keeping busy with more visitor related things on the Isle of May NNR.

The May Princess crowd disembark and get a cold welcome from the Terns

A small sailboat stops at The Alterstanes for a spot of Lunch

It was a very busy weekend for boats coming out with lots of tourists visiting the island. At least eight boats were in the harbour at high tide on Sunday safely moored behind the May Princess.

Calum an I have been very busy tidying up the paths after all the rain that has fallen. Holyman's Road is almost passable again. The path edging is now finished along Three Tarn Nick .As well as watching the Terns Paula and Lucie are getting on well with scraping the doors ready for a fresh coat of paint.

The Swallows built this nest in the Bath House but unfortunately left soon after.

But hopefully this bird will fair better as it's sitting on 4 eggs in the freezer room. This is the first breeding attempt for twelve years on the island. The last pair raised two chicks.

Puffling in the moth trap

I should not have been surprised really but when I went to the mothtrap on the 30th I got the almost jumped out of my skin when a fledged puffin (puffling) jumped out from behind the mothtrap. Birds are attracted to light or sound after they emerge out of their burrows. We pick up to 4 a day this year so far with the first one being last Wednesday. This bird was ringed and released safely from the west cliffs at dusk.

The mothtrap is put out every night. This year the mothing has been very poor. Day after day there have been very few entries in log. Hopefully our moth catching will improve and we'll post more pictures soon. We can catch over 300 in some nights. We've caught our first Dark Arches of the season which is easily our most numerous moth.

The entry on the 30th

Here is the puffling. It was a very lively bird in good condition. It was not at all happy being caught after being dazzled by the traps light.

This moth is a Bright line Brown Eye. A regular visitor to our trap.

 Can you see this Netted Pug on the wall of where we put the mothtrap?



Mark later turned up with a Guillemot he'd found in one of the Heligoland traps

Also not too happy about being caught! See the lovely yellow throat and  it's not cause he's squeezing it!

Chicks Special...

We are over half way through the breeding season but there is still lots to see around the Isle of May NNR. Lot's of balls of fluff are still to be seen all over the island.

Eider Ducklings are doing well on the loch

An Arctic Tern chick wedges itself between rocks in an attempt to camoflage

 This little Arctic Tern chick has only hatched recently

This Tern chick likes to run around at the feet of May Princess passengers while they disembark to boat

Pied Wagtails are still producing young. They are one of the two regular breeding songbirds on the island

The Lesser Black-backed Gulls looking over their two chicks

A Puffling is stuck in the vegetation. This bird was released at dusk

Plump Kittiewake chicks near the South Horn 

A Guilliemot chick sits in the shade of it's parent

                          One of the dozen or so Oystercatcher chicks that are around the Island

I managed to get a few close up shots of the Island Longtails. Not a chick but still quite cute!