It was with some relief that I caught the 0745
Aurigny
flight to Alderney on Saturday 11th June, as colour ringing
adult
Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the colony there forms an important part
of my
Bailiwick-wide research project on this gull. At times during the week
before
it seemed that the visit this year would prove impossible to pull off
in the
time window available, given work commitments, weather problems, boat
availability and then an injury to Chris Mourant a few days before,
which meant
that he was unavailable to help out. Fortunately the
Alderney Wildlife Trust stepped in, and with
their usual courtesy and help not only sorted out the boat trips to and
from
Burhou (during an especially busy time for them), but also provided
both the
ecologist (Liz Morgan) and the summer researcher (Lizzy White) to help
me. This
help was to prove invaluable, as without Liz and Lizzy I would have
been
severely restricted in what I could have achieved.
Once airborne I breathed a sigh of relief.
Unusually we
landed on the northerly grass strip at Alderney, and as the Trislander
slowed
to a stop I saw two raptors on a kill on the grass. The plane came to a
halt
right by them – a pair of Peregrines on a kill. Both birds took
off, one
looping around the plane giving outstanding close range views.
AWT reserves warden Chris kindly picked
me up from the
airport and took me to a shop so that I could buy some food and drink
for my
two nights stay on Burhou. There was then time to meet Liz and Lizzy
over tea
at the AWT HQ at Essex Farm. Roland arrived back from an early morning
boat trip
to Les Etacs gannetry to try to recover some more of the data loggers,
which
Phil Atkinson and Louise Soanes had attached to the Gannets the
previous week. In total now they had
retrieved 17 out of 23
loggers – which is a pretty outstanding achievement.
We enjoyed coffee and a chat in Town,
before going to the
AWT office in the High Street to take a look at the tracks of the 17
marked
gannets. The results are absolutely fascinating – but I shall not
steal the
thunder of the project here! No doubt the results will be published in
due
course. However…the real value of being able to use such
tracking devices on
seabirds very soon becomes obvious. It is a powerful new tool in the
box of
ornithologists, and research biologists.
It did not take me long to discuss with
Louise the possibility
of, next year, extending her research work to fitting some data loggers
on some
adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls on Burhou – a project I would be
keen to
participate in!
Anyway…back to the purpose of
this trip. At mid-day Roland
took us over to Burhou in the AWT RIB “Sunrise”. It was a
good crossing and we
were soon installed in the hut. Given the forecast for rain the
following day,
I was keen to use the available time on Saturday to catch adult Lesser
Black-backed Gulls for colour ringing. The previous week Liz had
completed the
2011 nest count and reached a figure in excess of 1,100 nests, which is
a
little above recent years. Subjectively I thought the numbers were
about
similar to the past few years. Interestingly I think the gulls are
pretty much on
their usual timings too this year. The vast majority of nests checked
contained
three eggs, with few having tiny one or two day old chicks. This seems
on a par
with 2009 and 2010 – when I visited Burhou on pretty much the
same dates.
What was again striking, however, is the real
paucity of
Herring Gulls on Burhou – such a change from the halcyon days
(for this
species) back in the 1980s and early 1990s! I cannot explain the strong
decrease, and I believe that we are now seeing this even in Guernsey,
Herm and
Sark (where there is an abundant supply of food from the organic
landfill at
Chouet and also from the sewage outfall pipe in the Little Russell).
Despite
there being large numbers of adult birds in Guernsey, the breeding
population
seems to me to be in decline.
On that first day there was little time
to consider anything
other than colour ringing the adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls, and with
a lot
of hard work and commitment from the team we managed to handle 45 gulls
by the
end of the afternoon. Of these 41 were given a colour ring for the
first time,
while we caught four birds which had been colour ringed on Burhou in
previous
years (2010 – three and 2009 – one). In addition we caught
three gulls which
already had Jersey metal rings – all birds which had been ringed
as chicks on
Burhou - in 1994 (two) and 2000 (one).
It had been a stunning
afternoon’s work, carried out in very
pleasant clear blue skies with gorgeous sunshine, but also a gentle
westerly
breeze to keep temperatures from soaring too high. As dusk fell there
was a
tremendous sunset with a burning red sky – dotted with the
occasional Lesser
Black-backed Gulls flying across the horizon or perched on the rocks.
It was a
very beautiful end to a rather special day!
However…one thing I learnt on
this visit is that the old
adage “Red sky at night…shepherd’s delight” is
a load or rubbish (unless of
course the shepherd in question is a lover of perpetual rain!). Soon
after
darkness fell it began to rain…and it carried on through the
night and right
through the whole of the next day. As a result we spent no more than a
few
minutes outside the hut on Burhou for the whole of the day on Sunday.
At least
if gave me the chance to read Richard Bach’s “Jonathan
Livingstone Seagull” again
(how appropriate was that?!), and to catch up on quite a bit of lost
sleep in
recent weeks.
It was fascinating to be on Burhou in
such weather for the
gulls just sat quietly (for them!) on their nests keeping their eggs
and in a very
few cases small chicks dry and warm. There was hardly any of the usual
gull
banter and squabbling. The Puffin raft in the bay in front of the hut
reached over
100 birds, with many of these birds being seen on land towards dusk.
Several
times there was at least one Common Guillemot amongst the Puffins.
Although we had managed to complete the
majority of the work
with the Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the Saturday, there was still
about a
third of the island to work on Monday morning. At first I feared that
the sea
mist that greeted the day would turn into drizzle that would stop our
work, but
we were fortunate with the conditions. This enabled us to work from
0730-1230
to pretty much complete a circuit of the colony. On this day we colour
ringed
another 23 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, including two more birds that
were
already metal ringed (one from 2003 and the other from 2006).
Spot on time at 1330 we were picked up
again in Sunrise and
whisked back to Braye Harbour through the sea fog. Throughout the
morning
Alderney had been appearing and disappearing out of the mist. I had tea with Liz and Lizzy back at Essex,
before returning to the airport, where the fog had caused chaos. With
significant backlogs of people trying to fly out of the island I
thought I may
be delayed for many hours, but in the event I was airborne after only a
30
minute delay.
The return flight was also very scenic
in that I had
wonderful views of Les Etacs gannetry soon after take-off, and then
further out
across the Swinge I could see Burhou. As we approached Guernsey we had
to await
a landing slot, so we headed out flying parallel to Sark’s north
coast, giving
the best aerial views of this island I’ve ever had!
So…after fearing that I may miss
out on my work with adult
Lesser Black-backed Gulls on Burhou this year, the 2011 visit turned
out to be
extra special. Not only was it highly successful, enabling 64 new birds
to be
colour ringed, but it was a very enjoyable despite having to stay
inside the
hut all day on Sunday and work flat out on the Saturday afternoon and
Monday
morning to get the work covered.
My thanks once again to AWT for their help and support, and
to Liz and Lizzy in particular for their much appreciated help with the
work.
PKV
14 June 2011
