Chris
Mourant, Paul Veron and Catherine Kinnersly managed to land on Godin,
the Humps
on Saturday 19th May 2007 at 17.15 courtesy of Tara at
Island Rib
Tours. A bumpy ride over in the rib,
followed by a short row in the rib’s small dingy at the hands of
Paul, landed
us on Godin in one piece. Working as a
tight team we approached the Great Cormorant nests from the furthest
eastern
end and ringed our first few nestlings.
Many of the chicks were already very large, with adult feathers
growing
through their downy baby coats. The
team then worked round the shoreline clockwise, ensuring that no chicks
made a
run for the sea. Occasionally we veered
more onto the land but kept this to a minimum to limit disturbance. A total of 21 Cormorant chicks were ringed
with a few too large and mobile to catch and so left.
A couple of nests were too small to ring and the team decided to
revisit in three weeks time. Much later
– even by a few days – and most of the Cormorant would have
been uncatchable!
Only
one European Shag nest was noted with very small young. Many sites
normally
occupied on Godin had no activity at all. We conjectured that the
majority of
shags could have refrained from breeding this year due to lack of food
or poor
hunting conditions caused by rough seas which had reduced visibility.
This
year, so far, looks even worse for shags than 2006, when some colonies
only had
half to two-thirds of the normal sites occupied, and when most pairs
attempting
breeding only raised one or two chicks.
A
few gull nests were noted – Great Black-backed and Lesser
Black-backed gulls
and Herring Gull. The Common Guillemots
were again back on their breeding sites on the islet.
Returned
to Guernsey by 18.30