Godin & Galeu – 20 June 2006
Tara and Island Ribs picked
us up at 1015 for trip out to complete the seabird ringing on The
Humps.
Catherine ran from her meeting to get changed into Jamie’s spare
clothes and make
the trip! Jamie, Michelle and Chris Mourant also came along. It was
fabulous to
get out of the office and blast across the sea out between the Ferriers
reef
and Jethou and behind Herm. The landing was a little trickier today
– just a
very slight swell but a little more wind making manoeuvring the rib a
bit more
difficult.
At
first we were concerned that on landing on Godin several of the young
Great Cormorants
actually took off from the islet and flew around the rock. However,
later we saw
several young Cormorants flying easily around the area – we
expect that many of
them are already spending time at sea and back on the islet. Even so,
we
avoided the rocky end of Godin so as not to chase any of the huge
youngsters
(which were pretty much all ringed from our visit on 1st
June) into
the sea.
It
was very clear that European Shags had only been moderately successful.
Catherine
and I ringed 10 (Jamie and Chris a further 4). Total = 14 Shags. We
also ringed
one Cormorant and three Great Black-backed Gulls (all pulli).
There
were still some Guillemots with young on the islet, but they were not
accessible. There was also one Atlantic Puffin visible in a shallow
burrow
under a boulder – but again it was not accessible.
Tree
Mallow appears to be doing very well – probably helped by the
very wet May
weather. There were lots of Great Black-backed Gulls overhead clearly
with
young on the islet. Unfortunately, because of the large Cormorants we
could not
search for them.
We
then moved on to Galeu – where Jamie rowed just him and me
ashore. We only had 15
minutes to get the job done so we hastily ringed all the Shag we could
find
(14) and also 6 Great Black-backed Gulls. There were not as many shags
as
normal, but it was still great to take a quick look at the 2006 season
on
Galeu. Catherine et al saw a large male Grey Seal in the bay while we
were on
the islet. Also 5 Grey Plovers on the rocks (the autumn migration has
started!).
We
had a quick row back to rib, and a fast journey back to Harbour –
where the
punters were waiting for their trip out to see the wildlife!