Jethou,
Crevichon & Grande Fauconniere 16 June 2006
This was an all day visit –
Jamie, Catherine and Paul. We travelled
over on the Jethou workboat. Good to see Tom – the gardener
– the only member
of the original crew from my first visits to Jethou in the late
1970s!
We
got dropped off on Crevichon an hour before high tide. It was obvious
from
outset that relatively few Shags were nesting. Many nests were not
active. There
were several with eggs or tiny chicks and a few with chicks large
enough to
ring. Most nests contained two young. Even the top boulders only had
one chick
large enough to ring. Gulls
were not numerous but we were pleased to ring several Great
Black-backed Gulls
and a couple of Herring Gulls. A surprise was the fact that one of the
three
active egret nests had four young big enough to ring. The other two
nests
contained eggs. After some effort we managed to catch the four young as
they
clambered (prehistoric like) over the canopy of the small elders in
which they
nest. We colour-ringed these four birds.
A
couple of Oystercatcher nests with eggs. Oystercatcher nest with three
eggs and
Ringed Plover nest with four eggs by boathouse! After
a sandwich and a drink we completed a circuit of Jethou ringing every
Shag we
could find…few! The beach opposite Fauconniere had a collection
of Shag nests
under boulders – not seen in recent visits. With few shags to
concentrate on we
did spend a little time in search of gull chicks. Many were too small
but we
did find 23 Herring Gulls and six Lesser Black-backed Gulls along with
another
three Great Black-backed Gulls.
There
were rafts of 4 Puffin on SW corner and 8 on SE (with 2 on
Crevichon). We
climbed up onto Grande Fauconniere after lunch. It was very very quiet!
There
were a few Shag nesting, but this is the emptiest I’ve ever seen
the rock. We ringed
another 2 Great Black-backed Gulls and noted that at least two pairs of
Razorbill
were nesting. We also noticed a second
Razorbill colony nesting on the lower rock.
We saw a Brown Rat running under a boulder. The previous year we
had seen a Brown Rat on Crevichon, while a Herring
Gull chick regurgitated a young rat on mainland Jethou.
We
attempted to catch adult Northern Fulmars on nest ledges with two
unsuccessful
attempts and one successful but this bird was ringed already –
D3342 (Jamie and
Catherine had ringed it as a nesting adult on 31st May 2002. We
checked the Manx Shearwater burrows on
Jethou after, but no sign of activity and the vegetation was quite
long. No
rabbits were seen during the visit. There
were lots of introduced Red-legged Partridges on the island.
Totals
ringed: -
Shag
(90), Great Black-backed Gull (15), Lesser Black-backed Gulls (7),
Herring
Gulls (23), Little Egrets (4).