After a very hot day in the office, Catherine
and Paul Veron, along with Chris Mourant, were delighted to make a
quick trip
out to Longue Pierre, the Humps with Tara and Darcy courtesy of Island
Rib
Tours at 16.30. A reporter from BBC
radio (Jim Cathcart) was also aboard for the trip.
With
three and a half weeks since the last trip, the seabird team were keen
to ascertain
whether the good start to the seabird breeding season on Longue Pierre
had been
maintained - especially as 40 of the Shag nests had been marked for
research
purposes.
A very smooth ride out, with warm sea breeze
and a short row across in the tender gave the team ¾ of an hour
to ring the
seabirds before Tara’s next boat trip booking.
They worked fast in a clockwise direction, circling the outside
of the
islet first before working through the vegetation to look for hiding
gull
pulli. A total of five Great Black
Backed Gull chicks were found and ringed, four of them being large
enough to
also take the yellow colour ring. A
Great Black Backed Gull chick - 0L5 which had been colour ringed on the
islet
on the 6th June 2009 was still present. Three Herring Gull
pulli
were found and all fitted with colour rings.
The team was also delighted to find three remaining Cormorants
of
ringable size which had not yet fledged, together with 24 Shag pulli. However with limited time, the team was not
able to fully search the vegetation or to look at the Guillemot colony,
which
sounded like it had also been successful.
Catherine was only able to track down less than
half (17) of the marked Shag nests due to time pressures.
However, of these 17 rechecked nests, eight contained
chicks which were now large enough
to ring, two contained chicks that were already ringed and six were
empty
(either due to fledging or the youngsters moving to other nests). No bodies were recovered although a thorough
search was not carried out. Worryingly
one marker had been dislodged from its rock.
The team returned to Guernsey by 18.10 very pleased with the results of their visit and grateful to Island Rib Tours for the opportunity of visiting the islet again.
Catherine Veron
1 July 2009