Longue Pierre, The Humps
18th June 2007
A short visit to Longue Pierre courtesy of Tara from
Island Rib Tours on Monday 18th June 2007 at 5.30pm resulted
in a
few additional birds to the annual sea bird total. Ringers
were Paul, Chris and
Catherine (David having missed the
boat).
A window in the poor weather forecast meant that the
team decided to proceed with their visit albeit that other sites had
proved
disappointing. The picture was no
different on Longue Pierre with again virtually no Shags nesting. The
adults
are about, but for some reason have not nested this year.
No active nests were found, other than a
single chick of reasonable size which was ringed. However
a dead adult shag was found with a ring on indicating
that it was 16 years old – having been ringed by Paul in 1991 on
the same
islet.
The Common Guillemots were
down too, although we did
see about ten chicks and half a dozen eggs under one large boulder in
the
centre of the island. Two adult
Guillemots were ringed from the colony and four retraps gained from
adults. The
ringers used the Guillemot hooks constructed by Derek Solway which
proved very
successful especially the smaller leg hook.
After about 10 minutes of hooking out Guillemots we left the
colony to
settle back down as there was a reasonable amount of wet guano under
the rock
which was beginning to stick to the chicks.
With limited wind the ringers also had to put adults back under
the rock
due to the risks of poor take-offs from the rock if released away from
the
colony.
The mallow on the lower part of the island was not
nearly as lush as previous years and was infested with flies making
hunting for
gull chicks less than pleasant. A total
of three Great Black Backed Gull chicks was ringed, again poor numbers
compared
to previous years. The sea beet was
doing well on the island but did not provide such a good cover for
seabird
chicks.
The two other Guillemot
colonies were checked on the
far north end of the island but there were no adults or chicks, only
remnants
of 4 or 5 eggs which had been predated or unsuccessful.
The team returned to the
dingy which was already in
danger of floating off on the rising tide and rowed back to the rib. Chris pointed out a Razorbill sitting on the
obelisk type rock off Longue Pierre. However
due to work commitments Tara had to return to St Peter
Port for her next boat trip and we were unable to visit any other
islets.