I was lucky enough to be able to go back to the Skerries recently to help ring Arctic Tern chicks with Steve & Rachel. Its a fantastic experience and northing quite matches the noise and smells of a busy tern colony - especially when they are as feisty as Arctic Terns. Hats are essential otherwise you'll end up wit ha head like a pin cushion from those needle sharp bills. Even better - we took a high speed trip over in a rib this year rather than the usual supply boat. The sea was almost flat calm and it was quite disconcerting to see that it appeared to curve downwards towards the boat. An optical illusion obviously but weird to see.
We only ring 500 of the chicks as there is a limited window of opportunity to limit disturbance. After we'd ringed the requisite number of chicks we retreated to the Lighthouse where we filled time waiting for the rib to return by photographing the terns or reading leg flag. They really are photogenic little birds. I even managed a close up shot of a tern chick just emerging from its egg.
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