Puffin Island

I always look forward to Puffin Island ringing trips. Being on an island surrounded by auks, gulls, cormorants & shags is kind of magical - despite the stench and the noise! Kieran joined us for this trip and, he, along with Chris met me at my place early morning before we drove over to Penmon Point, Anglesey to meet up with the rest of the team and take the short boat journey across. Unfortunately, after weeks of dry weather, we had heavy rain in the early morning which meant the guano covered rocks were particularly slick and smelly! 

Despite being eradicated a few years ago rats have now recolonised the island. Either by swimming across or jumping from boats! Despite us reporting them 3 years ago the enforcement agencies have been very slow in moving forward and getting another eradication programme sorted. Hopefully it'll be started soon as evidence of rat predation was everywhere with many young Razorbills, especially, being predated along with eggs. Considering the island hosts breeding colonies of amber listed Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls this reluctance to do anything quickly seems remarkable.

We still managed to ring 101 young Razorbills and another 19 new adults and retrap 17 previously ringed birds. One of these was particularly exciting. When I checked the ring number I knew it was quite old as the ring started with an M. Bizarrely suffix M was issued before K. From a previous ring reading trip I'd had a K suffix bird that was at least 20 years old so knew this must be older. In fact it was ringed in 1997 as a chick on the island! 

We also ringed 115 Shag chicks along with two new adults and one retrap. Adult Shags are amazing to see close up although the youngsters don't look any where near as smart yet.

We also ringed a few Guillemots although the bulk will be left until a future visit. Bridled Guillemots are scarce on Puffin Island but get commoner in colonies further north. It was nice to actually see one in the hand! 

Photo by Chris Williams

Its always nice to catch a Puffin. A few pairs breed o Puffin Island but we don't know how they'll fare this year with the rat problem. Eggs and pufflings in burrows are very vulnerable to rat predation. We catch a handful each year so it was good that we managed to get one for Kieran to ring. 

A good trip and despite the early morning rain the weather was kind to us.

Unfortunately a subsequent trip was aborted due to signs of birdflu on the island. Hopefully many of the young birds and adults would have already fledged and will return to breed in the future. a sad situation and its horrible to see so many of our seabird colonies suffering the affects of this devastating disease.