Puffin Islands - Kittiwakes

The last Puffin Island ringing trip of the year is always Kittiwakes and is always enjoyable mixed wit ha tinge of sadness. Enjoyable because Kittiwakes are probably our most beautiful 'gull' and sad because I know its our last trip of the season and that in previous years Kittiwakes have had pretty disastrous breeding seasons on Puffin Island with the number of chicks produced dropping year on year.

This year saw a new dynamic added to the normal ringing and colour ringing process. Researchers from Liverpool University were going to fit geolocators to try and determine where 'our' birds  winter as there seems to be a big difference between breeding success between various colonies with colonies relatively close together having similar success rates. These geolocators weigh less than 1 gram and have a 2 year battery life and the data collected, once the geolocators are removed if the birds are recaught in subsequent years, will hopefully provide us with valuable data.

See here for more information on these geolocators.

Once again the weather hampered our plans and with the forecast for Saturday being being grim we switched to Sunday. Even then the weather looked poor early on but was forecast to improve by lunchtime so we decided to make a leisurely 11 am start rather than the usual early morning.  At least  I got a couple of extra hours in bed and a decent breakfast before leaving

Previous visits to the island and a visual productivity count suggeseted there were more nesting pairs with young than in the past few years and so it proved with the best total of young ringed for 5 years. A still rather paltry 22 but compared to recent years where we'vehad single figures or even zero it was a big improvement. There are only so many nests we can reach wit hladders and there were many more inaccessible nests with young so it looks as if the breeding season is going to be fairly successful.

Kitiwake chicks are impossibly cute but have a less endearing hait of vomiting their stomach contents all over you as a defence mechanism. As their diet consists of squid and small fish the resultant vomit is very smelly and reminiscent of half digested sushi. By the end of the day my clothes reeked of fish.

Me with a Kittiwake chick - thanks Katherine for the photo. Its a rare one of me actually ringing a bird. You can see the nesting ledges on the cliffs behind me

Kittiwake chick 

Kittiwake nest with eggs 

As well as a god number of chicks ringed the adult geolocator tagging went well with all 20 geolocators deployed and a a total of 37 new bird caught and 8 retraps from previous years.

Adult Kittiwake fitted with geolocator

Kittiwake processing team sheltering under an umbrella until the weather improved.

Once we'd finished with the Kittiwakes we spent the rest of our allotted time ringing a few more Guillemot and Razorbill chicks that we'd not had time to ring on our previous visit. A visit to Puffin Island isn't complete with at least 1 Puffin to ring and this time we managed to catch 3! 

Another great day and lovely to catch up with friends I hadn't seen for awhile. Sadly thats it for this season  but I'm hoping I'm still fit enough for next year! 

Puffin Island seabird ringing trips - cormorants, gulls and auks

It was good to be back on Puffin island again this year following several years disruption due to covid and then, later, AI. The weather gods conspired against us though with poor weather delaying some of the breeding season and trips being rescheduled. Bad weather meant we also had  to reschedule some trips literally the evening before we were due to set off. 

Despite the delays ity appears that birds have had a good breeding season and, following a winter eradication programme, there weren't many signs of the plagues of rats that have caused problems for the last few years. Hopefully this winter will see the remaining few finished off.

As per our usual samples 250 Cormorants were ringed of which 50 were colour ringed. The colony seemed smaller this year with birds more spread out but we still managed to ring our sample size quite easily after which we searched for a few gull chicks before starting on ringing a few more Razorbills and Guillemots.

Greater Black-backed Gull chick

Greater Black-backed Gull chick

Searching for gull chicks in the long vegetation above the cliffs

Many of the Razorbills were ready to jump and join their parents on the sea and they were a perfect size to ring.

Razorbill 'jumpling'

Slightly younger Razorbill chick

Compared to Razorbills, which nest under boulders or rocky overhangs, Guillemots nest on communal ledges and are often covered in a horrid festering mix of regurgitated food and their own faeces. Even the adults become covered in the stuff and handling them isn't for those with a weak stomach. They really are the smelliest of birds.  Occasionally we get bridled guillemot and this form is generally quite rare so far south but becomes commoner the further north you go in their breeding range. To catch three on one breeding ledge in one session was a real surprise.