Saturday saw us boarding the Sapphire at 09.00 for a full days pelagic adventure. Anticipation was high as we steamed out of St Mary's harbour and headed for open seas. As usual the plan was to chum and drift and then chum and steam. Our first good bird was a Bonxie that came along to investigate before deciding our breakfast Cornish pasties weren't exactly a healthy breakfast!
Another great day with Blue-finned Tuna, Bottle-nosed and Short-beaked Common Dolphins being seen in good numbers. Again Wilson's Petrels were seen with 14 individuals being logged. Interestingly we had both large and small type Wilson's and a recent paper proposes splitting the Wilson's complex into three different species. See here for the full paper.
It was brilliant experience - not only did the birds perform but we had a great laugh with lots of banter. Scott had arranged for us to do some Storm Petrel ringing that evening at Deep Point so after disembarking at 4 pm we headed for an early dinner before getting a few hours rest before he kindly picked us up at around 21.00 to go and meet up with the rest of the team and help set the nets and sound system. We'd all ringed Storm petrels before with my last time being on Bardsey (see here) when I helped Chris install their solar system. Its not a species we see regularly in Cheshire and although there has been a attempt to catch them on Hilbre there has been no success.
What a treat. We caught 14 Storm Petrels before packing up much earlier than expected around midnight. The use of red light prevents damage to the birds eyes. The birds are extracted from the nets by feel or using the red lamps
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| Mist net set at dusk with the sound system playing Storm Petrel calls being started. |
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| Fitting the ring |
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| Measuring the wing |
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| Milky way! |
Storm Petrels are our smallest seabird and as tough as they come. They only come ashore to breed and spend their non-breeding lives far out in our oceans in all weathers. Many thanks to Scott and Jim for arranging this and allowing us to reacquaint ourselves with these special birds. Steve last ringed a Storm Petrel 37 years go!
Incredibly we've subsequently discovered that the first bird we ringed that evening at 22.00 was subsequently retrapped the same night at 01.40 by Mark Grantham at Porthgwarra in Cornwall - a distance of 27 miles in he space of 3 hrs and 40 minutes and thats not allowing for the 'zig- zagging' as the bird feeds. It just goes to show how far these little birds move to feed.
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