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22 Jul 2025

Hilbre 11th July 2025

A leisurely start to my latest visit to Hilbre as the intention was to stay over the tide and try snd catch some more Rock Pipits to add to our colour ringing project. At low tide they tend to feed further out on the exposed rocks and mud foraging among the seaweed whilst at high tide they get forced to feed on the island itself making them easier to catch.

On arrival the first thing I noticed was the huge number of Six-spot Burnet moths nectaring on thistles and  Birds-foot trefoil. 



The warm weather was certainly bringing the butterflies out with a total of 8 species recorded during the day including a good number of stunning Common Blues.



Other flowering plants included the delicate Harebell - commonly known as 'Witches Thimbles of 'Fairy Bells' and Common Centaury.

Harebell

Common Centaury

With the tide advancing and the island cut off by water it was time to try to catch some Rock Pipits.  I caught three birds but one was a retrap from two weeks ago. The second was one of this this years young but it was the third that was the  most interesting. Ringed as a juvenile in July 2020 it was subsequently recaptured in August 2020 but not seen since. We'd been seeing a metal ringed bird without  colour ring sporadically over the breeding season and this appears to be that bird.

CBV one of this years young Rock Pipits

CBX an adult previously ringed with a metal BTO ring in 2020

Coupled with field sightings of three more colour ringed birds this all adds to the data we are collecting on this species. A good number of juveniles were also seen and some of the adults are collecting food so I suspect they may be on their 2nd or 3rd broods.



A real surprise was catching a very juvenile Wheatear. I can't recall seeing one in such juvenile plumage on Hilbre and it must have fledged fairly recently and close to the island.


Another successful but blisteringly hot day on the island!


13 Jul 2025

Puffin Island - Kittiwakes.

A bit out of sequence but we just finished the Puffin Island seabird ringing season with the final and highly anticipated Kittiwake ringing trip. mainly because this is often more relaxed and less physically demanding than the other trips. A theme of this seasons trips has been the delays caused by the weather, in particular the wind, which has prevented us from landing. This trip seemed to be going the same way with the proposed Saturday or Sunday trips being cancelled. Monday was also impossible and it looked as if we might not even get over on the Tuesday but Steve managed to persuade the boatman to take us from Beaumaris on a larger boat. The only issue being that we'd get picked up later in the day by the dory and dropped at Penmon Point.  This meant leaving my Landrover at Penmon and Steve picking me up to take me to Beaumaris so that I could run everyone back later! 

Puffin Island viewed from Penmon point early morning

Despite the logistical difficulties we were hopeful that we'd have a successful day as previous visits had shown that Kittiwakes were nesting on ledges we hadn't seen them on for a few years.

The trip from Beaumaris was uneventful and we arrived to Puffin Island to find a Grey Seal hauled out on the beach. Completely ignoring us it carried on resting whilst we disembarked and changed from wellies to more suitable footwear.

Disembarking at Puffin Island. Photo @Natalie

Atlantic Grey Seal hauled out on the beach

Researchers from Liverpool University had joined us ands the plan was to catch and colour ring as many adult Kittiwakes as possible and recover some of the data loggers fitted last year and to replace these with new ones. See here for details of these from last year's trip. 


Working slowly around the nesting ledges one team concentrated on colour ringing adults whilst another team, including me, used ladders to ring chicks in the nest. I love this as Kittiwakes chicks are beautiful. After my dislocated shoulder incident I was a a bit wary about to much climbing but I managed it without aggravating my shoulder to much.

Sophie footing the ladder and making sure its safe to climb

Me passing chicks to Holly to ring . Photo @Natalie





In recent years Kittiwake numbers have plummeted and the number of chicks ringed has dropped accordingly. A decade ago we might have ringed 70+ chicks and the numbers steadily declined until at one point there were none to ring. A combination of bad weather, a peregrine taking the young off the nest and a general decline in the breeding population and breeding success was mirrored in the numbers of chicks ringed where we were down to single figures and the low double figures. Last year was a definite improvement with 22 chicks ringed but this year we managed 50! The number of adults caught was also up with 61 this year compared to 37 last year. Proof that our initial observations were correct.

Once we'd finished with the Kittiwakes we ringed a few more Guillemot chicks before finishing off with finding more gull chicks and anything else we could catch. 

Me with two well grown Herring Gull chicks. Photo @Holly.

Of course no Puffin Island ringing trip would be complete without the obligatory Puffin and Steve managed to catch 4 adults which were a new species for several people on the trip.



A very successful trip ended with the boatman picking us up and dropping us off at Penmon where everyone piled in the Landrover for the lift back to Beaumaris.