Puffin Island seabird ringing

I've already written a blog post about our last trip of the season where we had a successful day ringing both adult and young Kittiwakes - see here

The first trip of the season was to ring Shag and Razorbill chicks as well as catching and ringing as many adult Razorbills as a we can - always an interesting experience for those unused to their fearless aggression. Handled correctly they can't really hurt you but be wary of relaxing your hold as they're just biding their time! The next trip concentrated on Cormorants and Guillemots whilst the third trip was primarily Guillemots.

Puffin Island from Penmon Point on a dull July morning

The chicks are more docile and many of them were almost ready to fledge. As with other alcid species young Razorbills fledge before they're fully grown and are known as 'jumplings' as they make there way down to the water jumping  (often from great height) to the parent waiting on the water.

Razorbill 'jumpling'

Although most of the Razorbill chicks were well grown there were still some smaller chicks around and some were to small to take a conventional ring. Steve & Rachel are licensed to use 'waxed' rings. These have a layer of wax on the inside of the ring that wears away as the birds leg grows. This needs special care to ensure the ring isn't too tight once the wax wears away.

Razorbill chick with waxed ring

The Cormorant colony is always fun to work in a masochistic way - as long you don't mind the smell and getting covered in guano and cormorant vomit. This consists of large identifiable pieces of fish and smells, understandably, rather fishy. Along with the stink of guano and the noise its a unique experience. It's difficult terrain to work in as the Cormorants nest on rocky outcrops along the cliff edge. As usual we colour ringed a sample of 200 young birds and ringed a total of 250. We only  go through the colony once to avoid to much disturbance and approach birds from below so they're not driven down hill and potentially over the cliff.

We ring only the chicks with well grown primaries, as in the photo above, as these have a better survival rate. There have been some interesting resightings of colour ringed birds over the years including birds in Spain and we've even seen a few off Hilbre.

In contrast to the solitary nesting Razorbills, Guillemots nest on tightly packed ledges. This usually involves crawling along fetid ledges but this year we were lucky as the dry weather had made the ledges much more hospitable. Groups of Guillemot chicks are held in folding mesh 'creches' before ringing and returning back to the exact spot they were retrieved from. As usual we tried to catch as many adults in an area first before ringing the chicks and this year we were lucky enough to catch an adult 'bridled' Guillemot. This form gets commoner the further north you get but are relatively rare on Puffin Island. Its a  genetic polymorphism rather than a separate species and thought to be influenced by a single gene. The reason why its commoner further north (up to 60% of Icelandic Guillemots are of this bridled form) is unclear. There has been some historic surveys done to determine the proportion of bridled Guillemots n UK colonies  - see here

The team ringing Guillemot chicks. Due to my recently dislocated shoulder I didn't feel confident I could climb back up so watched from above!

Rock Pipits are common around Puffin Island but, even though we run a colour ringing project for them on Hilbre, I've never seen a nest. Tom found a nest on Puffin Island but we didn't have any A2 rings. We took some with us on the next trip and the chicks were the perfect age to ring. A first for me! 

Eiders also nest on Puffin Island and we occasionally find the nests when ringing other species.

This was my 13th year ringing seabirds on Puffin Island and for me its a real highlight of the year. My first trip was in 2012 and I'm hoping to do a few more before I feel its getting physically to much for me!