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! 

Hilbre Rock Pipit colour ringing project

Two years ago we decided to register a Rock Pipit colour ringing scheme for Rock Pipits on Hilbre. The main objectives of the project was to try and determine where our breeding Rock Pipits disappeared to in the winter, where the juveniles dispersed to and map the breeding territories of birds nesting on Hilbre & Middle Eye. In a good year Rock Pipits can have three broods of young and the islands can only support 4-6 breeding pairs. As with all passerines lots of young birds don't survive their first winter and older birds obviously die and we knew that there must be some new recruitment into the breeding population and colour ringing provides an ideal opportunity for us to study the small Hilbre population. 

Colour ringing means we can identify individual birds without having to recapture them. It also allows non-ringers to assist in identifying individuals. We also knew we get passage Scandinavian  'littoralis'  race birds as we'd 'controlled a Norwegian colour ringed bird on the 10th October 2016 so we were also hoping to catch and ring some of these birds. See here for information on that bird.

Once we'd got agreement from the BTO for  a colour marking scheme with the defined colour combination of blue darvic with three whiter letters on the right leg and a red colour ring above the metal on the left leg it was a case of waiting until we could get the colour rings made.  We consulted with the lead on a similar project in Scotland so we could ensure our rings were of the same size to ensure we could get approval and ordered the rings from AvianID in Cornwall. We eventually got the rings a few months later and started the project in June 2023.

We'd previously caught Rock Pipits using Potter traps baited with mealworms and, occasionally, caught them in our heligoland traps. It soon became apparent that spring traps would be more succesfull and a concerted effort was made to catch Rock Pipits. Between 2004 and 2023 Hilbre ringed 50 new Rock Pipits. Since the colour ringing project started in June 2023 we've caught and colour ringed 32 birds and have generated nearly 200 sightings both from Hilbre Observatory members and members of the public.

What has become apparent is that many of our Rock Pipits winter on the mainland with a whole host of sightings between Hoylake & Meols. One bird was even photographed on Hilbre and then photographed the next day at Meols before returning to Hilbre the following day before spending most of the winter on the mainland. Most of these movements have been between 5-7 km in a straight line.

We've also shown number of young birds returning to breed on Hilbre in subsequent years after fledging. of the 32 birds colour ringed only 6 were subsequently not seen again and these were all juvenile birds. The fate of these birds is open to speculation but a tantalising clue came in March this year. A juvenile was colour ringed with darvic CBF on the 9th of August 2024 and subsequently recaptured on 19th August on Hilbre. It wasn't seen again to I was tagged in a photograph on "X" taken at Bispham Prom near Blackpool  where Dave had photographed it! A movement of 85 km in a straight line.

Intriguingly we'd also had a report and a photo of a colour ringed bird at Egremont on the Mersey. This is 14.5 km in a straight line but unfortunately the code couldn't be read on the darvic

Hopefully the project will continue to give good results and, who knows, we may even get one of our birds seen even further afield than Blackpool.

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!

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. 

Moorhen colour ringing season again.

Last years successful breeding pair, H23 & H24 have been usurped and chased off the pond in Grovesnor Park, Chester. They've been seen on the nearby river Dee with young so I'm not sure whether they were actually chased off or if they decided the river was better breeding habitat. I feel its the former as last time we went to ring them H23 was calling from inside a holly tree and H24 was nowhere near the pond while new male patrolled its edges. The new pair are unringed and have already successfully reared 4 full grown young and have recently hatched a 2nd brood.

Various things, included a dislocated shoulder, have prevented me from getting down there but we managed a trip recently and managed  to catch one of this years juveniles from the resident pairs 1st brood. They’ve already hatched the 2nd brood and we watched the older chicks feeding their younger siblings.

H27 -the 1st of this years new cohort

Once we've caught one Moorhen we usually find the others become very suspicious and stay away from the traps. However, we generally persevere for a little longer and this time had the bonus of catching a drake mallard just entering eclipse. A ringing tick for Ursula.

Aged as Euring 6 (at least two years old) by the solid black tips to greater coverts 4-6. Its not often I catch Mallard so it was nice to refresh my memory!

Black-headed Gull ringing, Shotton

I was lucky enough to get an invite to Tata Steel at Shotton recently with the Merseyside ringing group to ring Black-headed Gulls at the raft nesting colony on their lagoons. Thus colony had been previously hit badly by avian flu but seems to have bounced back with a recce a couple of weeks ago showing good numbers of nests and newly hatched young. 

A great if noisy afternoon where we ringed a total of 170 Black-headed Gull chicks and colour ringed 150 of those with black darvics with a four number numeric code.

Black-headed Gulls are on the amber list of birds of conservation concern in the context of a UK breeding species. Many more spend the winter here from Europe but its important to monitor UK colonies such as these and collect data such as juvenile survival rates and movements to help monitor and protect populations.

Although most of the pairs had well grown chicks close to fledging there were still some late nesters still with clutches of eggs. Hopefully they'll be successful but as with all colony nesting birds there is safety in numbers and once the older chicks have fledged the adults will leave the colony leaving the late ones more vulnerable to predation.

The rafts are also home to a colony of Common Terns and they also seem to be doing well. We'll go back to ring them later.

Another blast from the past: Shetland September 2009

I started this blog in 2008 primarily as a vehicle to record my birding trips so, in old age when memories fail, I had some thing to look back on and remind me of the incredible adventures I've had over the years with some good mates. I've already written about our first trip to Shetland in spring 2007 for Killdeer and how we went back again in September here. This post carries on from where I left off with a trip to Fetlar and Foula.

With Jason, Al and Malc we'd arrived on Shetland a few days previously and were staying at Hoswick. A busy few days had us touring the mainland mopping up a few species the guys needed for their year lists.

Spot the real scarecrows

It was the 28th September and we'd been watching an elusive female Sardinian Warbler at Spiggie and I was chatting to the owner of the garden the bird frequented (who'd had kindly allowed us to view from inside the garden) when one of the local birders told us about a Swainsons Thrush that had just been found on Fetlar. Given that it was several hours and three  islands away involving two ferries and a long drive we were advised to leave immediately if we wanted to see it that day. What we didn't realise as we set off was that a 1st winter mle Siberian Thrush had just been found on Foula and the locals had all chartered a flight - in those days, pre- AirTask, inter island flights could be chartered if there was enough interest.  We had no chance of getting on that flight so carried on to Fetlar. Jason contacted Jon Dunn on Whalsay who gave us the name of a boat skipper who'd be willing to take us to Foula the next day and could take 14 people.  Putting a message out through Rare Bird Alert (RBA) he filled the boat within minutes and we agreed to meet the skipper in Lerwick early the next morning.

Jase, Al & me on inter island ferry to Fetlar. Note the binoculars of preference in those days were Leica's

Me, Jase, Al & Malc on Fetlar

Arriving at Fetlar we drove the short distance to Houbie and parked at the interpretive centre before strolling up the hill towards the community hall. We weren't quite sure where we were going as the message was rather vague as to where the bird was stating only that it was ' along the road towards the community hall'. 

As usual Al was strolling along fag in hand when he suddenly announced he'd got it. The Swainsons Thrush had literally hopped on the wall in front  of him before landing in an adjacent field. 

We enjoyed watching this American catharus thrush as it foraged in fields along the road until it flew down hill and out of sight. With time pressing we went back towards the car taking in a Red- backed Shrike in the gardens of Leagarth House and a wander up Feal Burn for a Blyth's Reed Warbler.

The next day was the big boat trip to Foula and all the guys making the trip met up in Lerwick for a cooked breakfast before embarking on our transport for the day the 'Marie Rose' skippered by the indomitable Davey. Joining us that day were Stu Piner (of RBA), John Bell and Pierre-Andre Crochet with another french birder. News wasn't looking good with local on Foula reporting there was no sign by the time we left. Knowing how elusive Siberian Thrushes can be we weren't unduly worried......

Three hours later we arrived for our 1st visit to Foula. Skipper Davey gave us a time to be back at the quay and we split up and headed off in different directions looking for the elusive Sibe. Nothing, zilch. All we had for our efforts were several Yellow-browed Warblers, a Snow Bunting and a flyover Citrine Wagtail that Al & I followed until it landed and got brief views before it took off again. 

Despondent we trudged back to the quay to find our skipper had laid on cheese and biscuits for us aboard the Marie Rose! Not only that but it was his last charter of the year and he had an immense quantity of spirits and beers that needed to be drunk.....

The weather was beautiful with calm sea and blue skies. Davey asked if we wanted some music and proceeded to put on a CD (!) of Scottish reel music as we hurtled along with a creamy white wake behind us. Spotting a fishing boat, being followed by a number of seabirds, he took us alongside where we enjoyed good views of Blue Fulmar and Sooty Shearwater whilst he yelled abuse at the crew of the other boat who he obviously knew well. It was all getting quite surreal.

News came through that the Killdeer we'd seen in the spring had been re-found on the Pool of Virkie so Al asked Davey to drop him off at Grutness as he wasn't with us in the spring. We carried onto Lerwick making sure we demolished the rest of the free drinks on offer. Apparently it was all going to be poured down the drain if we didn't drink it. It was a slightly tipsy but happy crew that disembarked and went our separate ways. Jason, our designated driver, had remained sober and drove us towards Geosetter where a Red-breasted Flycatcher had been located before heading south to pick Al up. 

What followed has been the subject of years of ribbing. Whilst searching the burn at Geosetter I tripped and somehow my old Nokia 3310 phone got dislodged from my pocket never to be seen again. Its still there somewhere. Luckily I still had my works Blackberry personal organiser which, back then, were all the rage for business use as they were able to send and receive emails as well as make calls! 

Jase took a phone call from a slightly inebriated Al asking how long we were going to be. It turned out he'd got lost and ended up walking along the runway at Sumburgh in his attempt to get to the Pool of Virkie and was picked up by an airline stewardess who kindly dropped him off at the correct place. He then cadged a lift to the off licence by  Mainlands Mini market at Dunrossness. By this time it was late afternoon and all the shops shut at 4 pm on Saturday but he knocked on the door of the store and persuaded the woman to sell him 4 cans of Stella and a pack of cigarettes. When we finally met up with him we found him sharing a can of Stella with the stores owner on the doorstep......

A great trip and the first of many autumn visits to Shetland which has got noticeably busier over the years as other birders recognise the islands as rarity magnets.