The first summer new moon coincided with a period of nice still weather so we had the chance to do some nocturnal netting for Storm Petrels. We headed to Hot Point, Lizard on the last two nights, netting a total of 52 birds. This is more than we've caught so early in the year before so worth the missed sleep!
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| Close up you can see where these 'tubenoses' get their name from |
Most of these were new birds, but we did recatch birds we'd ringed there in June and July last year which is interesting and also a single French-ringed bird. Cornwall really does get the lion's share of French birds with 2/6 birds caught in the UK in 2015 being caught in Cornwall.
We sometimes catch birds with parts of feet or legs missing and the last couple of nights saw a bird missing a whole leg and one just missing the end of its foot. This doesn't seem to hinder them too much though which is lucky!
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| This is as drastic an amputation as we've seen! |
07-10 June 2016: 702 storm petrel caught on Banneg Island, Brittany, during 3 consecutive nights, with 3 British ringed birds (from Cornwall?...), 3 Spanish + 2 Portuguese
ReplyDeleteWe can't compete with that Bernard, but then ours don't breed very locally... Nice to have some BTO birds and I'm sure they'll be ours or from South Wales!
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