Attacking the Mullion Mallow

With Mullion Island's Cormorants mostly all grown up, it was safe to head over to the island yesterday in two kayaks to do our first Great Black-backed Gull nest count of the year. A small team of four were able to cover most of the island, just missing out areas where the young Cormorants (and some Shags) were perched up on the cliff ledges.

Shag nests on the south side of the island

 

Whilst some birds were nesting on open ground, most were tucked deep in the Mallow that covers half of the island. This doesn't make nest counting very easy, hence needing a small team to be able to line-search through the vegetation, which is often over head height!

In total we located 70 nests, although we did miss some areas of the island. This compares reasonably well to the record count last year, but there were slightly fewer eggs/chicks than expected. Totals over the years for the island are shown below for info.

	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
GBB Gull nests		62	37	83	70
GBB Gull eggs/chicks	98	174	90	204	166
GBB Gull chicks ringed	4	17	12	13
Cormorant nests	24	52	50	39	47
Cormorant chicks ringed	11	19	7	16	0

Whilst on the island we were also hoping to ring some Shag chicks, but in the end only two right on top of the island were in a safe enough place to get to.