Photogenic Stonechat

Having been photographed as a scruffy young bird at Gunwalloe back in September 2016, we wonder if Z994461 was keen to show of its better side now it looks rather smarter? Local wildlife photographer Terry Thirlaway managed to photograph enough of the ring on a Stonechat in the lighthouse garden at Lizard yesterday to identify it as this same bird - quite an achievement!

So just to celebrate the change from scruffy juvenile to proper grown-up we thought we'd share some pictures here.

Full day of seabirds (and some cannibalism)

You know it's seabird time of year when you're heading out ringing for the day and your roof rack looks like this! Add to that a back seat full of paddles, buoyancy aids, drybag, VHF radio and an assortment of rings and colour rings and we were in for a long day...

First port of call was to take two boats over to Mullion Island to try to track down some of the 203 Great Black-backed Gull chicks/eggs we'd counted earlier in the year. Very few birds make it to a ringable size though, but with a record count this year hopes were high. The vegetation was, as ever, challenging and wading through the mallow and sea kale looking for chicks is a laborious job.

Even large chicks are remarkably good at hiding in low vegetation

True to form we found very few birds, which is always a bit depressing; a full sweep of the island found just 13 birds! These were all a good size to ring and colour ring, so it'll be interesting to see where these birds go wandering.

Some birds aren't quite so good at hide-and-seek though

Part of the reason so few birds survive to this stage was evident all around the island though, with at least 16 relatively freshly-dead chicks found. Some of these were pretty well-grown so it does look like predation (or more accurately cannibalism) remains a driver of the low productivity on the island. We're not sure how commonplace this is, but it doesn't seem to be the best strategy for a colonial-nesting bird!

Once we were back over from Mullion, we headed straight round to Praa Sands for the long paddle round to Trewavas Head to the second of our Kittiwake sites (only accessible by kayak). Unfortunately, the swell was way higher than forecast, so it wasn't safe to land and in any case the tide was really high which would have made accessing nest sites rather treacherous! This isn't the easiest of jobs at the best of times, as kayaking round the headlands with a double-ladder strapped to the side of your kayak is tiring to say the least. Makes landing interesting as well and I must admit we did get barrelled by a wave coming back in to Praa Sands.

Last job of the day (after an impromptu ringing group BBQ in the evening sun) was to make the most of a calm, new moon night to get nets up for Storm Petrels. The first net round before midnight produced over 25 birds so we knew we were in for a busy night, but sadly the Cornish mizzle came in at 1am and we had to beat a hasty retreat before the rocks got too slippy. But although we'd not made it to the busiest time of the night the total of 55 new birds was pretty good. It was a bit surprising to find these were all new birds, so we'll just have to go out again on Tuesday night and hope to recatch some ringed birds...

New moon Stormies

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!

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!

This is as drastic an amputation as we've seen!

Well-travelled Blue YM23

After a great start to the gull-watching ear, it's been a bit quiet recently for gulls on the Lizard, with colour-ring sightings drying up a bit. But the drought was broken with the very nice record of an Icelandic-ringed Lesser Black-backed Gull: Blue YM23.

This bird was ringed as an adult back in May 2010 at Sandgerði in western Iceland. Since then, it's been seen in three different winters in Portugal (on the coast and at landfills) and in-between times also seen in Co Wexford (December 2012), our very own Hayle estuary (March 2015) and then at Southerly Point, Lizard a few days ago! A round-up of its trips are mapped below, but it's certainly covered many more miles than this...

This is the only Icelandic-ringed Lesser Black-back to be seen in Cornwall, so hopefully we'll see it again next spring!

T:013 returns from Spain

We blogged recently about a few big gulls at Lizard Point, including a pic (also below) of Great Black-back T:013.

We've now received the details back for this bird and it has quite an interesting history. The whole story behind it's ringing featured on the BTO's Demog Blog last year just after it had been resighted in Spain. It was seen in A Coruña from 13th January to 26th February 2013 and then again from 15th October to 29th November 2013, but hadn't been seen since. It is presumably still too young to be breeding so is just perhaps summering closer to home...

T:013 wen it was ringed in Aberdeenshire...

...and when it was first resighted in Spain

The photos originally appeared on Demog Blog and are courtesy of Euan Ferguson and Antonio Gutierrez.

Gulls on the move again

It's been too windy again this weekend to get any nets up, but it's been way more productive to get a 'scope out and look seaward at gulls. Numbers of Great Black-backs are building up again at Lizard Point and we're regularly getting birds from Looe Island and further afield now. We've even had a bizarre run of close neighbours, with colour rings LAN1, LAN3 and LAN7 all being seen over 10th to 12th July; all ringed as chicks on Looe Island on 25th June 2011.

Black 51M at Lizard Point today - another Normandy bird

Best record of the week though has been Herring Gull White 7FS7, seen on 12th July. We don't see many colour-ringed Herring Gulls at the point, and this bird had been ringed as a chick on Lihou Island, Guernsey, in June 2013. It has since spent most of its time in France, seen at Treffieux Landfill several times in January 2014.

We've also heard of some other movements of gulls we've blogged about before. Black 96N (ringed in Normandy, France in June 2013) was seen at Lizard Point back in the spring (blogged here) and was also seen on Looe Island six days later. Just recently it popped up in northern France, seen at Port-en-Bessin-Huppain on 28th June.

Black 96N at Lizard Point in the spring