Portreath Kittiwakes

With spring migrants back in earnest and everything singing and nest-buiilding, it was a good time to have another look at the Portreath Kittiwakes.

Probably only 75% of the birds were back on ledges, with plenty of space left to fill, so hopefully birds just aren't settled yet. Despite the sun, a bit of hazy sea fret made life a bit difficult ring-reading but we still managed to pick up three of our regular French-ringed birds.

OBM-WLN was ringed as a chick at Pointe du Raz in 2011
and has been seen regularly at Portreath ever since

RYM-ROO is a 2014 chick, first seen at Porthmissen (near Padstow)
in June 2018, then at Portreath in July 2018 and regularly since

The third bird avoided being photographed, but NRL-ROM was a 2015 chick and has been at Portreath since 2018. All useful information of course on how our birds roam around the Channel between breeding sites, so fingers crossed this will be the start of a productive season.

Month-old French Kittiwake at Portreath

Following the depressing failure of the Trewavas Head Kittiwake colonies (see here), it's vaguely encouraging that the colony in Western Cove, Portreath seems to be thriving. A late evening visit to catch up on some nest recording saw a very busy colony, with some birds already fledged.

It was also good to see a nice variety of ringed birds, with a bird from Puffin Island (Anglesey), three from Pont du Raz (Brittany) and also one of our own Trewavas Head birds (VM, ringed as a chick in 2017). It was surprising to see good numbers of loafing birds away from the main colony as well, which we presumed were local birds, but in amongst them were three French-ringed birds we've not recorded before at Portreath. So we did wonder if these were dispersing birds or failed breeders. But we were then amazed to see a recently-fledged juvenile on the cliff with a nice set of French colour rings!

A quick email (and equally quick reply) to Jean Yves Monnat in France and he confirmed that this was Green/Yellow/metal - White/Black/Orange. It was ringed on 28th May at Pointe du Van and took it's first flight on 6th July, then being seen daily until 15th July. It was one of the first juveniles to leave the colony and made a pretty quick movement over to Cornwall, and just goes to show how closely linked these colonies are across the Channel.

So it's always worth casting a glance over Kittiwake flocks at this time of year as you never know what you might find.

Super early Kittiwake chick

A quick trip out to Portreath this morning to check for Kittiwake eggs brought an unexpected surprise. Aside from three French-ringed birds and several birds on 1-2 eggs, an adult was seen brooding a single downy chick. This is 5-6 weeks earlier than in previous years and seems to be incredibly early compared to other studies.

Bonjour mouette tridactyle!

...which literally translates as hello three-toed gull, but really just relates to a few French-ringed Kittiwakes at Portreath this afternoon. 'Tridactyle' also relates to the Kittiwake's scientific name (Rissa tridactyla), and there are many other tridactyl animals, including a sloth, a giant-anteater, a woodpecker, a Jacamar (related to kingfishers), an Australian marsupial, a plume moth, a polychaete worm, an extinct scorpion-like arthropod and, oddly, Plum Powdery Mildew!

But back to Kittiwakes... So a sunny afternoon just cries out for a trip to the cliffs to check out the satellite colony at Portreath, with the main colony only viewable from sea. But even this small gathering of birds was worth an extended look, and no fewer than four French-ringed birds were recorded. All of these birds will have come from Point du Raz in France, so it'll be interesting to see when they were ringed and if they have interesting histories...

Two of these appeared to be 'squatters' which aren't actively breeding but just prospecting. Birds will exhibit this kind of behaviour until a nesting 'stump' becomes available which they will occupy. Excuse the poor photo quality, but phone-scoping at 60x magnification in heat haze is never going to produce the best results!

The satellite colony at Portreath is up and left from the beach in this view

OWM-YGO looks to be a settled breeder

ONM-OLY was seen on several 'stumps' so is more likely a squatter

OBM-WBG was probably also a squatter