Breeding season hotting up!

It's been a while since we updated on the start of the breeding season, so this is a quick tour of some of what we've been up to recently. Most recently we've had our first session out ringing Storm Petrels and managed to get teams out to Lizard and Porthgwarra on the same night. PG won out, catching 52 birds, including birds originally ringed in France and on Skokholm Island, Wales (as an adult in 2016). The Lizard team caught 22 birds, but also two birds from elsewhere: birds ringed in 2018 at Portland, Dorset and on Bardsey Island in North Wales.

Aside from that, we've mostly been counting and ringing chicks recently, including Chough, Dipper, Cormorant, gulls and Kittiwakes. It's been fun as well monitoring successive Robin nesting attempts at Penventon Garden Centre, nesting in amongst some of the plant displays! The first fledged two chicks, with two dying in the nest (lack of food due to the baked-hard ground perhaps?), and the second attempt (photographed below) currently has five chicks.

We're also well into the first checks of the Barn Owl season and whilst some pairs are only just hatching chicks now, others already have chicks that are 5-6 weeks old!

One of a brood of five chicks ringed last week on the Lizard

A rather unusual barrel nestbox we found removed from an old site near Marazion.
There must be some pirate heritage in birds that nest is such an impressive barrel.

Whilst most of the owls we've been ringing have been in boxes, it's also been busy in the owl hospital at the Screech Owl Sanctuary. We've already made several visits this year to ring birds before release and our last visit saw us ringing three small chicks (including the very rusty bird below), an older chick and an adult.

Away from ringing, we've now managed to count the gull nests on Mullion and the total of 71 is on par with previous years, though the number of eggs and chicks is second highest we've seen.

	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
GBB Gull nests	-	62	37	83	70	60	71
GBB Gull eggs/chicks	98	174	90	204	166	-	195
GBB Gull chicks ringed	4	17	12	13	5	3	-
Cormorant nests	24	52	50	39	47	38	47
Cormorant chicks ringed	11	19	7	16	0	0	14

We've also seen the first Kittiwake eggs of the year, at Rinsey. At the same time some of the Shag chicks are already close to fledging!

The main zawn at Rinsey, sadly now pretty much devoid of Kittiwakes
and with drastically-reduced Shag numbers

Next on the agenda is trying to up our numbers if colour-ringed adult Kittiwakes and then we'll be thinking about gulls and more owls! It never ends...

Trewavas Kittiwakes 2016

You might have seen a few posts from us over the summer with various photos of Kittiwakes at our study site at Trewavas/Rinsey, but yesterday saw effectively our last trip to the colony. With many failed breeders now departed and numerous chicks fledged, the colony has become rather quiet, or in the case of Rinsey deserted!

So what better time to offer a brief summary of the year. On the good side, the two sites at Trewavas Head fared pretty well, holding over 120 pairs of birds. This compares to around 70 in previous years so was a welcome increase. Some of these birds may have relocated from Rinsey though, where numbers were again very low (more on that later). Records of colour-ringed birds give us a little bit of insight into these movements and this year we saw six birds at Trewavas that had been recorded previously at Rinsey. Two of these were actually ringed as chicks in France (in 2007 and 2008), giving yet more insight into how these birds move around.

Part of the colony at Trewavas Head

Other French-ringed birds at Trewavas included birds ringed as chicks in 2002 and 2005. We also recorded 16 birds ringed at Trewavas in previous years, including a bird also photographed at sea in 2014 (see pics here), and also a bird originally ringed on the Isles of Scilly in 1996, caught and colour-ringed here in 2015.

At Rinsey, the only colour-ringed birds seen were a French bird ringed as a chick in 2005 and seen quite regularly and a lone bird ringed by us in 2013, which visited just once in February 2016. Breeding at Rinsey was also a write-off, with just nine pairs attempting to nest but all failing before the end of the season.

So a season of good and bad across the sites, but with some interesting stories building...

Tit-tastic

Hopefully this won't be blocked by too many browsers, but our latest CES visit at Gunwalloe was a bit of a Blue Tit festival, with several broods apparently converging on the reedbed for the morning!

The total for the day of 87 birds (24 from an extra non-CES 30' net) was dominated by Blue Tits, with 32 caught, including several adults. But most were noisy, newly-fledged juveniles testing out their biting skills for the first time!

If ever there was an individual that demonstrated why birds
need an annual feather moult, this was it!

The rest of the catch included 13 newly-fledged Reed Warblers (and 7 adults), 10 Sedge Warblers and a scattering of Bkackcap, Bullfinch, Reed Bunting etc... We were also reunited with Y101092, a female Cetti's Warbler ringed in June 2011 and only recaught twice since (in July 2011 and June 2014).

In other news, we also recently had a kayak expedition out to Trewavas Head and Rinsey to ring a few more adult Kittiwakes. In an eventful day, including losing a kayak and capsizing a kayak, we colour-ringed a further 15 adult birds as part of our RAS study. We were also able to resight a few birds from previous year, including a single French-ringed bird.

It's rare to see a first-summer Kittiwakes back at a colony,
so this bird at Trewavas Head was a surprise

On the way back we stopped off to ring a few Herring Gull chicks at Rinsey: our natural 'control' site for the Falmouth urban gull work. We rounded up nine birds, so it was depressing to see broods of three later in the week with just two ringed!

19-year-old Kittiwake and a few Shags

RAS is the BTO's Retrapping Adults for Survival scheme, where regular monitoring of a breeding population of ringed or marked birds gives a better understanding of between-year survival rates. The group carries out RAS studies on House Sparrow, Jackdaw and Kittiwake and yesterday we headed out in wetsuits and a ladder on a kayak (yes, a ladder bungied onto a kayak) to check on some of our seabirds.

First stop was Trewavas Head where we we have a small colour-ringed population of Kittiwakes. We were able to read a couple of our own rings, including a bird that had moved from the now-struggling colony at Rinsey, now resident at Trewavas Head, and another French-ringed bird from Finisterre. We also colour-ringed eight more adult birds, including one already carrying a metal ring: ES19858 was originally ringed as a chick on Gugh, Isles of Scilly, in 1996, so is already a good age! This is the third Scillies bird we've caught in the area, with the others ringed in 1998 and 1999.

ES19858 looking good for 19 years old!

On the way back we were able to stop off at Rinsey to ring a couple of accessible broods of Shag chicks, also managing to catch a single adult bird. They're surprisingly small in the hand, but still pack a punch with that hooked bill!

Rinsey Kittiwakes

Making the most of low tides and fine weather, two of the group clambered down to the Kittiwake colony at Trewavas Head this afternoon to have a quick check for colour-ringed birds. The rather inaccessible site had the usual 35 pairs looking to occupy nest sites and the short tidal window gave us the chance to sit and look through the birds present.

In the end we managed to read rings on four of our own colour-ringed birds (all ringed here in 2013) and two French birds.

WWN,OWM was ringed as a chick in France in 2007 and was seen at Rinsey Cliffs
three times in both 2012 and 2014, but has now moved to Trewavas Head

OWM,RNN was also ringed as a chick in France in 2007
and has been seen on and off at Trewavas Head since 2012

Interestingly, one of our own birds back at the colony today was also photographed at sea back in July 2014 - see blog post here.

CT (right) back at Trewavas Head today

CT at sea off Longstones Lighthouse in July 2014

2015 breeding season is upon us

Despite being a bit restricted in ringing activity of late, a spare sunny day seemed the ideal opportunity to nip back to Rinsey to check out the seabird situation. Following last year's late season, I was only really expecting a few early-returning Kittiwakes, but was pleasantly surprised.

Only a dozen Kittiwakes were were back on the cliffs, but these did include CA, an adult bird we ringed last summer, and also a French-ringed bird, but this headed out to sea before I could get a 'scope on it to get the full combination of colour rings.

CA (top right) back on its ledge

But more pleasing was our first Shag egg of the season, with one pair having at least one, possibly two, eggs (just about visible below). This is a full month earlier than last year, but about the same time as in 2013, so here's hoping it'll be a return to successful breeding seasons...

Stormie weather

In Cornwall we're more used to stormy weather in the form of crashing waves and gales, but just occasionally we get Stormie weather in the form of a calm, moonless night. After catching just two Storm Petrels in May, we improved somewhat last night with 49 birds, which is still not too bad for June. As you can see below, July is normally our most productive month, so hopefully this catch total will only improve...

	May	June	July	August
2011 (Porthgwarra)	2	15	176	3
2012 (Lizard)	0	0	88	7
2013 (Lizard)	0	39	158	76
2014 (Lizard)	2	49

The highlight though was a control from a new country for us - Portugal. We've caught a fair few birds from France and one from the Channel Islands, but this was something a bit new. Interestingly, the Cornish page of the BTO's online ringing report shows that to the end of 2013, nine Portuguese-ringed Storm Petrels have been caught in the county (out of 234 nationally), compared to 28 from France (strangely only 58 nationally) and just four from the Channel Islands (two of which were ringed on the same day in June 2008).

Our Portuguese control before being rebagged to get its night vision back pre-release

Speaking of stormy weather, it looks like our seabirds are still suffering the after-effects of the winter storms, with birds seriously struggling now. A quick look at Rinsey this afternoon produced a few dead Shag chicks of various ages, including some very well-grown birds. At least three birds have already fledged and there are still a few more to go, with one late bird still on eggs!

The killer blow though was the complete absence of any Kittiwakes! The bustling breeding cliffs were eerily quiet. Last year, just six breeding attempts all failed at the egg stage, but this year has been even worse, with three failing at the egg stage and one pair did manage to hatch a chick but this sadly has now also gone.

One a slightly more pleasant surprise was this very pale Shag chick, complete with yellowy feet. We've seen one or two of these before, but it'll be interesting to see what this looks like as it feathers up (and hopefully fledges).

This 'zombie-Shag' looked a gonna, joining the other dead chicks,
but a late scan back across the ledge saw it awake and most certainly not dead!

Dire CES and our first Kittiwake chick

The last few days have been busy as ever, including a very poor CES visit to Gunwalloe. The graph below shows how our catches in the reedbed have been pretty poor this year (shown in black) in comparison to the previous three and our recent session was barely any better, with 17 birds only a slight improvement on last year. The catch was mostly Reed Warblers, but here's hoping it'll pick up soon...

On a slightly better note, a quick visit to Rinsey yesterday found our first Kittiwake chick of the year. Not so good news was the fact that there are very few pairs in the zawn and that two birds that were on eggs have now lost them...

I do wonder if the apparent decline in Kittiwake numbers has something to do with the concurrent increase in the number of pairs of Herring Gulls in the zawn. From only a couple of pairs a few years ago there are now as many as 15 pairs, which must have some impact on the Kittiwakes.

Herring Gulls are much earlier breeders than Kittiwakes,
with pairs already with well-grown young

We've also recently met up with Shaun Boyns who runs the National Trust's West Cornwall Barn Owl Project and hopefully in the future we'll be able to work with Shaun to monitor their nestboxes. The project is just taking off now, with 18 new boxes going up this year, so this would be an exciting addition to our network of sites.

Three Barn Owl chicks at the National Trust offices at Treveal

Rinsey Shags six weeks late

The long wait is finally over, with several pairs of Shags apparently laying at Rinsey over the last week. There are only 14 pairs in the main zawn at the moment, with at least eight of these now on eggs, including four pairs on a full clutch of three eggs. This is a good six weeks later than last year when our first egg date was 8th March!

It looks like our first Herring Gulls are also laying now in the zawn, but they (perhaps wisely) sit very tight, so it's not so easy to check clutch sizes. But at least two pairs have a single egg, with a dozen more birds probably also incubating.

New French Kittiwake at Rinsey

We regularly see French-ringed Kittiwakes in our study colony at Rinsey Cliffs, and already this year we've seen two. One (OYM,NWR - Orange, Yellow, Metal, Black, White, Red) is a regular, seen several times in 2012 and 2013, but one seen yesterday was a new bird for us.

Shocking photo of YBM,YRL on a pretty hard to observe ledge!

YBM,YRLwas ringed as a chick at Point du Raz, Plogoff, in 2005 and is the oldest French bird so far at Rinsey. Since ringing it's not been seen again in France, so chances are it's been somewhere in the southwest breeding in recent years, so it'll be interesting  to see if it hangs around. We've seen an older bird at nearby Trewavas Head (ringed in 2002) but haven't had a chance to get there yet this year.

Return of the Kittiwakes

After a tip-off that Kittiwakes were starting to gather on cliffs, I had a trip out to our RAS (Retrapping Adults for Survival) site at Rinsey Cliffs this morning and found about 40 birds back on ledges in our study colony, claiming some early territories. It wasn't the best weather for digi-scoping, so apologies in advance for the poor quality of the grabbed photos below!

It was nice to see a few of my colour-ringed birds back as well, and of the five birds seen, three of them have interesting non-Cornwall origins. Below are A8 and AL, which was originally ringed as a chick on the Isles of Scilly in 1999 and had its colour ring added in 2012.

AL (second from top) and A8 (bottom - honestly)

Another Scilly bird was CC (below), which was ringed on the islands in 1998 and recaught (and colour-ringed) by the group in 2013.

CC as seen this morning and below when it was colour-ringed last year

Along with the Scilly birds, there was also a single French bird (OYM,NWR), which dropped in too briefly to grab a digi-scoped photo, so here it is at Rinsey in July last year! It was originally ringed as a chick at Point du Raz, Finistere, in 2008.

New moon Stormies and an old Kittiwake

The current new moon (and rare calm conditions for The Lizard!) gave us our second opportunity of the year to catch a few Storm Petrels. The night started a bit quiet, but by 2am (when Tony had left) things picked up and we ended the night at 3am with 79 new birds and a ringed bird which looks to be from Co Dublin.

When you catch a good number of Stormies there's always a few missing toes or feet and last night was no exception, with one footless bird and one missing a whole lower leg! Birds seem to do OK with bits missing (presumably nipped off by fish), so we ringed both birds on the good leg and away they went.

Stumpy

We also took advantage of the low tides a new moon brings to get into the zawn at Rinsey to colour ring a few more Kittiwakes. However, with so few birds actively breeding though this was never going to be easy, and most birds went out to loaf on the sea before we got close. Not all bad news though, as there's always been one metal-ringed bird in the colony that I've wanted to catch, but it was always a bit too high on the face. But with a bit of patience and effort we managed to catch this bird - originally ringed as a chick on Tresco, Isles of Scilly, in 1998! So this is now sporting a new colour ring (CC - below) and it'll be interesting to keep track of this bird from now on.

15-year-old 'CC', now a Rinsey resident

Only other birds of note were a couple of Shags ringed and a few more Herring Gulls also colour-ringed in addition to our urban birds.