French Shag on Looe Island

Recently we've been going back through some records and making sure that all of the French colour-ringed gulls seen on Looe Island (or more correctly St George's Island) over the years have been processed at the BTO end, thanks to the efforts of Claire the Warden's Assistant. There's been a Great Black-backed Gull colour-ringing project on the island since 2010 and Claire's efforts reading the colour rings are key to the success of the project. More details of the project can be found on the Cornwall Birds website.

But in amongst the gull records was a sighting of a colour-ringed Shag which is pretty unusual in the southwest. Claire photographed the bird by the jetty in December and it turns out it belonged to a French project, perhaps not surprising considering the closest UK projects are in west Wales and southern Ireland. K26 had been ringed as a chick in 2015 on Chausey, a small group of islands off the Normandy coast, geographically part of the Channel Islands group and managed as a bird reserve by the Groupe Ornithologique Normand.

It turns out that this is just the seventh record of a French-ringed Shag to be found in the UK. Of the previous six, three have been in Cornwall, sadly all young birds found dead in fishing nets (in 1982, 1984 and 1985). Of the other three, two were also in the southwest, found dead on the Isles of Scilly in 1981 and in Devon in 1989 (actually ringed 11 years earlier).

The only other record was also from the same French colour-ringing project, of a bird ringed as a chick in 2017 and seen later that year in Sheringham, Norfolk. The project on Chausey has ringed 1550 Shag chicks and remarkably these are the only two birds to have been seen in the UK, with the only other 'international' movements being two birds seen in The Netherlands. It's quite remarkable that these birds don't wander more widely, but know we all know what to look for we can hopefully find some more!

Thanks to Claire on Looe Island for sorting out all the records (and spending hours reading colour rings) and to Fabrice Gallien in France for the information on the birds and the project.

Easter eggs

It only seems right that over Easter weekend we should post about all things egg... Whilst the season has only really just begun, we already have a few species sitting on eggs. The first to lay were Mullion Island Cormorants, closely followed by a few early Shag nests at Rinsey Cliffs, the latter site now having 12 birds sitting. Shags being Shags, some of these won't be sitting on eggs, but at least seven birds are sitting on full clutches of three eggs.

Our first nestbox birds are also on eggs as well: not surprisingly Dippers in Idless Woods. One box just contained a lined nest but the second box had a presumably as yet incomplete clutch of three eggs, nicely covered with beech leaves (I think!). This is a little later than last year, when they had a full clutch by 27th March, but earlier than 2013 when the same date say just two eggs laid.

Idless Woods Dipper nest

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!

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.