Busy seabird weekend

This long weekend has been a busy one, with various group members (and even a visitor from up-country) heading out to all parts of West Cornwall in search of (mostly) seabirds.

We started off with our annual gull-ringing trip over to Mullion Island, which was always going to be an unknown as we were too busy colour-ringing Cormorant chicks on our last visit to count the Great Black-backed Gull nests. We headed over in two kayaks and a dinghy, landing in a quiet cove and heading onto the top of the island. Working our way round we ringed just 10 chicks, but at least another 10 were too big to try to catch. Whilst there, we were also able to photgraph a couple of ringed adults, both of which had been ringed as chicks in 2016 but are now breeding on the island. Interestingly, one (L:CN5) had been ringed as a chick on Looe Island, but has been seen a few times around Lizard and Coverack since.

Next stop was a tour of Barn Owl sites around the Lizard, ringing chicks at 10 sites in total. Several of these later broods had just two chicks, in contrast to those earlier in the season that had three or even four chicks.

Back on the seabird theme, the next day found us Kittiwake ringing at Trewavas Head. Half of the team paddled round from Porthleven while the other half walked in with a ladder from Rinsey. We all reconvened at the cliffs to scramble down and kayak round to the main Kittiwake site. With very few birds successfully breeding, we only colour-ringed eight chicks, but at least this is better than the zero of the last two years. We also took the opportunity to read various colour rings at Trequean zawn and also managed to get photographs of two metal-ringed birds. One of these (ET44236) was ringed on the Isles of Scilly in 1999 and had been seen by us at the engine houses colony in 2018 as well, so is a healthy 22 years old now. The other rewmains a mystery at the moment, with the BTO team looking at the possible options for us of what might be a very old bird!

After an extra couple of owl boxes, we then headed down to Porthgwarra for dusk to set nets for Storm Petrels. This is often the busiest month for Stormies and true to form the first net round before midnight saw 45 birds in the nets, so it was a busy session for everyone. In total we ringed 95 birds, with recaptures of a French-ringed bird and others ringed on the Calf of Man (in August 2020), St David's, Pembrokeshire (in July 2020) and one of our own from Lizard (ringed in July 2020). Talking of Stormies, we also heard from the BTO that a bird we ringed at Lizard in August 2020 was recaught on Alderney, Channel Islands on 10th July.

So al in all a very productiove weekend of seabird ringing, contributing to our ongoing colour-ringing projects for some of these species.

A mediocre Kittiwake season

At the weekend we had an evening paddle out to the Kittiwake colony at Trewavas Head to continue our Retrapping (or resighting in our case) Adults for Survival project. It was the perfcet sea conditions for a kayak, and two of us managed to cover most of the colony in under three hours.

Sadly, as in the past two years, the main site was earily quiet with a lot of birds sat by empty nests or just loafing. Just five nests had chicks, with just four other sitting adults, which is a shadow of the 70 pairs of just a few years ago. We did manage to reread colour rings on 10 birds, all ringed as adults at the same site in 2013, 2015 (2 birds), 2016 (2 birds) and 2018 (4 birds). We also took the opportunity to ring a couple more adults to contribute to the project.

There was slightly better news at Trequean Zawn, where there were at least six nests with chicks and 10 adults sitting tight. Part of this site can only be seen from the sea, so there are no doubt more nesting birds than this. There were more colour-ringed birds here, many with much more interesting histories. Most of these were ringed as chicks, obviously recruiting to a new site away from their natal site. Birds were recorded that had been ringed as chicks at the main colony in 2015 (3 birds), 2016 (3 birds) and 2018 (3 birds), and there was also a chick ringed at the engine houses area of the cliffs in 2017. Interestingly there were also four adults at Trequean that had been ringed as adults at the main site in 2016 and 2017, and still recorded there in 2020.

PP was ringed as a chick in 2015 and has successfully
bred the last three years at Trequean

 Additional to these local birds were three French-ringed birds, ringed as chicks in 2007, 2011 and 2015. These also have interesting histories, with one of them seen previously at Rinsey in 2018, 2019 and 2020, and another (OWM-RNN) that was at the main Trewavas site in 2012-19 before moving to Western Cove, Portreath in 2020.

OWM-RNN

It'll be interesting to see how the birds get on at the main site and whether or not more move along to Trequean in the future.

Trewavas Kittiwake in Wales

We were recently contacted by Josie Hewitt, who's spending the summer monitoring seabirds on Skomer Island in south Wales. As part of their regular monitoring, Josie photographed a colour-ringed Kittiwake in the week which wasn't local, so got in touch as she thought it might be one of our Cornish birds.

It turns out that Black N5 was indeed one of our Trewavas Head birds, ringed as an adult in June 2018 and interestingly not seen since. In our experience, adults present in the colony early in the season are often wanderers, but the fact this bird was ringed in June (as a breeding bird) is a bit confusing! But considering the main Trewavas colony has failed in the last two years, maybe this adult has moved on, so it'll be interesting to see if it remains over the summer.

This also isn't as unprecedented as it might seem, as our other monitored colony at Portreath has a regular breeding bird that was ringed as a breeding season adult in the breeding season north Wales!

Kittiwakes fail AGAIN

With slightly higher hopes than last time, we paddled out to the Kittiwakes sites at Trewavas Head to check up on the c140 pairs nesting at the three sites. The first stop was Trequean Cove where there were encouragingly still good numbers of birds, but a closer look revealed just 11 nests still with chicks which was a poor return from the 40 sitting birds we found in May. There were plenty of our colour-ringed birds and so far this season we've seen 13 birds at Trequean that have previously been seen at the main colony or at the engine houses colony. This might suggest that birds are slowly moving along the coast, but why they might be doing this is unclear.

The reason for this became apparent as we paddled along to the engine shouses, where the 28 pairs we'd seen in May were down to just half a dozen forlorn birds sat on empty ledges. The main colony at Trewavas Head wasn't much better either, as despite there being plenty of birds still present (including 17 of our own colour-ringed birds and a French bird), there were just three nests with chicks, down from the 65 sitting birds in May. Why these birds have failed again so disastrously is a a mystery, but it's interesting that the nests dominated by younger pairs seem to be doing better than the established sites, so maybe change really is for the better.

To back up this move away from the main colony, we received an email from fellow Kittiwake workers in France (Professor Emmanuelle Cam from the University of West Brittany) with a report of two of our birds seen in their colonies in Brittany in recent weeks. Both of these birds are regulars at Trewavas Head:

• EC was actually a chick ringed (metal ring only) on the Isles of Scilly in 1996, but we recaught it in 2015 and added a colour ring. It's been seen every year since as a breeding bird, last seen here on 2nd June 2020.

• EN was ringed as an adult at Trewavas Head in May 2015 and was seen 2015-2018 but not seen in 2019. It was however seen back in the colony on 19th May 2020.

These are the first of our birds seen in your colonies, and it's great to have the coverage that produces these sightings. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the coming years and whether the colonies can recover.

2020 seabird update

It's been a while now since we've updated the blog, but to be honest lockdown has meant that we've not really been up to much anyway! We've been out reading gull rings locally and that's about it. But now lockdown has eased slightly we've been able to get out and start to look at Barn Owls and some of our seabirds. More on the owls later, but it was great to get out to Trewavas Head and Mullion Island recently and see how our birds are getting on.

A quick kayak out past Trewavas Head last week found very healthy numbers of Kittiwakes back on the ledges, including lots of 'new' birds at Trequean which has only recently been used. This new site appears to have been taken on by younger birds, with several birds we've ringed as chicks now sat on the ledges there. A quick paddle found 23 of our colour-ringed birds and four French birds which is a great start.

We then had our first trip over to Mullion Island today to check on the numbers of Great Black-backed Gulls nesting there. We weren't able to get over to ring any Cormorants this year due to lockdown, which was unfortunate as they were in a very accessible part of the island! But we were able to photograph and count nests earlier in the year and the count of at least 53 (and probably 57) is the highest we've seen in recent years.

Some of this year's fledged Cormorants enjoying the sun

Back to the gulls, there was one section of the island we couldn't cover due to nesting Shags and Cormorants, but we covered a majority of the island and counted 59 nests, mostly still with eggs. This is slightly down on previous years, as was the 146 eggs/chicks counted.

Great Black-backed Gull nest with a view

	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
GBB Gull nests	-	62	37	83	70	60	71	(59)
GBB Gull eggs/chicks	98	174	90	204	166	-	195	(146)
GBB Gull chicks ringed	4	17	12	13	5	3	16	?
Cormorant nests	24	52	50	39	47	38	47	53-57
Cormorant chicks ringed	11	19	7	16	0	0	14	0

We'll be back over in a few weeks to see how those 146 have got on, so more on that later.

Newly-hatched Great Black-backed Gull chick

Trewavas Kittiwake failure

A flat calm sea and a day off is the perfect opportunity for a paddle out along the coast, so might as well combine it with dropping in on the Trewavas Head Kittiwakes. It started well, with a new sub-colony (at Trequeen Zawn) holding nine nests, some with good-sized chicks. The first ever resighting of one of our birds ringed as a chick was here in the early days of the colony, as young birds prospect new areas. This held true, with the zawn holding four birds we'd ringed as chicks in 2015 and 2016, one now at a nest with chicks.

PP (ringed as a chick in 2015) with two chicks

There was also a new French bird in the colony, so it'll be interesting to see if this too is a young bird recruiting into a new area.

RWM-WGW

But as we paddled round to the main part of the colony it was eerily quiet with a dozen or so birds on the cliffs, but these soon left. Early on in the season we were worried that the return rate of ringed adults was low, then we were unable to ring any adults as they hadn't laid, but we weren't expecting a complete failure. So not a single egg or chick at a site that should be holding over 70 pairs!

Thimgs were no better 'around the corner' as well, with the site by the engine houses also deserted, with not a single bird to be seen. This site should hold over 65 pairs.

So with the recent complete failure of the colony at Newquay, that leaves just two Cornish sites holding any number of birds this summer! The site at Western Cove, Portreath is thankfully thriving (250+ pairs) and there are good numbers at Porthmissen, but other than that we have nine at Trewavas and two at Rinsey!

The rare sight of a brood of three Kittiwake chicks (far left), at Western Cove, Portreath

Our first ever KITTI chick returns!

Oh we love a high pressure! The weather has been just perfect the last few days to catch up on a few seabird chores, so a small group of us ventured out to our Kittiwake sites at Trewavas Head on Friday. While two of us paddled round from Porthleven, two scrambled round to meet us at the bottom of the cliffs for a lift around the last section only normally accessible on a low spring tide.

Having already caught many of the 'low-hanging fruit' in the colonies, it's becoming harder to target new birds, but perhaps that's a good sign that our catching has been going well. So between the two sites we only ringed a further nine adults, but did also manage to read a good number of rings on adults ringed in previous years. We also resighted a new French-ringed bird to us, originally ringed as a chick at Pointe du Raz, Brittany, in 2013.

But the highlight was spotted as we paddled back along the coast. A small face we've had our eye on had three Kittiwake nests on it with a few adults hanging round, one of which looked to be ringed. So with some dubious kayak-landing and a bit of a sketchy climb in shorts and wetsuit boots, we managed to confirm that this was PP (below); the first ever resighting of a bird we'd previously ringed as a chick (in 2015).

The best fieldwork site!

It was such a stunning spring day yesterday that there was only one place to be... out on the water! So we fitted in another visit to the Kittiwakes at Trewavas Head, this time managing to land by the engine houses. This part of the colony was worryingly quiet though, with fewer than 50 birds on the ledges, instead of the usual 65+ pairs! Just three of our colour-ringed birds were present, but hopefully this is just a slow start to the season here.

The main face at Trewavas Head was slightly busier which was encouraging. Here we were able to record a further dozen of our own birds, including two that have previously been seen on their wanderings - see here and here.

It was also great to see two of our birds as a pair now,
giving us much better information on the workings of the colony

In amongst our own colour-birds were three French-ringed birds. Two of these are known to us already, but typically the one new bird to us was so high up on the face we could only see two colours and part of the metal ring, so it remains unknown (for now!).

ONN-YOM was ringed as a chick at Pointe du Raz in 2002
and has been regular at Trewavas since we first visited in 2012

OWM-RNN was ringed as a chick at Pointe du Raz in 2007
and has been seen six out of the last seven years at Trewavas

Any excuse for a paddle

This morning a couple of us took to the opportunity for a paddle out to check out the Kittiwakes at Trewavas Head. Leaving from Porthleven, the swellier-than-predicted swell made things a little slow going and we were also unable to safely put the kayak in at the engine houses, so had to make do with a visit to just the main headland colony.

With only around 60 birds there at any time, numbers were down on previous years, but the to-ing and fro-ing of birds mean that we were able to record 19 colour-ringed birds as part of our RAS (Retrapping Adults for Survival) project. The 19 included 17 of our own birds and two French birds that are now regular breeders here. One of 'our' birds was originally ringed as a chick on Gugh, Isles of Scilly, in 1996, having a colour ring added by us in 2015. So at 22 years old this is our oldest bird in the project.

The pic above shows two of the other more interesting birds. AP is a bird we ringed as an adult at Rinsey Cliffs in 2012, remaining there until 2014 when the colony there effectively collapsed. It was one of the few birds that relocated to Trewavas Head, seen just once in 2016 and 2017. The rather more colourful bird was ringed as a chick in 2007 at Pointe du Raz, Brittany, France. It was seen in France in 2009 and 2010, then at Rinsey in 2012 and 2013, before moving to Trewavas Head from 2015 onwards.

Of the other birds, two had also been seen on their coastal wanderings, with one photographed at sea off Longstones Lighthouse in July 2014 and another seen at Gwennap Head in August 2017.

Busy week of Barn Owls, Kittiwakes and Stormies

We've spent lot of the last week catching up on monitoring and ringing of some of our breeding birds. This has mostly involved Barn Owl boxes and Kittiwakes, but also some new-moon Storm Petrel and urban gull ringing.

So far this year we've ringed 16 adult and 30 nestling Barn Owls, and recaught 10 adults already with rings (including this bird from Suffolk). The birds at Windmill Farm reserve on the Lizard always offer a surprise and this year was no exception. Last year we saw one of the palest chicks we'd ever seen in the brood there and again this year we ringed one very pale chick. But of more interest was the unusual patterning on the wing, with the outer three primaries very different to the rest!

Amongst the other boxes visited was this brood of four chicks which chose not to use the whole of the box, but simply all bundle up on top of each other!

Aside from monitoring the Kittiwakes at Portreath from the cliff-tops, we continued our colour-ringing project at Trewavas Head at the weekend. While two group members kayaked round from Portleven, one climbed in bringing along a ladder to help reach some of the more lofty ledges. It's a good sign when a lot of the birds in the colonies here are already ringed, so we only managed to add another nine adults to our colour-marked population.

OWM-RNN (hatched in France in 2007) with a chick at Trewavas Head, the first time we've seen it breeding. It's been seen at Trewavas Head every year since 2012 but this is its first breeding attempt.

As for Storm Petrels, despite the light wind and early date, we managed to catch an impressive 81 birds at Lizard on one night, including three birds that were already ringed. One of these was from the Channel Islands, with the others both being ringed in 2016 in west Wales. One was ringed on Skokholm Island on 26th July and the other at nearby St David's four days later, providing further proof of the Celtic links of our Stormies.

Trewavas Kittiwakes

It's always nice to be back out on the cliffs and today saw a couple of us out checking up on our Kittiwakes at Trewavas Head. This has to be the best place to run a boring old monitoring project, deep in the heart of Cornish mining country.

But an abseil down to one site and a scramble/coasteer to another was pretty productive and we managed to read 19 colour rings on birds in the two colonies. Most were birds we'd ringed ourselves in previous years, but 'EC' resighted today was a bird originally ringed as a chick on Gugh, Isles of Scilly in 1996, so now over 20 years old and still going strong!

Just some of the 50 pairs of birds at Trewavas Head, although none have yet started breeding proper

We also caught up with three French-ringed birds, all of which are regulars at Trewavas Head, ringed at Point du Raz in Brittany in the last 10 years. The bird below, WWN-OWM, was ringed in 2007 and has been seen at Rinsey and Trewavas since 2012.

Just to add to the Cornish-ness of the day, the walk out saw a pod of over 40 Bottle-nosed Dolphin, including a few calves, cruise past and the walk back saw two Choughs enjoying the updrafts from the cliff edge!

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!