Little Tern update

Back in June Sean and I caught several adult Little Terns at a colony in the north of the island.

2 of these were already ringed and were found to have been originally ringed as chicks in 1999 at the same site. This was the first time we had been able to prove that locally hatched Little Terns returned to the site to breed.
We also caught one with a UK ring on. We have now received the original ringing details of NV95538 which had been ringed as a chick in the colony at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk on 24th July 1998.

NV95538 - hatched in Norfolk and now a breeding adult in Isle of Man

My Flatey video

Here is my video of our trip to Flatey, Iceland. It's best viewed in 'full screen' which is the button with the 4 arrows to the right of where it says "Youtube" on the bottom line of the video.

Flatey video

Sean has done a great video of the highlights of our week on Flatey - here it is below.

Fantastic Flatey

Just back from a fabulous week with Sean, Kane and Chris on Flatey, a small island in Iceland. I will post more photos and details of the trip over the next few days but here is a taster for now.

The Flatey ringing team

Back row - Sverir Thorstensen, Sean, me, Aevar Peterson

Front row - Chris, Kane

Red-necked Phalaropes

Male Snow Bunting

Female Eider

Fulmar chick

Juvenile Redwing

Snipe

Snipe chick

Red-necked Phalarope chick

Fulmar

Puffin

Arctic Tern

Puffin chick

Black Guillemot chick

Shag family

Thanks to Aevar for inviting us to help out with the ringing and survey work carried out on Flatey and its surrounding islands and thanks too to Sverir for putting up with the invasion of the 'bloody British Empire tourists' into his ringing territory! A great week and one that I will never forget.

I will post some more detailed highlights in due course....

Sparrowhawk Surprise

I went to Eary Farm after work this afternoon to do another brood of 5 Swallow chicks and then continued North to meet Sean at the Point of Ayre to do some more Gull chicks.
On the way North I got a call form Sean who had received a call from a friend telling him that he had found a Sparrowhawk nest! A quick change of route and I met up with Sean and his friend.
3 Sparrowhawk chicks ringed - 2 female and a male, ideal size for ringing too.

We then continued to the Point of Ayre where another 14 Herring Gull chicks were ringed.
We have now done over 70 Gull chicks at the Point of Ayre in recent weeks - we should hopefully get some good re-sightings of them with their colour rings.

Cormorants

Sean, Chris, Kay and I took our second trip into the Cormorant colony at Maughold this evening.
We found another 16 chicks which were ringed and colour ringed.

Cormorant chick 'ZZD'

That makes 101 Cormorant chicks ringed this year, hopefully we'll get plenty of re-sightings of them with their colour rings.

Monthly ringing totals for June

The June 2011 ringing totals for the Manx RG can be found by clicking on the link below:

June 2011 ringing totals

There may be additional totals from Dave still to come but even if not then it was a bumper month with 474 birds ringed of 35 species (with a further 16 retraps/recoveries processed).

Highlights included the 85 Cormorant pulli, over 40 Gulls ringed of all 4 locally breeding species, 5 new Little Terns and 2 retraps from 12 years ago as well as a 'British' control and 91 Swallow pulli.

Arctic Tern - June 2011

Another 'Gull' day, another change of clothes!

Another afternoon getting very messy ringing Gull chicks at the Point of Ayre with Sean.

This time we ringed:

17 Herring Gull
8 Lesser Black-backed Gull

3 L.B.B. Gull chicks

So wise at such a young age - this Gull will go places! (Just not with a ring on though!!) This chick knew just where to hide so that we couldn't get to it.