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2008 News
Wall Trap rebuilt
The first major project of the summer is now complete. From 29 June to 4 July, a group of Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award candidates (all associated with Belfast High School) doing the Service section of the Award Programme accompanied by some other younger volunteers, have together demolished the old collapsed Wall Trap and rebuilt a replacement one in just 5 days (actually 4 because one was lost due to rain). It was Iain Galbraith’s idea for which he was able to persuade 3 other friends to come along to take on this project. They were Bobby Brown, Mandy Wright and Fiona Young. They were helped by the Galbraith family: Philip throughout, Erin and Elaine from time to time. By the end of the week, clearly the party were not only justifiably pleased with their achievement, but had thoroughly enjoyed themselves despite the continual chores cheerfully undertaken and having to go shearwatering! It was also made possible because David Galbraith was willing to give up a week's leave to be Duty Officer. The story of the week is well illustrated by the attached photographs, taken mainly by Elaine Galbraith.
It is impossible to send out this e-news without pointing out that the media perception (which clearly influences general public perception) that teenagers are a problem has been proved completely wrong once again by the hard-working volunteers during last week on the Observatory. The hysteria of the media about teenagers has always been due to the activities of a tiny minority (and it has always been so). This team is fully representative of the 18 year olds that I taught for 34 years of my working life. However, news of the great job done and the importance of it to the long-term work of the observatory is just the sort of good news that will never make it even to the local news media.
The wall trap is in a position on the top of the island where migrants tend to gather in the bushes leading into the trap. Feeding birds can be directed down the funnel into the catching box at the end. Birds are only trapped for ringing when a ringer chooses to “drive” the trap, so the interruption to the birds’ activities is very brief. Unlike mist nets, this trap will work in any weather, the removal time is in seconds and the lab is less than one minute away. A single bird caught in the trap could be ringed weighed, measured and released in less than 3 minutes. The trap is particularly good at catching members of the thrush family, Spotted Flycatchers, Meadow Pipits, Stock Pigeons, Moorhens and Water Rails. Many of these species are not generally ringed in any numbers by ringers on the mainland. The birds ringed on Copeland have a remarkable far-above-average recovery rate from overseas. The reason for this is simple. There are very low resident populations of birds on the island, so many of the birds ringed are already migrating and therefore going somewhere. Ringing birds at migration points produces the best possible information on their migration routes and destinations.
I am sure all the active ringers and helpers who are involved in bird ringing on Copeland will be very appreciative of the excellent job done by this fine team during last week.
Neville McKee
First overnight stay 2008
There have been several springs in the past when the Observatory has been forced to start late, especially in the 1970s. This year’s spring has been consistently cold and windy. There is no doubt that the bulk of migrants are generally late. Though early birds have been recorded, the old saying holds that one Swallow doesn’t make a summer.
Just Pat and Neville McKee went out on Thursday 10th April in the late afternoon and settled in to freezing buildings, and basically lived in dorm 1. Pat kept the fire going there for the entire stay of 2 days. Before bringing the kit up from the landing, Neville set the Garden net and soon had ringed 4 Goldcrests. Evening meal in easy chairs in front of the fire was very civilised, but the room was still cold and despite the fire and the multiple sleeping bags over them, they were cold through the night. A bright moon restricted shearwatering to just 2 birds, though the underground was alive with the sound of conversing birds.
Friday morning was rainy, all the more annoying because there was little or none over most of Northern Ireland, and it was calm. The main rain belt was to the south and east. The radio said that Wales had been deluged overnight. All this meant that passerine migrants were blocked.
A count of the Black Guillemots totalled 88. Two hundred auks flew south past Mew during the morning. Lapwings displayed at the front of the buildings. The best bird was an adult summer Red-throated Diver fishing off the north of Mew Island. After evening dinner, they went shearwatering and caught 26. The moon was obscured for a while, luckily. As normal for early in the year, only 3 were new birds, and of the retraps, one was 32 years ringed and another 34.
Saturday morning was even colder with a stiff wind from the north-west. Nothing arrives on the island in these conditions, and so the ringing total remained at 0 for a second day. Nevertheless, some interesting birds were seen. Apart from the usual breeding crows, 2 Hooded, 4 Carrion and 2 hybrids spent a while on the island. A Chiffchaff and 4 Chaffinches appeared at noon. A dark phase Arctic Skua flew north past Mew Island.
The island still looked wintery. The rabbit population is at a high level, so the vegetation is still very short. Careful searching found some flowering Lesser Celandine, Dog Violet, Marsh Marigold, and 5 clumps of Cowslip. The daffodils were over, the Narcissi were out and the Bluebells and Lords and Ladies will be out soon. The main task undertaken was the spring cleaning of the crockery and utensil cupboards and drawers. Even though all of Friday afternoon was spent on this, a couple of cupboards remained to be done.
23rd April 2008
Pat and Neville dashed out for a day’s manning when the weather looked like a good arrival would occur. And they were right!
At least 150 Willow Warblers moved through, mainly late morning to mid afternoon. Seven Wheatears played on the cricket pitch. Eight Whimbrel and crowd of crows were very noticeable. A Peregrine seemed rather miffed about being put off the cliff. Twenty-six Fulmars were on their ledges (17 “nests”).
The ringing list was 31 Willow Warblers (the nets were so sunny that most birds bypassed them, also many were spread out over bushless ground), 3 Chiffchaffs (so really 15 there), 3 Blackcaps (but another was un-caught), 2 Goldcrests, 1 Wren and 1 Robin.
25th-27th April 2008
The forecast for this weekend was very bad but the Duty Officer decided to go on down to Donaghadee and not to give up until our batman decided that the weather was (as forecast) too bad. Well in the event, it wasn’t too bad and a party of 10 arrived after 7pm. In no time at all, a delightful male Redstart, a Chiffchaff and a Robin had been ringed - a great start to the trip!
Dawn on Saturday was wet and windy with rain, which slowed things up a bit, and a stiff SE wind. When the rain went off (this was not forecast – it was to rain all day), there were not too many birds. However a Whitethroat escaped from the gully trap but flew straight into the north garden net. The 25th April is quite an early date for Whitethroat arrival.
The gully trap then struck it lucky with Wheatears when the wind shifted to the west, about midday. Three out of a group of four feeding near the gully were caught in the first drive. All three were 'Greenland', two males and a female. It was nice to see them altogether in the hand and be able to compare them. Greenland Wheatears are about 10% larger than our local Wheatear type and are more richly coloured. Three Meadow Pipits were also caught in the gully trap. There were two more Whitethroats in the afternoon, in a bush south of the flagpole, and watching with the scope revealed that neither was ringed, and unfortunately they stayed that way.
Sunday was a clear calm morning, with very few birds. A Meadow Pipit was caught that was originally ringed as a first year bird in 2003, retrapped in 2004 and not heard of since. Other than that, there was a trickle of Willow Warblers, totalling 13 for the weekend. In contrast with the 23rd, almost all were females (though the exact proportion is still in the records on the island). The Black-headed Gull colony on Mew Island reached 210. Counts from the Observatory are always regarded as underestimates as many more cannot be seen in gullies and dips.
It was reported on Tuesday 29th by the Mew Island lighthouse attendants that the number had risen to about 500 birds and that most nests were fully built and had three eggs each. Three Sanderling and 100 Eider were counted around Mew Island.
9th to 11th May 2008
This was a combined birding, ringing training and building works weekend.
Larry Donnelly made good progress with the planned work, despite having no skilled help except John Stewart who, it seems (previously largely unknown to us), is very handy with all things electrical and plumby.
The Solar PV panels are in position and covered from the light. The Water heating panels are also on the roof ready for connecting to the new control box. The “electric” house has been cleaned out of coal, etc. (now in the lighthouse, which was all tidied out and is to be used as the coal store in future) and the new batteries are sitting ready for connection to the solar panels. Larry framed the door and re-hung it into the men’s wash-house and fridge room (it had fallen off its rotten frame). He did numerous other things, the full range of which has not been discovered yet! John helped as needed and Wesley Smith occasionally helped, and even sometimes Neville!
It was not possible on this past weekend to do any work on moving the granite blocks in readiness for the new lab as a Pied Wagtail is nesting in the sphere of operations. It will not be possible to work on moving the granite until at least the 23rd.
Meanwhile, the catch for the “training weekend” was very poor. Only 1 LBBG, 1HG, 1 House Martin (spring ringing rarity), Sedge Warbler, Robin, Wren, and Swallow were ringed and a Blackbird and a Reed Bunting from 2006 were retrapped. Up to 4 Lapwings visited at times, mostly only one. 5 Great Black-backed Gulls are in residence. Full counts of all Eiders, Black Guillemots, Oystercatchers and Gulls were done by Kay Milton. Neville counted Gulls on Mew. There were about 75 Black-headed Gull pairs incubating on Mew, and the Common Gull total on both islands is around 63 adults, half each island. Lessers total was over 500 and Herring about 200. The really good news is that a pair of Mediterranean Gulls are sitting on their nest on Mew. They can be easily seen from the left front table by telescope, even the second year’s wing tips and the eye-ring, unless the air is shimmering with heat (I’m not joking!). The big gulls mostly haven’t laid yet, especially on the north side of our island.
The twitch of the weekend was a Dark-bellied Brent feeding on the green seaweed on Mew. Amazingly, another bird was found on the way home past the west end of Big Copeland. These are firsts for this sub-species on the archipelago.
Eider surveys on the Copeland Islands
Kerry Leonard is co-ordinating a survey of Eiders on the Copeland Islands. The work includes counts of birds on the water around the islands and also attempts to find nests, count eggs, and ring and colour mark some of the breeding females. No-one is really sure where our adult females go to after they leave their nests, or during the moult period and over the winter. To try to find out, a sample of females have had a small coloured patch with a number or letter code attached with super glue to the feathers on the back of their heads. Although this doesn’t exactly enhance the appearance of the birds, it has the advantages of being easily seen, is almost weightless and will fall off when the birds moult in 2-3 months time. The tags are coloured blue, red or yellow.
The first nest finding and ringing trip took place on Saturday 17th May when Kerry, Chris Acheson, Darrell Abernethy, David and Philip Galbraith surveyed Lighthouse Island. Twenty-seven nests were found. Among the Eiders retrapped were five of the original six which were caught on the first ringing trip in 2004. Fourteen birds were colour marked.
On the next day Kerry, John Stewart, Wesley Smith, Niall Waterman and Philip and David formed the catching team for a survey of Mew Island. Kay Milton acted as scribe, allowing Kerry to concentrate on applying the colour marks and greatly speeding up the handling process. They found an astounding 59 nests and that was from only around two-thirds of the area of the Island. The parts occupied by breeding Black-headed Gulls and Arctic Terns were not disturbed. Neville McKee had set up his telescope to watch the pair of nesting Mediterranean Gulls, and while we paused for a break from the Eiders and a look at the Meds, Kerry and Neville heard the call of a Little Gull. We were treated to great views of a beautiful summer plumage bird.
Nineteen female Eiders were ringed and 17 were colour-marked.
The third ringing trip took place on Tuesday 20th with the aim of catching a sample of the birds on Big Copeland. Sunday’s team came out again and was joined by Darrell. The catching team were all outshone by Elaine Galbraith who caught a female without a net or any scrambling through the undergrowth – simply picking up a bird as it left its nest. She did the same last year, so maybe we could take a few lessons!
This was another very successful effort with 42 nests found, 14 birds ringed and 8 retrapped from last year’s effort. Twenty-one were colour marked. In total, there are now over 50 females carrying a coloured neck mark and hopefully there will be many sightings over the next few months. It is likely that there are over 200 breeding pairs scattered over the three Islands. This estimate will be refined over the next few years.
A second-year Mediterranean Gull with a green colour ring was seen for the second time on Big Copeland during the evening.
The next stage in the survey is to collect as many records as possible of the colour marked females. Please send details of any sightings to eiders@hotmail.co.uk and include details of the colour of the tag, the number or letter, the number of chicks, any associations with other adults and, of course, the date, time and location. Information on any Eider chick sightings, whether with a ringed parent or not, are also very welcome.
| © Copeland Bird Observatory, 2008 |