Sunday, 18 October 2009
Gratuitous posting of photos
Thought I would post this nice pic of a rock pipit I took yesterday on my patch. No better reason than I was interested to see if the search and geotag features work.
Monday, 22 June 2009
Rosy cheeks
We leave Amble with Graeme in 'Moby' in a bit of a hurry. We misjudged the tide, and it's going out fast - we don't want to get trapped in the marina!
It's perfect weather with a beautiful mirror-calm sea.
We manage to follow three common terns on complete foraging trips and a couple of Arctics. One of the latter travelled fast to an area about 20km east of the island. Once there, it gorged itself on 0-group sandeels, plunging and dipping into the surface close to the boat. We could see the sandeel still wriggling in its beak, then it would toss the fish into the air, catch it, and the fish disappear. It's fantastic to witness this amazing feeding trip, but slightly disappointing with this bird was that it gave us the slip; I'd have loved to have watched it complete the journey, ideally with a fish.
We return to the inshore and have our sandwiches close to the island. The seabirds breeding in the colony are being rather confiding, and a group of puffins swim close to take a look at us. That makes for a good photo-opportunity with my camera.
Puffins are certainly not dying here!
We decide to have another go at trying to follow a Roseate tern. Almost immediately we see an adult stroll out from the colony past us, almost begging to be tracked. Well, it would be rude not to. Graeme's son Thomas is driving, and we set off in hot pursuit. This bird is quick, very quick! We have to speed at 36 - 38 knots to keep up. And no, this bird is not trying to get away from us. We have seen very few signs that any of the terns we follow are in any way bothered by our presence. We have occasionally seen signs of avoidance when a bird stops to try and feed, if we have been too close, but we have kept back from the birds and tried to skirt around feeding concentrations.
This roseate is a bird on a mission and joins a big multi-species feeding concentration by Boulmer. It spends about 45 minutes there, stuffing its face on small sprats or herring. We see it swallow 35 fish, and it probably ate more than this. It did this all around the boat, often plunging within 20 metres of the boat, completely oblivious to us. There are other roseates in the flock, up to three others at one point. Julie is calling out its behaviours, I am writing these down, with times, distance and bearing furiously, filling page after page of the notebook. I would have loved to have spent time enjoying the privileged moment, but it is essential to collect the data. We are probably the first people ever to have obtained this detailed information for a roseate tern.
Eventually, the bird had clearly had its fill, and set off back to the colony. Flying at a mere 23 knots. I'm not surprised, the greedy b**tard stuffed so many fish into its gob. And it doesn't even take a fish back to its chick. No wonder the species is endangered - the adults are eating all the fish and leaving the chicks to starve! We follow the bird back to the colony and see it land in front of some of the numbered nest boxes looking content with itself. We note these details down and its high fives all round.
Adult roseate tern returning to its colony with a belly full of clupeids
We watch a few terns bathing close around the west side of the island. This is something we have seen them do in small flocks when they can find some sheltered water. We spot a roseate tern in one of the groups. It gets up and flies out to sea. "Follow that bird".
Common and Arctic terns bathing close inshore around Coquet
This roseate tern is no slouch either, and it heads at about 36 knots straight up to Boulmer. It by-passes a number of huge multi-species feeding assemblages. It spends over an hour patrolling close inshore between Boulmer and Alnmouth, plunging repeatedly. It's Julie's turn to note down the behaviours, and she fills six pages up during this time. Eventually, it lands on a mooring buoy and starts to preen for about 20 minutes. This doesn't seem to be a bird in a hurry to feed its chick. We notice that it is ringed, but can't read any numbers on the colour ring. It seems to be white with a green stripe.
It flies off, and we soon lose the bird - getting muddled with another roseate tern (we can see a difference, because the bird we pick up has some flight feathers missing. So we return to Amble, exhilarated by the fantastic data we've collected.
We get an update when we return. There are no chicks yet in any of the roseate nest boxes where the first bird landed, which perhaps explains why it didn't take a fish back. Apparently there are still plenty of birds that haven't hatched their eggs yet.
It's perfect weather with a beautiful mirror-calm sea.
We manage to follow three common terns on complete foraging trips and a couple of Arctics. One of the latter travelled fast to an area about 20km east of the island. Once there, it gorged itself on 0-group sandeels, plunging and dipping into the surface close to the boat. We could see the sandeel still wriggling in its beak, then it would toss the fish into the air, catch it, and the fish disappear. It's fantastic to witness this amazing feeding trip, but slightly disappointing with this bird was that it gave us the slip; I'd have loved to have watched it complete the journey, ideally with a fish.
We return to the inshore and have our sandwiches close to the island. The seabirds breeding in the colony are being rather confiding, and a group of puffins swim close to take a look at us. That makes for a good photo-opportunity with my camera.
Puffins are certainly not dying here!We decide to have another go at trying to follow a Roseate tern. Almost immediately we see an adult stroll out from the colony past us, almost begging to be tracked. Well, it would be rude not to. Graeme's son Thomas is driving, and we set off in hot pursuit. This bird is quick, very quick! We have to speed at 36 - 38 knots to keep up. And no, this bird is not trying to get away from us. We have seen very few signs that any of the terns we follow are in any way bothered by our presence. We have occasionally seen signs of avoidance when a bird stops to try and feed, if we have been too close, but we have kept back from the birds and tried to skirt around feeding concentrations.
This roseate is a bird on a mission and joins a big multi-species feeding concentration by Boulmer. It spends about 45 minutes there, stuffing its face on small sprats or herring. We see it swallow 35 fish, and it probably ate more than this. It did this all around the boat, often plunging within 20 metres of the boat, completely oblivious to us. There are other roseates in the flock, up to three others at one point. Julie is calling out its behaviours, I am writing these down, with times, distance and bearing furiously, filling page after page of the notebook. I would have loved to have spent time enjoying the privileged moment, but it is essential to collect the data. We are probably the first people ever to have obtained this detailed information for a roseate tern.
Eventually, the bird had clearly had its fill, and set off back to the colony. Flying at a mere 23 knots. I'm not surprised, the greedy b**tard stuffed so many fish into its gob. And it doesn't even take a fish back to its chick. No wonder the species is endangered - the adults are eating all the fish and leaving the chicks to starve! We follow the bird back to the colony and see it land in front of some of the numbered nest boxes looking content with itself. We note these details down and its high fives all round.
Adult roseate tern returning to its colony with a belly full of clupeidsWe watch a few terns bathing close around the west side of the island. This is something we have seen them do in small flocks when they can find some sheltered water. We spot a roseate tern in one of the groups. It gets up and flies out to sea. "Follow that bird".
Common and Arctic terns bathing close inshore around CoquetThis roseate tern is no slouch either, and it heads at about 36 knots straight up to Boulmer. It by-passes a number of huge multi-species feeding assemblages. It spends over an hour patrolling close inshore between Boulmer and Alnmouth, plunging repeatedly. It's Julie's turn to note down the behaviours, and she fills six pages up during this time. Eventually, it lands on a mooring buoy and starts to preen for about 20 minutes. This doesn't seem to be a bird in a hurry to feed its chick. We notice that it is ringed, but can't read any numbers on the colour ring. It seems to be white with a green stripe.
It flies off, and we soon lose the bird - getting muddled with another roseate tern (we can see a difference, because the bird we pick up has some flight feathers missing. So we return to Amble, exhilarated by the fantastic data we've collected.
We get an update when we return. There are no chicks yet in any of the roseate nest boxes where the first bird landed, which perhaps explains why it didn't take a fish back. Apparently there are still plenty of birds that haven't hatched their eggs yet.
More little terns on a glorious day
After a day off on the Saturday, we return north to look for little tern feeding areas on the north side of the Long Nanny colony. It is a glorious day, the sea is mirror calm as I look toward the Farne Islands from Seahouses. I wish I could be out there. I see Moby (Graeme Harrison's boat) out by the islands 7km away, presumably with a dive party.
Although the beach at Seahouses looks suitable, I don't see a single little tern, nor does Julie at her watch point a bit closer to the colony. We move a bit closer, and see very little activity (one bird passing (perhaps the same bird) and me seeing lots of courtship behaviour in Beadnell Bay. That's great, because we're seeing a clear pattern of this species concentrating in a narrow strip within 6km of the colony in one direction, and less than that in the other. This is entirely consistent with findings at other colonies.
When we finish, Graeme returns his dive party to Beadnell and we offer him some help with taking his boat back down to Amble (we've chartered him for an extra five days for the rest of the week). He lets me drive all the way down and take the Moby into the Marina. It's fantastic to glide effortlessly across the smooth seas at 30kn in beautiful weather. This is great for me to keep my Powerboat certificate current. I get the RHIB into the berth reasonably well - a bit more Reginald Molehusband than a smooth elegant entry. Oh well, not too bad for an unfamiliar boat.
Graeme brings 'Moby' and the North Norfolk Diving Club back into Beadnell Bay
Although the beach at Seahouses looks suitable, I don't see a single little tern, nor does Julie at her watch point a bit closer to the colony. We move a bit closer, and see very little activity (one bird passing (perhaps the same bird) and me seeing lots of courtship behaviour in Beadnell Bay. That's great, because we're seeing a clear pattern of this species concentrating in a narrow strip within 6km of the colony in one direction, and less than that in the other. This is entirely consistent with findings at other colonies.
When we finish, Graeme returns his dive party to Beadnell and we offer him some help with taking his boat back down to Amble (we've chartered him for an extra five days for the rest of the week). He lets me drive all the way down and take the Moby into the Marina. It's fantastic to glide effortlessly across the smooth seas at 30kn in beautiful weather. This is great for me to keep my Powerboat certificate current. I get the RHIB into the berth reasonably well - a bit more Reginald Molehusband than a smooth elegant entry. Oh well, not too bad for an unfamiliar boat.
Graeme brings 'Moby' and the North Norfolk Diving Club back into Beadnell BayLittle terns at Embleton
On Friday, the wind is still pretty strong from the north-west. We go out anyway, but get completely pasted by the spray and return to harbour after two hours.
We decide that, although we are both pretty tired and looking forward to a bit of time off, we will use the afternoon to do some watches on little tern feeding rates at selected points around their colony at Long Nanny. We watch them feeding up to about 6km south of the colony, and felt pretty confident that they were going no further than this. They seem to spend all their time feeding over the surf in sandy bays, plunging from very high above the sea into water that can be only a few tens of centimetres deep. We see plenty of fish being carried back to the colony.
The southern limit of their foraging trips appears to be the spectacular Dunstanburgh Castle.
We decide that, although we are both pretty tired and looking forward to a bit of time off, we will use the afternoon to do some watches on little tern feeding rates at selected points around their colony at Long Nanny. We watch them feeding up to about 6km south of the colony, and felt pretty confident that they were going no further than this. They seem to spend all their time feeding over the surf in sandy bays, plunging from very high above the sea into water that can be only a few tens of centimetres deep. We see plenty of fish being carried back to the colony.
The southern limit of their foraging trips appears to be the spectacular Dunstanburgh Castle.
Rough weather
We have spent three days trying to get the best out of some pretty dire weather conditions. A low pressure system has brought some strong, mainly westerly winds through most of the UK. With the wind in this sector, the Northumberland coast is quite sheltered, and we find that the sea has flattened out.
On Wednesday we managed to follow a few birds, including a complete fishing trip for a common and an Arctic tern. This is pretty amazing given that the wind is blowing about force 4.
On Thursday, with the wind more firmly in the west, affording maximum shelter, we go out for about six hours. We try to follow birds with little success. We manage reasonably well for a while, then the bird turns across the wind, and the strong gusts whip spray across the boat, in our faces and obscure our view at critical times when we need to keep track of the bird. We try to follow a couple of roseate terns, but lose them each time. We do at least follow one as far as a feeding aggregation, less than 1km from the island.
We give up on this and try to spend a bit of time trying to track radio-tagged birds. This shouldn't be affected too much by the wind. Researchers from Newcastle University have tagged six more Arctic terns at the colony. We cannot detect three of those newly tagged birds, but #12 is still present from the previous tagging, and has chicks. We resolve to try and follow this bird to its feeding area. Somehow or other we cannot detect the difference between a bird at the colony and when it is flying away, and we miss #12's departure. Two hours later, and the bird has not returned to the nest.
We give up and return to harbour a couple of hours early. Somewhat discouraging, but we can't help the weather.
On Wednesday we managed to follow a few birds, including a complete fishing trip for a common and an Arctic tern. This is pretty amazing given that the wind is blowing about force 4.
On Thursday, with the wind more firmly in the west, affording maximum shelter, we go out for about six hours. We try to follow birds with little success. We manage reasonably well for a while, then the bird turns across the wind, and the strong gusts whip spray across the boat, in our faces and obscure our view at critical times when we need to keep track of the bird. We try to follow a couple of roseate terns, but lose them each time. We do at least follow one as far as a feeding aggregation, less than 1km from the island.
We give up on this and try to spend a bit of time trying to track radio-tagged birds. This shouldn't be affected too much by the wind. Researchers from Newcastle University have tagged six more Arctic terns at the colony. We cannot detect three of those newly tagged birds, but #12 is still present from the previous tagging, and has chicks. We resolve to try and follow this bird to its feeding area. Somehow or other we cannot detect the difference between a bird at the colony and when it is flying away, and we miss #12's departure. Two hours later, and the bird has not returned to the nest.
We give up and return to harbour a couple of hours early. Somewhat discouraging, but we can't help the weather.
New boat
Two boat owners tendered for the contract to follow terns, which is no small deal given that the process is somewhat off-putting. We gave both of them a piece of the cake. Now it was Paul's turn of Farne Island Divers. His boat is a Humber and about 10m long with two 225 HP engines at the back. That's a lot of grunt!
A bigger RHIB and a new antenna
We also received a new antenna to make it much easier to try and radio-track terns. We managed to detect one of the birds in the colony, but still aren't having any success detecting them at sea.
We found the boat to be very smooth at speed, especially given the calm weather, and found it very easy to follow Sandwich terns, but managed some complete runs for common and Arctics as well (i.e. watch it leave the colony, feed and take a fish back to the nest site). We noticed something - if we spend a bit of time trying to only follow birds that we see leaving the nesting areas, we seem to get more complete runs.
Sandwich tern with large sandeel. Note that it has started to moult out its crown feathers
A bigger RHIB and a new antennaWe also received a new antenna to make it much easier to try and radio-track terns. We managed to detect one of the birds in the colony, but still aren't having any success detecting them at sea.
We found the boat to be very smooth at speed, especially given the calm weather, and found it very easy to follow Sandwich terns, but managed some complete runs for common and Arctics as well (i.e. watch it leave the colony, feed and take a fish back to the nest site). We noticed something - if we spend a bit of time trying to only follow birds that we see leaving the nesting areas, we seem to get more complete runs.
Sandwich tern with large sandeel. Note that it has started to moult out its crown feathers
Getting better
I don't have much to report in this bit of the blog, other than that the weather is improving and so are our fortunes.
Parts of Sunday, the sea went flat calm. On a day like this, lots of boats leave the local harbours and people sit and try to catch fish from them. I suspect we confused a lot of people when we charged about among them at 25 - 30 knots, with an idiot at the front pointing the way to a tern ahead of the boat. I suspect also, with our wash, we shouldn't expect to get Christmas cards from any of them.
Good news from the island, the first Roseate terns have hatched, and they counted 71 nests. Also get a text from Long Nanny wardens to say that the first little terns have also hatched.
By the end of Sunday, we have managed to follow a number of birds out from the island (44 to be precise), watch them feed and bring a sandeel back to their chicks, even watching them land at their nest site.
Arctic tern looking a bit like a common tern. But it's an Arctic!
Arctic tern looking a bit like a common tern. But it's an Arctic!Parts of Sunday, the sea went flat calm. On a day like this, lots of boats leave the local harbours and people sit and try to catch fish from them. I suspect we confused a lot of people when we charged about among them at 25 - 30 knots, with an idiot at the front pointing the way to a tern ahead of the boat. I suspect also, with our wash, we shouldn't expect to get Christmas cards from any of them.
Good news from the island, the first Roseate terns have hatched, and they counted 71 nests. Also get a text from Long Nanny wardens to say that the first little terns have also hatched.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
