Hello!
Great news, two pairs of gannets in our monitoring plots already have chicks! The gannet monitoring is well underway, most pairs have an egg and from now on more and more chicks will hatch each day.
Guillemots and razorbills have also started laying eggs and are being spotted by visitors and volunteers. Monitoring of these plots started this week and will continue through until the chicks fledge at the end of June/beginning of July.
Myself and a couple of volunteers attempted to count the whole puffin colony a week or so ago, but unfortunately once we had started there were no puffins to be seen! Luckily they hadn't disappeared completely, but had just flown out to sea which is normal before they start breeding. Since the attempted count there have been lots of puffins spotted from the viewpoints on the reserve.
Anyway back to work for me, very busy time setting up the monitoring plots and arranging volunteers to come and help on the project. Look forward to updating you all next week once more of the monitoring is underway.