Emily Scragg, Research Assitant with the Seabird Tracking and Research team (STAR), gives the final update of the season...
STAR- spangled seas
This will be the last update from the STAR seabird tracking work, as we near the end of our fieldwork season. For a background to the project please see our website and our previous blog posts (here, here and here, and also a post from Martin Harper when joined us for a day at the cliffs). While the rest of the country has been basking in a heatwave, Colonsay has been experiencing some rather different weather recently!
It has been a seemingly poor year for seabirds here on Colonsay. Birds were late to start breeding, and many did not breed at all but just spent time ‘loafing’ around on the cliffs. At this time of the year we should be seeing many large Guillemot chicks on the ledges, getting ready to fledge in numbers at night, and yet there are only a scattered few. The monitoring plots we collect data from should be able to tell us exactly how this year compares to previous ones once all the data is in and analysed.
We have so far managed to get tags back from 44 birds of four species on Colonsay: seven from shags, eleven from razorbills, thirteen from kittiwakes and thirteen from guillemots. The tracks show that the birds are travelling to a variety of different places to feed, however whether or not the birds’ foraging strategies have altered due to the poor season remains uncertain, and we will have to wait for a full analysis over the winter.
If you have been following this blog you may have gathered that the poor season has affected all of our teams, with fewer birds breeding and many failing half way through their breeding attempts. The results they have obtained may prove particularly interesting and we are looking forward to seeing them at the debrief at the end of the season.
Whilst we have been here there have been a number of exciting things happening on the island. Most recently the ceilidh season has started. The island has a new police officer, and there was a live WWII bomb found that had to be taken off the island by the MoD. Colonsay can be a surprisingly busy place at times!
We have also been lending a hand with island life and have been helping rear orphan lambs. ‘Pearl’ (the oldest) certainly knows where the food is coming from, and peers expectantly through the gate each morning in anticipation of it.
And finally, a message directly from one of our birds. There have been some interesting ‘pictures’ drawn by some of them as they have flown around in search of food: the Kittiwake below appears to have declared its love for the Southern Hebrides for all to see.
Find out more about seabirds and how you can help here: www.rspb.org.uk/scotlandsealife