Mike and Tom's time with us is coming to a close. The lads start summing up the seabird monitoring season here:
The preliminary results from our study-plot counts are in and its mainly good news for the seabirds at Bempton Cliffs.
Every year we count the same study plots to give us a snapshot of bird numbers.
For guillemots and razorbills we count the number of birds on each plot 5 times over a three week period during the peak breeding season in June. This year both the count mean and peak count on our razorbill and guillemot plots were up on last year; the mean count for guillemots on our plots was up about 13.5% and the mean count of razorbills was up by a whopping 76%. Counting plots doesn’t give us the same certainty that a complete colony count would, and might only catch variations within the colony rather than changes to the whole colony. But a whole colony count is such a big job that we only do one every 5 to7 years (if sea conditions allow). In the interim the plot counts suggest that it’s good news for auks at Bempton.
Razorbills - good numbers
We can’t count our puffins since they nest in inaccessible cracks in the cliffs, but our observations suggest that they are doing well despite the seabird ‘wreck’ earlier in the year. There are good numbers along the cliffs and on the sea all the way from Bempton down to Flamborough.
The picture is less positive for our Kittiwakes. On kittiwake plots we count Apparently Occupied Nests (AONs). Since nests are less mobile than individual birds we only count each plot twice. The mean AON count is down 22% on last year, and the peak count is down as well. This ties in well with anecdotal evidence from our kittiwake monitoring team, who have noted a lot of empty nest platforms and a number of kittiwakes that don’t seem to be trying to breed. Chatting to our friends at other colonies suggests that this may be a pattern up the East Coast. Kittiwakes are long-lived birds and one poor season shouldn’t have too much of an effect on the colony as a whole, but we’ll be paying special attention to kittiwake numbers next year.
Kittiwakes – doing well but overall numbers seem to be down