With February drawing to a close, the eastern Solent harbours are in a state of transition between their winter and summer residents. Although large numbers of waders and geese can still be seen along the shoreline, salt marsh and harbour sides, it won't be much longer before they've all departed for their breeding grounds in the north. Likewise, our local breeding birds are getting ready for the summer ahead and this includes large numbers of Black-Headed Gulls and Mediterranean Gulls which are beginning to 'raft' together in the vicinity of their colony sites. Within the next few weeks, they'll be wooing potential mates, choosing their desired nesting locations and defending them from rivals. Some ducks have already started to incubate eggs (and others hatched ducklings much earlier).
Above: Part of South Binness Island. It's quiet now but within the next two months, over a thousand pairs of seabirds will begin nesting within the area shown.
With spring firmly on its way and the winter storm season mostly over, it's time to get everything ready for the breeding season. This years storms (and particularly storm Imogen) have left a legacy of marine debris and broken signage scattered throughout the nesting colonies. At least four of the signs at the Langstone seabird colony and another at Pilsey Island were variously snapped like twigs, uprooted or blown away in the gale force wind and storm surge that Imogen bought along. We've already re-erected two but it'll take a few more trips before they're all back in position.
Above: To paraphrase 90's indie band 'Chumbawamba', "they get blown down, we put them up again...."
As expected, large amounts of plastic and polystyrene have washed up (and blown in) this winter. This week alone, with much appreciated help from TCV, we've removed 15 bags full of synthetic debris from South Binness Island (the largest of the Langstone colonies) along with many other large or irregular items. Oddities so far from Langstone Harbour include a plastic horses leg (maybe from a rocking horse), a diving fin, a hoola hoop and a school chair. Alongside side these were tides of the usual suspects of industrial fishing gear, plastic bottles and plastic sewage items, all of which we aim to remove before the colony starts nesting properly.
Above: A plastic horses leg along with the more usual marine debris, a cigarette lighter.
Rather than simply removing all the debris though, we now carry out a marine debris survey on two of the Langstone Islands in the spring and Autumn to keep a record of the scale of the problem (a survey we'll be extending to Pilsey as well). Although still in it's infancy, the survey is suggesting an increasing problem and I'll happily share more information with you in the future when more data has been gathered. Globally, synthetic marine debris are an increasing crisis with one recent study suggesting that their will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. Seabirds regularly ingest oceanic plastic with a recent estimate suggesting 90% globally have done so.
Above: A scene from the Langstone Harbour shoreline this week, a global problem but one exacerbated locally by wastewater releases.
Once the rubbish has been removed, by around early to mid-March, we'll be getting the habitat ready for our breeding seabirds and re-erecting the electric fence to help keep them safe from inquisitive foxes. The terns are due back towards the end of the month with little terns following in mid April and so there's no time to lose...