Storm Petrel studies

A little background to our increasing effort with Storm Petrels... 

Skokholm warden, Rich Brown, believes nest site availability is a limiting factor to the breeding population on the island, currently c2000 pairs. With the building of two Petrel Stations on Skokholm with their c 250 nest chambers and with Lundy and Ramsey now rat free there is a great opportunity for the population to increase.

This is Storm Petrel Station II on Skokholm, built and ready for the 2024 breeding season.

This herringbone front contains the entrance to almost 120 nest chambers

See the following link for the story of building Petrel Station I in 2016

Skokholm Petrel Station I

Our ringing at Strumble Head, North Pembs follows on from earlier studies by Ian Spence. He commenced Storm Petrel ringing at Strumble in 1983 and ringed for short spells, mostly in July every year from 1991 to 2003. In that time he ringed 847 birds and controlled 39 at Strumble.

Having concentrated our efforts in Ceredigion at Mwnt, for the reasons outlined above, we are now increasing our efforts at Strumble instead. So far this season we have captured 124 Storm Petrels including 9 controls. 

Ringing at Strumble - Stephen Hyam

Here are some of the movements resulting from our increased effort at Strumble Head this month. In our June blog we mentioned some other movements from West coast breeding colonies. We hope that our continuing study at our non breeding site adds to the picture of Storm Petrel movements.

Storm Petrel movements July 2024

Re-encounter reports from Strumble received so far this month..

This was the first re-encounter in South West Ireland for us

2720384  Strumble Head 22/06/2023

Illauntannig, Kerry 05/07/2024 379 days 276deg W D Manley

2739421 Strumble Head 18/07/2023

Skokholm Island 10/07/2024 358 days 40km SSW

2787231 Strumble Head 01/07/2024

Skokholm Island  11/07/2024 10 days 40km SSW

2739449 Strumble Head  26/07/2023

Skokholm Island    14/07/2024 354 days 40km SSW

and this month, re-encounters at Strumble...

2765615 Lundy Island 10/07/2023

Strumble Head  11/07/2024 367 days 96km NNW

2764817 Calf of Man 24/08/2021

Strumble Head 12/07/2024 1053 days 225 km S

2774902 Skokholm Island 20/07/2023

Strumble Head 13/07/2024 359 days 40km NNE

2765786 Bardsey Island    21/07/2022

Strumble Head 14/07/2024 1454 days 84km SSW

2547826 Little Saltee, Wexford      01/07/2022

Strumble Head        15/07/2024 745 days 104km E

The recovery history feature added this year to DemOn, the BTO online reporting tool, enables us to see that some Storm Petrels are also encountered in other locations between the ringing and our re-encounter dates.

As an example, the Storm Petrel ringed on Bardsey had also been re-encountered on the Lleyn peninsula

21/07/2020 Ringed Bae y Rhigol, Bardsey

31/07/2021 Porth Iago, Llangwnnadl

22/06/2023 Porth Iago, Llangwnnadl

14/07/2024 Strumble

The Storm Petrel ringed on Little Saltee had also been re-encountered in Cornwall

01/07/2022 ringed Little Saltee

18/06/2023 Gwennap Head, Porthgwarra

15/07/2024 Strumble

Strumble Head has the advantage of being a convenient site for visitors to come along to experience and learn more about our Storm Petrel ringing. Anyone is welcome to join us at a session.

One of our trainees, Anna Webberley, who works for Sea Trust , arranged a visit for some youngsters from the Marine Biology Club with their parents.

"Our Marine Biology Club had a fantastic time on Friday night on their trip to Strumble Head to see Storm Petrels being ringed with the Teifi Ringing Group! Everyone enjoyed learning more about the importance of bird ringing for conservation as well as getting to see these amazing seabirds up close. Both children and parents had a go at perfecting their ringing hold with Bernard the toy Gull, before getting the chance to help Teifi Ringing Group members release a Storm Petrel.

Thank you to the Teifi Ringing Group for letting us join the session and thank you to Stephen Hyam for photographing the evening!"

Sea Trust Marine Biology club at Strumble - Stephen Hyam

Rich D and Wendy J

Summer species and recoveries

Regular ringing at Cors Caron (Ceredigion) is continuing to produce a variety of species, some not regular at our other sites. This juvenile Redstart and adult male Whinchat - fine examples.

Juvenile Redstart

Adult male Whinchat

Arfon is hoping that this year's CES style effort will result in Cors Caron becoming another CES for the TRG.

On the north Pembs coast our Linnet RAS site is continuing to catch well.

This leucistic Linnet stood out from the regular plumage birds. The last two sessions have produced mostly juvenile birds, presumably the adults now on second nesting attempts.

A colour ringed Osprey was around the Teifi from the 30th May until the 6th June.

Osprey 7H6 - Stuart Hall

Many thanks to several photographers for reporting this bird from Curlew Hide on the Teifi Marshes. It was one of a brood of three ringed 10km south of Inverness, on a platform that the nest was moved to after a couple of years of having the original nest site robbed in the mid 90’s. 

The birds have since been successful in all except one year and usually manage to fledge three chicks as they did in 2022 when Jon Brain ringed this one on 1 July. The nest has had a spectacular success rate for subsequent sightings including a bird seen in Guinea Bissau. Thanks to Jon Brain for the news and photos.

Osprey 7H6 at the time of ringing - Jon Brain

Pied Flycatcher studies...

Pullus Pied Flycatcher - Naomi

This link covers a summary of our Pembs locations, hopefully a summary of our Ceredigion studies to follow.

Pied Flycatchers in Pembs ...

The Group runs several nest box schemes and have added a new site this year, the National Botanic Garden of Wales near Carmarthen. Ellyn has been assisted by Andrew in finding existing boxes and monitoring them. Ellyn has written an article about the nest box work as part of Wales Nature Week 

Feathers and Fledglings: A Nesting Season at the Garden

June sees the start of our Storm Petrel monitoring. Five visits to our Storm Petrel sites so far this season, Mwnt and Strumble. 37 new birds and 2 that had been ringed elsewhere, Bardsey and Mwnt. We plan to increase our trapping efforts this summer and have demonsrations planned for local interested groups at our Strumble Head site.

Storm Petrel 2720399
Ringed Mwnt 25/06/2023
Re-encountered Strumble Head 12/06/2024

Storm Petrel   2788509
Ringed Bardsey Island 09/07/2023
Re-encountered Strumble Head 12/06/2024 339 days 86km SSW

Storm Petrel 2739416
Ringed Strumble Head 18/07/2023
Subsequently encountered Calf of Man 16/06/2024 334 days 225km N

Winter nightime studies....

Due to several of the Group's ringers spending spells in November and February ringing under the new moon in The Gambia, our winter farmland surveying and ringing at night has been reduced. This particularly affects our north Pembs farmland sites. Arfon is taking out trainees and his similar studies on Ceredigion and Carmarthen upland farms are producing excellent results and some interesting recoveries...

Woodock  EM42456

Ringed  Tan-lan, nr Ffarmers Carms 06/12/2023

Shot  Lake Yasnoe, Svetogorskiy, Leningrad Oblast, Russian Federation 13/05/2024

158 days 2239km ENE

Visiting ringers to our sites....

We are often in a position to welcome visiting ringers .. or observers to join or watch our activities

Jenny spent a few days with us ringing at CES, and both our main Reed Warbler RAS  and Reed Bunting RAS and colour ringing sites.

June was not a great month for several of our species with signs of poor breeding success. Hopefully as the weather improves and allows we will be more active in the reedbeds and across the Marshes and produce a more complete picture.

(Rich D and Wendy J)