Branch Trip Update

Just a quick post to say that the Carlow & Wicklow Branch outing to the colony on Sunday went really well with c.35 people in attendance which was great. It was really nice meeting you all!

As well as getting a close up look at some Little Tern chicks, we also saw some Lapwing fledglings & migrating Curlew in Webb's field, a nice colony of Pyramidal Orchids in the dunes & some Black-tailed Godwits in The Breaches.

Having a look at some rare breeding birds in Webb's field (NPWS nature reserve) © Andrew Power

We were lucky to get some nice weather for a change! © Andrew Power

Niall showing some c.2 week old terns to the group, explaining the processes of ringing, chick growth & wing development © Andrew Power

The terns have been doing well since the high tide & strong winds on Friday buried the seaward fence & washed out a few nests. There's been no indication of any major loss & we've even had quite a few new nests in the past couple of days so as far as I'm aware we currently have 70 pairs with 75 chicks & 65 eggs left to hatch! I'll bring you guys up to speed with colony news as soon as I have more time to write-up a bigger blog entry, in the meantime we're slowly tipping away at getting the seaward fence back up & running!

Saturday outing cancelled!

Hi guys,

A South Easterly storm coupled with a hide tide lashed across the seaward section of the colony today, wrecking the foreshore fence, washing away 3 nests with eggs & taking 2 chicks for sure. More than likely more chicks have been lost but it will take a few days of censusing to determine the extent of the damage. Saying that we still have 28 pairs on nests with 65 eggs & potentially up to 36 pairs with 64 chicks although that remains to be confirmed!

A couple of positive points:

1. Plenty of half-grown (up to 2 week old) chicks seen high up, in the middle of the colony today. Birds of this age are usually found right down at the edge of the foreshore so it was encouraging to see that they had the good sense to run away from danger. They're also beginning to wing-stretch too (first fledglings expected by next weekend!!!).

2. Quite a few smaller chicks (<7 days old) were seen wandering along the foreshore after the storm abated which is a relief!

Anyways, the Wicklow Branch outing to the colony tomorrow is CANCELLED and will be moved to Sunday 19th June where they will join the Carlow Branch on their outing which will go ahead as normal, meeting at Kilcoole train station car park at 10:00am. 

Apologies to anyone who can't make it on Sunday but sure come down any other day when you're free for a visit!

I'll hopefully get an update on the go with all the latest details on Monday/Tuesday.

G'luck!

Niall

The seaward fence, which has seen better days! © Jason McGuirk

This chick was seen sheltering inside a Roseate Tern nest box (which we put out for the craic to see if Little Terns would nest in it - which they didnt!) © Jason McGuirk

Little Tern Outings This Weekend

There will be a series of organised outings to the Kilcoole Little Tern colony this weekend, hosted by the wardens & BirdWatch Ireland Local Branches.

The Wicklow Branch will be visiting on Saturday 18th June, meeting at Kilcoole train station car park at 10:00am followed by a short walk along the coastal path viewing both the BirdWatch Ireland & NPWS coastal marsh reserves before finally reaching the Little Tern colony at The Breaches. The tern wardens will be present at the colony with telescopes allowing participants to view Little Terns on nests & with any luck some parent birds feeding chicks.

The Carlow Branch will also be visiting on Sunday 19th June, again meeting at Kilcoole train station car park at 10:00am before heading down to the colony via the coastal reserves, so if you can't make the Saturday outing then why not come along on Sunday?!

A great opportunity to get a good look at one of Ireland's rarest breeding birds. These events are open to all members of the public & are always a firm favourite with families & kids. Please note that children must be accompanied by adults.

Hope to see you at the weekend!

Niall

Little Tern chick from one of last years outings © Terry O'Rourke

Chicks Ahoy!

The first egg hatched (from K6 as predicted) on Friday 3rd June, a full 8 days earlier than last year, but that was to be expected given the early laying this year. Since then we've been busy trying to complete nest checks during what little breaks in the weather we had some days (nest checks aren't undertaken when it's cold or drizzley as the chicks can become exposed & chilled). All chicks have been ringed with metal BTO rings which will allow us to keep track of their survival rates & movements across the colony over the coming weeks. We also measure & weigh the chicks during nest checks as part of an ongoing growth study. 

Little Tern chick, only a couple of hours old © Andrew Power & Peter Cutler 

Niall measuring the wing length of a chick © Andrew Power & Peter Cutler

A couple of nests have single eggs in them which look like they won't hatch but this is normal for a few clutches with three eggs but saying that there are still quite a few broods of three chicks out & about keeping the parents busy. The eggs hatch usually within a day of each other so the difference between the A chick (i.e. the first one to hatch) & the B chick is only a matter of a millimetre or two on the wing & a gram or so in weight. Nest K12 hatched it's three eggs but the third, C chick was found dead in the nest scrape a day later. It was wet when I found it so probably hadn't been brooded that morning during showers. It's two siblings were no longer in the nest scrape so the parents must have started moving them on towards the foreshore pretty quickly. The last time I saw all three of the chicks together it was quite noticeable that the A & B chicks were much bigger than the C chick so I reckon that they were getting the Lion's share of the food & the poor wee fella just wasn't strong enough to survive.

The rest of the chicks are healthy & are being fed some good sized sandeels so it appears that the fish stocks here are in good order (still lots of Gannets diving close offshore these days too which is another positive sign). Quite a lot of the tern broods are already on the move with a lot of the bigger chicks (now up to 9 days old) out beyond the fence & lined up along the foreshore, where the parents leave them whilst they go off fishing.

Chicks are fed on small fish & amphipods for the first couple of days before switching mostly to sandeels. Nest cam footage © Andrew Power & Peter Cutler

 K4 female being fed by the male. Nest cam footage © Andrew Power & Peter Cutler

We've been finding lots of new nests recently too, even up to 8 in a day at one stage so it seems that all the nests that were lost to the Rook, Hooded Crows & abandonment have re-laid. Looking at the nest data chart, this would seem to be the case all right as the dates for re-laying & the size of the clutches (usually an egg less than the original clutch) all match up. The nests lost to corvids in the N-colony appear to have moved to the K-colony to re-lay which means they're now afforded better protection from ground predators due to the more extensive fencing there. Quite a few of the latest nests certainly involve recent arrivals as well as re-lays as there are plenty of full clutches with 3 eggs.

So, as it stands we currently have 70 active nests with 56 chicks & 97 eggs which is amazing given the heavy losses a couple of weeks ago. It just goes to show how resilient these birds can be if they're given enough time & space to breed. As an added bonus, we're also 4 nests above last years total of 66 pairs!!! 

The first Ringed Plover young have fledged successfully & can now be seen feeding along the shoreline in The Breaches. We've also had 3 new nests (totalling 4 chicks & 3 eggs) which could well be second broods/clutches? The Oystercatchers in the N-colony (OC1) hatched 2 of their 3 eggs & the chicks are now to be found near the foreshore being fed regularly on polychaete worms brought in from The Breaches by the male. The eggs from the K-colony Oyc nest (OC2) were beginning to hatch yesterday also!

Early on Wednesday morning (8th June) I was sitting in the hide over-looking the K-colony carrying out some incubation checks when all the terns took flight in a dread at 06:55. Some waders which must have been resting on the foreshore with the terns got up too & I noticed an interesting looking bird with 3 Turnstone. Sure enough it was a BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER!!! The 'Buff-B' (as they are affectionately referred to by birders) did a lap of the K-colony right in front of the hide & then continued North with the Turnstones before landing on the beach past the Sea Buckthorn bushes. No sign of it afterwards though. I suppose there's a chance that it is the same bird that we saw here on the 11th May making a return journey? Either way, not a bad way to start the day!

The 2 Cuckoos are STILL here, often showing very well in the Sea Buckthorn or along the K-colony fence. The length of their stay & the fact that they show so well has attracted a lot of attention from photographers & apparently they even got a mention on local radio too! A Short-eared Owl was seen hunting around Newcastle Airfield late in the evening of 2nd June (one seen here last year on 1st June!) & two Kingfishers were seen along the western channel of Webb's field earlier that day. Small numbers of Arctic Terns continue to be seen migrating past every now & then with pairs of Mediterranean Gulls heading North on 6th & 7th also.

The first of the Curlew are beginning to migrate back south already and a few Whimbrel have made an appearance here & there. There's still a flock of 10-20 Dunlin about, often seen roosting on the K-colony foreshore where they attract in Turnstones & Sanderling. A single Redshank & 20-30 Black-tailed Godwits can be found in The Breaches, a flock of 8 Lapwing in Webb's field yesterday may be the first of the returning birds for them too whilst two Snipe can still be heard singing & drumming on Stringer's land behind The Breaches.

A Harbour Porpoise travelled north offshore on 2nd June but we've not seen the 3 Bottlenose Dolphins since. Two Otters are still knocking about The Breaches & Webb's field at night time, munching away on crabs & flatfish. Lots of Leisler's Bats & some Pipistrelle sp. around in the evenings & the first lot of Six-spot Burnet moths are also on the wing.

As you may have guessed from some of the pics above, we're using a nest camera this year. Andrew Power & Peter Cutler are making a documentary on the Little Tern project & they've placed a GoPro camera beside several nests to film some chick feeding (under licence from NPWS). They're already getting some great footage & Peter was kind enough to send on a few stills to use here on the blog. The nest cam will also give us the opportunity to monitor the feeding ecology of tern chicks at a young age & with a bit of luck we might be able to read a few ring codes on the adults too! Anyways, here's a few more nest cam stills for you guys...

K6 adult & chicks. Nest cam footage © Andrew Power & Peter Cutler

OC2 incubating. Nest cam footage © Andrew Power & Peter Cutler

Niall, Peter & Andrew setting up the nest cam beside K6 © Siobhan McNamara

This male tern (from K13) is most likely one of 3 birds from the Wexford Harbour colony that were fitted with blue colour rings when they were chicks in either 1995 or 1997. We're doing our best to try & read the code on that metal ring! Nest cam footage © Andrew Power & Peter Cutler 

Rupert the Rook

In my last post I mentioned that a Rook was the likely cause of the loss of one nest (K43) on Monday 23rd May. Well, I'm afraid to say my suspicions were correct & unfortunately the Rook was back in again on Wednesday...and Thursday...AND Friday!!! It appears that Rupert (the Rook) is a rogue non-breeder who sussed out that mid-week periods of poor weather result in very few people out & about walking along the dunes leaving plenty of opportunity for it to pop in for a few nests then pop out again before anyone would notice! It also had a nasty habit of doing this while the on duty warden was at the opposite end of the colony so a rather cruel game of cat & mouse (or warden & Rook) ensued for a few days. On one occasion the Rook attacked the north end of the K-colony whilst I was monitoring nests at the southern end. In the short space of time it took me to run the 200m to where the Rook had landed in it had already munched 3 nests! That was the kind of determination we were up against! The majority of nests lost were taken on Wednesday/Thursday with the number of attacks decreasing pretty quickly once the weather started getting better around the weekend & more people were out & about walking along the beach/path. Continuous human presence it seems was the best deterrent. All in all a total of 16 nests with 35 eggs were predated by the Rook, which was a serious blow to the colony. Thankfully there has been no sign of Rupert for the past few days now so lets hope he's in a bad way somewhere suffering from the ill effects of high cholesterol due to all those eggs he ate!

K40 - safe & unpredated! © Niall Keogh

Little Tern bringing in a sandeel for it's mate © Niall Keogh

Another two nests (K32 & K55) have abandoned, for reasons unknown. I've heard a theory that prolonged spells of bad weather often result in abandonment so perhaps the high winds had something to do with it? The Peregrine made another pass over the K-colony early on Monday morning taking an adult Little Tern (that's 2 now so far) which to be honest wasn't unexpected. What was unexpected though was the predation of an adult Little Tern by an adult Great Black-backed Gull on Sunday afternoon! The gull was migrating north along the coast when it passed through a flock of terns. It must have seen an opportunity for an easy meal as it whacked an adult Little Tern which then fell to the water & was promptly pounced upon and SWALLOWED WHOLE by the gull! This is the first time that predation by a Great Black-backed Gull has been confirmed at the colony since wardening began in the mid 1980's. The gull continued on travelling north as soon as it had finished with the tern so I wouldn't be too worried about it as it appears to have been an opportunistic one-off event (although I have since been giving all the gulls migrating past the colony the old evil eye!).

DON'T PANIC!!! I think it's time for a bit of positive news for a change! With regards those nest lost to the Rook, well it's still early enough in the season for them to re-lay and it appears that some of them are already beginning to do so (it generally takes 7-10 days after predation for a re-lay to appear). Furthermore there was an arrival of about 20 new birds at the colony early last week & they too have settled down to breed with quite a few new nests found over the past couple of days. As such we currently have 50 active nests with 101 eggs so we're making up for lost nests in no time! With any luck there'll be a run of new nests (hopefully involving those re-lays) over the next week. We're also expecting our first chick to hatch any day now too! There's a couple of nests which have eggs with cracks on the shell so there's obviously a beak poking at it from the inside! My money is on the first chick hatched tomorrow in nest K6.

K6 eggs on the brink of hatching. Cracks in the shell visible & all! © Niall Keogh

Volunteers Siobhan & Riona with warden Jason fixing up some chick shelters which are due to go out today! © Niall Keogh 

Little Terns in evening light © Niall Keogh

Things had quietened down for a while on the bird front with the best of the action last week again at sea during the high winds when decent numbers of Manx Shearwaters were noted (e.g. 1,500 heading south in an hour & a half on 25th) with some Storm Petrels knocking about too, 4 Common Scoter heading north on 27th and up to 4 Great Northern Divers & 2 Red-throated Divers also loafing offshore. A Balearic Shearwater heading south with the Manxies on 25th was quite early & a great local record of this Critically Endangered seabird (more on this species in the coming weeks - watch this space!). 

The feral Barnacle Goose made a reappearance in Webb's field on 25th, a pair of Shoveler were seen in the area with 6 young recently which is an excellent breeding record for this species & a pair of Teal are also present but don't seem to have bred. The Breaches estuary outflow was blocked for a few days after a southerly wind but as soon as it was opened the waders began to arrive. Yesterday saw some particularly nice movements of species like Sanderling (22), Knot (2), Bar-tailed Godwit (2), Black-tailed Godwit (5), Dunlin (13), Turnstone (8), Curlew (1) & Whimbrel (13). Other migrant species recorded in recent days include an adult Arctic Tern passing through on 28th, a 1st-summer Little Gull & 3 Mediterranean Gulls moving north yesterday afternoon & best of all a super close, low-flying Osprey with a whole gang of raucous Oystercatchers & gulls in attendance, heading slowly north over The Breaches yesterday evening at 19:30!!! An great bird which myself, Jason & Cole all got to see as well as two other birders who raced up to Killiney Hill in south Dublin and caught it moving inland over Bray & Shankill half an hour later! 

There's also a pair of Cuckoos hanging around the Sea Buckthorn bushes in recent days which have attracted a lot of attention from members of the public who are enjoying great views of these rather tame birds. The flip side of this however is that the Cuckoos are spending quite a bit of time feeding on caterpillars along the path by the K-colony & inadvertently spooking the terns as a result (the terns think the Cuckoo is a bird of prey it would seem which is fair enough as they look a bit like a mix of Sparrowhawk & Kestrel in flight!). Saying that, this has meant we've been getting good flock counts on the Little Terns with 114 adult birds seen yesterday!

Cuckoo on the K-colony fence © Niall Keogh

The 3 Bottlenose Dolphins & the Otter continue to be seen regularly & showing well too. The dolphins were jumping around all over the place yesterday evening really close offshore from the K-colony which was great to see!

Anyways, there should be a flurry of new nests & chicks hatching over the next 2 weeks so why not pop down for a visit?

Until next time!

Niall

Hows about that weather?!

A bit windy yeah? A load of fun that was...the fences are bent, the hide is tilted, marquees imploded but at least the caravans are still standing (just about!). Using the Port-a-loo in a Force 8 wind is also an experience to say the least! Anyways, enough of that...onto the birds!

The number of adult Little Terns present seems to be staying put at about 110 birds which fits in nicely with the number of pairs floating about at the moment. With any luck a new batch of birds will arrive in the next 2 weeks but until then we have, as of this morning, 51 active nests with 115 eggs! The tally would be slightly higher except for 2 tern nests (K3 & K21) which appear to have abandoned already. Terns will normally only abandon their nest after significant disturbance/predation or when they have laid too late in the season, so it is odd that these two have given up (for now) as early on as this. They still have quite some time however to get another clutch on the go if they wish to do so. 

I was trying to come up with possible explanations for abandonment over the past fews days (perhaps they were young & inexperienced? or perhaps they knew the eggs were infertile already?) but on Sunday morning Jason saw the 'resident' Peregrine swoop across the K-colony & nab an adult Little Tern! With so few non-breeders hanging about it is likely that a breeding bird was taken so this may well the cause of one nest abandonment? Hard to say really. The Peregrine has been seen 'attacking' the colony up to 3 times in an afternoon over the past few days & is causing some serious panic amongst the terns, causing them to take off & flock out at sea on a regular basis meaning that the nests are often exposed more regularly than they should be. The knock on effect of this is that there's a couple of Hooded Crows & an adult Rook hanging about the K-colony testing the defence capabilities of both the terns & the wardens! Unfortunately one nest on the edge of the K-colony (K43) vanished some time yesterday afternoon, with the likely culprit being the adult Rook....I know this because it tried to do it again right in front of me! After a bit of yelling & flailing of arms the Rook promptly left. I've also found that shouting 'Oi!' at the Peregrine also works for a short while...

Anyways, other than the aforementioned nests lost over the past couple of days, I'm happy to report that everything else is going well. Only 3 nests have yet to finish laying so all the rest are busy incubating & are on the home stretch leading up to hatching. The week of high tides has past with no negative effects. Some minor readjustments to the seaward fence needs to be made after the strong winds but that's no problem.

Surveying the southern half of the K-colony © Niall Keogh

Our two pairs of Oystercatchers are still incubating whilst the 4 pairs of Ringed Plover currently have a total of 15 chicks running about like there's no tomorrow! See some pics of the plover chicks on Siobhan McNamara's Drimnagh Birdwatch blog - http://drimnaghbirdwatch.blogspot.com/2011/05/little-tern-colony-kilcoole.html

One advantage of the windy weather is that there has been some nice seabird passage with Manx Shearwaters & Gannets showing particularly well, feeding very close offshore at times. After doing a few tern incubation checks yesterday morning I took a quick look out to sea expecting to catch a few 'Manxies' drifting past but instead saw two cracking adult Long-tailed Skuas zip through my field of view! A subsequent 2 hour seawatch notched up a pale phase Arctic Skua, good numbers of Black Guillemots, 3 summer plumaged Great Northern Divers, 4,500+ Manx Shearwaters & 3 Bottlenose Dolphins! Two Storm Petrels were loafing about offshore later that morning. The wader passage has died off now, save for some nice flocks of Sanderling moving north (e.g. 28 on 21st). The best of the rest include a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers flying south on Friday, a male Tufted Duck in Stringer's channels on Saturday & the Otter which is still knocking about in the evenings.

Little Tern egg & nest variation © Niall Keogh

Predators aplenty

A quick update with a few pics for you guys today. Lots of new nests found over the past few days with the tallies now reaching 36 active Little Tern nests with 86 eggs! The bulk of these (31) are found in the main K-colony whilst 5 nests are located south of The Breaches in the sub N-colony. No more losses to corvids since my last post but a Hooded Crow continues to hang around the very southern limits of the colony whilst a juvenile Rook is being a bit of a nuisance around the north, thankfully the terns are still giving both of them a hard time!

Lots more action from other predators around the area though. A male Peregrine has made a couple of attempts at catching adult terns but remains unsuccessful, a male Kestrel has been hunting lizards in the dunes right inside the K-colony fencing & is getting a lot of grief from the terns for it, a Buzzard even soared right over the colony a couple of days ago, causing a bit of a panic amongst the terns & there's a least 3 Foxes patrolling the fields inland from the colony with one in particular out & about early in the evening. No sign of any Hedgehogs....yet!

We've had to be mindful of the current high tides (as a result of the full moon), as the seaward section of fencing & low nests are vulnerable if strong easterly winds were to coincide. Although the wind has been strong all week, thankfully it has been coming from the West-Southwest & should continue to do so up until the last high tide on Sunday.

Two Great Northern Divers in full summer plumage offshore from The Breaches yesterday were nice to see, the Dunlin flock has reached 50+ over the past few days & the largest flock of migrating Sanderling recorded was of 24. The Otter continues to be seen, mostly at night however. 

Female Little Tern incubating © Niall Keogh

A group of eligible bachelors on the foreshore © Niall Keogh

Cole & Jason keeping a watchful eye © Riona Howard

Niall treading carefully during nest checks! © Riona Howard  

Swallow nest © Niall Keogh

Or the warden will get ya! © Jason McGuirk