Sandwich Tern Colour Ringing Donegal 2020

In June 2019 we began our Sandwich Tern colour ringing project with the first cohort of 30 ringed. In the first autumn (2019) we got six recoveries of five birds:
Three travelled the Ayrshire coast of Scotland (one bird was recorded at two sites)
One travelled to Rhos Point, Conwy, Wales
One travelled to County Wexford

 

As Sandwich Terns do not reach sexual maturity until 3-4 years old, we don't expect to see the first returning birds back until 2022 but it will be interesting if any non-breeding birds return sooner.

 

Sandwich Tern 569 ringed on 15th June 2020

The plan for this year (2020) was to really focus on colour ringing only and not place any focus on metal ringing birds. To avoid excess disturbance on the islet which supports a few thousand breeding birds (Sandwich Tern, Black-headed Gull, Common Tern, Mute Swan, Tufted Duck, Mallard) we are limited to an hours visit to land and depart. Unfortunately, as everywhere, the Covid-19 pandemic scuppered plans with tight lockdown restrictions meaning travel to Donegal and bird ringing was not permissible until June. The visit took place on June 15th but with social distancing measures in place, only two people were present, myself and Martin the NPWS Ranger. With very low water levels in the lagoon we had a new mode of transport with two paddleboards which worked really well. 39 well developed chicks were ringed 531-570 which now means we have 69 Sandwich Terns bearing colour rings.

 

We are very keen for your sightings so if you see any of our birds, please send the sightings to Richard.Donaghey89(at)gmail.com

 

All the colour ringed Sandwich Terns are marked at the Inch Island Wildfowl Reserve on a small islet in the centre of the man-made lagoon. The site is owned and managed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service who enable access to the islet and we are thankful for their purchase of the BTO metal rings and colour rings.

Donegal Sandwich Terns June 2019

Continuing our long term monitoring of breeding Sandwich Terns in Donegal, which began back in 1986 (before I was born), we returned to Inch Island Wildfowl Reserve in Donegal for two visits this summer.

The first visit took place on the 4th of June with a team of Ken Perry, James McDowell, Gary Platt and myself with Lee and Martin from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS). 

Keep your eyes peeled for these Blue darvic rings with 3 numbers in white

Our plan was to finally kick off our Sandwich Tern colour ringing programme after last years delay but being so early in the season we weren't too optimistic. We managed to metal ring 193 Sandwich Terns and also added colour rings to the eight largest chicks we could find. We limit ourselves to a maximum of one hour on the breeding islet to minimise disturbance so time is a very limiting factor. There were still plenty of very small chicks that we did not ring and also lots of eggs.

Gary Platt accompanied us on the trip and his main focus was on the breeding Black-headed Gulls. Gary runs colour ringing schemes on both Black-headed Gulls and Common Gulls in the north of Ireland and is one the most dedicated ring readers in Ireland. Gary managed to colour ring 28 new Black-headed Gull chicks. He also sighted two colour ringed Black-headed Gulls from 2017 but without his gear he was unable to read the rings - great to see them back though. 

Gary is also using blue darvic rings with white ringing on this current cohort but a four digit code starting with the number 2 with three letters after.

Katherine and I colour ringing a Sandwich Tern

The second visit took place on the 19th if June, this time Ken, Gary and I were joined by John Clarke, Katherine Booth Jones and Abbie Maiden as well as Lee, Martin & Ger from the NPWS. 

The heavens opened up on our way out across the lagoon in the small boat but thankfully it just stopped as we arrived on the islet. The rain started again just as we were leaving, so we got very lucky indeed.

Ken, John and the ladies focused on metal ringing Sandwich Terns and added another 68, taking us to a year total of 257 for the year.

This is a decent total compared to visits in the past 10 years

2018 -100

2017 -  139

2016 - 357

2015 - 189

2014 - 270

2013 - 251

2012 - 410

2011 - 94

2010 - 387

My focus was on colour ringing the largest Sandwich Tern chicks from the previous visit and I was able to add a further 22 chicks, giving us a total of 30 colour ringed Sandwich Terns - roll on the recoveries. We are particularly keen for recoveries in Ireland, as, if you check out the Tern & Gull tab above, we have more from 5/6 countries in Arica than we do in Ireland. 

The Common Terns breed in much smaller numbers and are always a few weeks later so just 14 were ringed. A further 4 large Black-headed Gull chicks were metal ringed for training.

Gary was again focused on colour ringing Black-headed Gulls and discovered two of the marked birds from the 4th had perished so the colour rings were reused. 26 more chicks were colour ringed giving a total of 52. You can check out Gary's blog on the link below

http://birdingatantrimmarina.blogspot.com/

One of the returning birds from 2017 (Gary Platt)

We have identified some habitat works to be carried out on the islet post breeding season to boost the breeding population. Originally the islet was open shingle and sand but overtime the vegetation has increased. The Terns prefer to nest on the bare ground and are being forced off the high of the island towards the lower edges and a number of nests have been lost in the last few years to higher waters. This is often the reason the Common Terns do not do too well here.

A big thank you as always to the NPWS for making supplying the boat, rings and maintaining the breeding islet. 

Sandwich Terns 2018

The Inch Island (Donegal) Sandwich Tern season has been and gone already and it hasn't quite gone to plan. Signs were looking good following the important habitat work carried out by Ken, Richard B with Lee and Martin from NPWS to clear some of the dense vegetation and fill gaps in gabions. The result was a count of 266 breeding pairs of Sandwich Terns with a total of 404 eggs on the 8th of May. Half the colony was noted to have relocated to the lower shore and away from the raised part of the islet where they normally breed, which was a bit of concern with the possibility of high tides flooding the nests.
Difficult weather and the tides resulted in some chops and changes and cancellations with our planned visits and we ended up with just a single ringing visit. 2018 was to the be the first year of a colour ringing project and we had everything purchased and in place but a miscommunication meant that the colour rings were left behind for the ringing visit.

The ringing visit took place on the 21st June with myself, John, Ken, Gary, Lee and Martin present. On landing on the island it was clear that the storm the week previous had a big impact with lots of dead chicks and dried eggs along the shore, the Black-headed Gulls were particularly affected. It was evident that a number of the Sandwich Terns had fledged with small gatherings at either end of the islet with perhaps 50+ fledged already. We located and ringed a total of 92 chicks in and around the nest sites and managed to catch a further 8 of the semi-fledged birds. There looked to be some more recent nests in a new area and with any luck these eggs will have hatched in the fantastic weather - perhaps too nice!

The Common Terns usually lay a few weeks later than the Sandwich Terns with perhaps 20-25 nests located. All but a couple of nests with 1/2 day old chicks were with eggs and none will be ringed this year. A handful of large Black-headed Gulls were ringed.

Given the reduced catch, only 45 minutes on the islet and the number of large chicks it would have been the perfect opportunity to begin colour ringing. It is a bit of a set back but there is always next year... Metal rings, as they always have done, do still produce recoveries including this bird below which was very slow in coming through but had its ring read in Germany July 2016.

The bird was ringed as a chick on Croaghan Islet in Mulroy Bay, Donegal on the 4th of June 2007 and recovered at Nordfriesisches Wattenmeer Nature Reserve on the 01st July 2016. The nature reserve lies within the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park on North Sea coast of Germnay, a distance of 1039km from Donegal. This bird will have easily travelled 50,000+ kilometres in it's life time. 

Nordfriesisches Wattenmeer Nature Reserve

Mid Summer Update

Storm Petrel season is continuing on the trend of last season and we are failing to get any large catches, although we haven't stayed out later than 1am.  We have been out two times since the previous post and have been able to introduce three more people to Storm Petrel ringing.  The two catches were of 15 and 14 new birds plus one new British control and a retrap.  On the first visit we also continued our luck with waders whilst out stormie ringing with another two Redshank.  If we are lucky we might get one or two more chances before the end of August and may get rewarded for our efforts.

Redshank

On the weekend of 29-30th of July I hosted/organised a large BioBlitz across the Magilligan SAC with the help from partners from Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council, Ulster Wildlife, Butterfly Conservation NI, Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, NI Bat Group, NIEA and other partners.  The event was a great success with over 200 recorders and members of the public taking part and hundreds of biological records collected. 
As part of the event we had some members of the group and a few guys up from Copeland Bird Observatory to do a ringing demonstration.  I had prepared a bit of ringing site along an ideally maintained footpath with scrub on either side allowing for 90 metres of net. 

Whitethroat

The catch was a small one but it did include species that we don't ring all to often with limited garden ringing these days including Long-tailed Tit and Magpie.  It was a touch breezy and rain was forecast for after 10am so the nets were taken down in advance and the guys enjoyed a free breakfast at the Boardwalk Café!  The area is loaded with Blackberries and Sloes which when ripe would have attracted thrushes and Sylvia warblers in large numbers. 

Blue Tit                1
Bullfinch              1
Chiffchaff            1
Dunnock              1
Goldcrest             2
Long-tailed Tit    2
Magpie                 1
Whitethroat         1
Willow Warbler   3
Wren                     1

Disappointingly we have only had two visits to the Bann Estuary since the last post - one each to Grangemore and Portstewart Strand.  The trip to Grangemore included the third and final visit for the season to the Sand Martin colony.  Other than the Sand Martins, Sedge Warbler and Linnet were the two most common species caught across the two sessions and we caught the first and probably only Grasshopper Warbler of the year.

 Portstewart Strand/Grangemore                            
                                       New       Retrap    

Blue Tit                                            1 
Bullfinch                                          1           
Dunnock                         3          
Grasshopper Warbler    1
Lesser Redpoll               1                                      
Linnet                             10           
Meadow Pipit                  4    
Reed Bunting                  4    
Robin                               2
Sand Martin                   25            34
Sedge Warbler               11              3
Willow Warbler               8               1                         
Wren                                1               1

Totals                              70            41       

 Distinctive tail of the Grasshopper Warbler

 Garden Tiger Moth



Juvenile Lesser Redpoll

Ken's project studying Sandwich Terns in County Donegal continued into it's 32nd year with a couple of visits to the islet at Inch Wildfowl Reserve.  Ken and the National Parks and Wildlife Service had visited the site in early spring to improve the habitat of the islet because of the rank vegetation that has taken root and repair some of the stone gabions.  It had looked as though this hard work was worth the effort and we were in for a good year.  Unfortunately the often cold and wet weather in mid summer resulted in only around a third of the eggs laid producing chicks which fledged.  This was reflected in the ringing totals with 139 chicks ringed, down from 357 in 2016 and the lowest total since 1997 with the exception of 2011.  No Common Terns were ringed this year and no effort was made on the breeding Black-headed Gulls.    

Coming ashore on the islet

Freshly hatched Sandwich Tern

Ringing a Sandwich Tern chick

Black-headed Gull chicks

We had another fantastic catch at Lough Neagh and Sunday which I will update on it soon and will include the results of our Stormie session tonight!

Thrushes plus Sandwich Tern and Storm Petrel Recoveries

It has been yet another quiet week in the Bann Estuary and we still can't manage to find a warbler of any form!  The week was split into two weather wise with windy and wet conditions from Saturday to Tuesday and warmer settled weather for the rest of the week, with the winds still generally from the east or south.  Wednesday marked the first day of northerlies for almost 3 weeks and it brought some new birds with it.

Redwing (JC)

The first half of the week was the quieter period with little obvious passage or grounded migrants with only a handful of Blackbirds, Chaffinches, Song Thrushes and singles of Redwing flying over early morning.  Goldcrest numbers have dropped off quite substantially with only one bird caught and only a few heard.  Things on the estuary have been a little better with lots of Golden Plover, Teal and Wigeon, a constant stream of Whooper Swans flying over from Wednesday, six Greylag Geese, six Little Egrets (3 more than my previous patch max count), three Great-crested Grebes and only the second Little Grebe of the year.  Thursday seen a better movement of thrushes with larger numbers of Redwing and a new wave of Blackbirds and Song Thrushes.  Skylark movement also picked up with flocks of up to 50 birds passing through on Thursday.  At least one Long-eared Owl is still frequenting the area and was spotted on two mornings pre 7am. 

Whooper Swans (JC)

Again we managed a couple of ringing sessions before work or on days off so generally shorter restricted sessions when working by ourselves or in twos.  A sprinkling of northern migrants has helped boost the numbers as the local bird numbers continue to struggle.  The first Redwing of the autumn is always nice and a further two Skylarks are welcome as they can be a challenge to catch! 

Blackbird

PSS Ringing Totals 15 - 20/10/2016
                                New      Retrap
Blackbird                   6                
Blue Tit                      1  
Dunnock                    1              3
Goldcrest                   1
Goldfinch                                   1
Great Tit                    2              1
Linnet                        2
Meadow Pipit           18
Redwing                    4
Robin                        1               5  
Skylark                      2   
Song Thrush             2
Wren                         4           

Total                       44               10            

Skylark (JC)

The feeding station has been relocated as it has become very exposed since the leaves have fallen off the trees so the birds are steering clear when the nets are up.  The feeders have also been plagued with rats with up to three large brutes spotted at a time so a new location was certainly in order.

Linnet

It has been a while since we have had a Sandwich Tern recovered in Africa but news came in of our 66th bird to the continent.  The bird was retrapped in La Somone, Senegal, which is our second bird from the site and 25th to Senegal.  The last one was controlled some 14 years ago so it has been quite a wait to get one from La Somone!
The bird was ringed by us as a pullus at Inch Island, Donegal on the 4th of June 2014 and re-caught by a South African (at least registered) ringer on the 6th of April of this year.  The straight line distance between the sites is 4585 km with the time lapsed of 672 days. 

Sandwich Tern recovery in La Somone, Senegal

As mentioned in the previous post we had news of another Storm Petrel controlled elsewhere in the British Isles and since then we've had another two reports in!
The first bird was controlled at Rhuba nan Sasan, Loch Ewe, Highland, Scotland on the 3rd of September 2016 at a distance of 305 km.  We had trapped the bird 38 days earlier on the 27th of July at Rinnagree Point, Portstewart. 

The other two birds are quite interesting and almost associated.  They represent an exchange from the Calf of Man Bird Observatory in both directions.  The first of these was a bird that we ringed at Rinnagree Point on the 19th of July this year which was controlled only 4 days later at the Observatory at the southern tip of the Isle of Man.  On that same night the Obs staff ringed another Storm Petrel which made its way to us nine days later, taking the reverse route as the first.
These are not the first Storm Petrels that we have exchanged with the Calf (174km straight line distance away) with two of ours going there and two of theirs coming our way.  Two of those birds were also caught within less 15 days apart so it is clearly a natural route for the birds through July and August. 

Edited note: I've only just noticed that the bird of ours trapped at the Calf was the same bird also caught at Bardsey Bird Observatory 19 days later. 

Storm Petrel Recoveries

The settled weather looks set to continue into the weekend so we will hopefully get another visit in and potentially carry out a bit of habitat management.
Our final visit to Copeland Bird Observatory for the season is pencilled in for next weekend so fingers crossed the weather is kind to us and we actually manage to get to the island and get some nice birds!

June 2016

I've arrived back in Northern Ireland to pretty cold, wet and breezy conditions, so I haven't been able to jump straight back into any ringing but the others have been doing bits and pieces over the last three weeks.  We also received news of our best Blackbird control yet plus some new funding!


On the 22nd of June, the team assembled at Inch Wild Fowl Reserve, Donegal for the final visit of the season to the Gull/Tern colony, hoping to ring the remaining chicks.  Ken, John and the National Parks and Wildlife Service Team were again joined by Adam and Gary from the Northern Ireland Black-headed Gull Study.
The weather had taken a bit of turn over the preceding weeks with more wet/cold weather and some thundery showers, resulting in higher water levels (closer to the norm), making access to the Islet much easier than the previous visit. 
The results were a little disappointing considering the potential of it shaping it up to be one of the best years at the colony.  The Sandwich Tern result was decent with 22 more birds ringed from the c30 eggs counted on the previous visit.  These 22 birds take the total up to 357 birds for the year, which compares well with previous years.  2016 represents the sixth most successful breeding year for Sandwich Terns in the 31 years of the study, the most productive year was 453 birds ringed in 2004.  For more information, check out the Terns/Gulls tab above.

Common Tern

Common Terns on the other hand were the big disappointment with only 22 birds ringed from what could have been over 150.  The Common Terns nest at the edge of the colony so are a little more susceptible to predation, changes in water levels and probably the weather.
It would appear that predation, potentially from large gulls, is the issue.  Twenty odd larger Black-headed gull chicks were found dead at the edge of the tern nesting area and looked to have been killed.  We reckon that it is more the case of missing eggs, rather than chicks.  A total of 32 Common Terns were ringed this year, which is just one more than the previous year and much better than the years of complete breeding failure. 



Adam and Gary were again busy colour-ringing Black-headed Gull pulli and added a further 52 new birds to the study, making it a grand total of 122 colour-ringed BHG's at Inch, plus a further 39 metal ringed.  The numbers ringed looks very favourable against numbers from the last 31 years but BHG's have never been a focus of study in the past and the total this year represents only a fraction of the population of the islet.  It will be really interesting to see where these guys start to crop up in future years and whether many will return to breed on the Islet. 
You can stay up to date with any findings on the Northern Ireland Black-headed Gull Study Blog or their Facebook Page - the blog can be found on the following link -   http://bhgullsni.blogspot.co.uk/

Colour-ringed Black-headed Gull

It has been a while since we got a long-distance control, so we were very pleased to receive news of a Blackbird that I had ringed in my garden, had been recovered in Norway!  The bird was found in unfortunate circumstances with just its leg and the ring recovered all the way up in Hundorp, Opland.  The female, born in 2013, was originally ringed on the 2nd of January 2014 and recovered 881 days later on the 1st of June this year, presumably on its breeding grounds.  The straight line distance between the two locations is 1202km.  This is our first control to Norway but hopefully not the last. 

Blackbird control to Hundorp, Norway

John and Steve visited the new Sand Martin colony at Grangemore a few weeks back for the first time to test out its potential.  The late morning visit was a little breezy and made the nets a bit obvious.  The colony is on the outer bank of a meander on a small tidal river, which makes setting a net quite difficult.  They opted for an 18m, 3 shelf net but a few shorter nets may be more suitable in future visits.  The catch was decent enough considering the conditions with 16 new birds caught.  14 of these birds were juveniles plus two adult females.  The following two visits will hopefully pick up more of the adult birds plus more of the juveniles.      

Sand Martin

The final bit of good news is that we were successful in gaining a little bit of funding from the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording at the National Museums Northern Ireland.  An application had been put forward for the Environmental Recorders Group Fund to cover the cost of rings and we received partial funding.  The £137 granted is around a quarter of the amount requested but it will still go a long way in enabling our scientific research and we are very grateful to CEDaR. 

Inch Island - Terns and Gull

On Wednesday morning, Ken, Steve and I headed up to Inch Wild Fowl Reserve in Donegal to study the breeding Sandwich Terns for the 31st continuous year.  We met up with a team of four from the Irish National Parks and Wildlife Service and were also enjoyed by Adam and Gary from the Northern Ireland Black-headed Gull Study.  The weather has been brilliant with temperatures hitting 30°C in recent days but torrential rain on Tuesday afternoon had us a little worried, as, this is often a major killer of chicks during prolonged periods.  It turns out that it hadn't been too bad around Inch and the day itself was dull, calm and warm - perfect conditions!

The really dry weather presented us with a new problem and that was really low water levels, in what is already a relatively shallow lagoon.  The Islet itself was now probably 150% larger, although much of that was thick, sticky mud/clay.  We had to do quite a bit of manoeuvring to get the boat in position to ferry people across the short crossing which was now only roughly 75 metres.  Andrew did a great job getting us across safely and would probably be quite nifty on the Gondolas in Venice! 

Sandwich Tern

I had mentioned the success of the previous visit in a recent post and the great year continues.  The small islet was covered in chicks and nests with Sandwich Terns, Common Terns, Black-headed Gulls, Tufted Ducks, Mute Swans and Mallard.  The majority of the 200+ Sandwich Tern eggs on the last visit have now hatched with around 30 left to go.  The Common Tern colony has increased further with many new nests, again mostly with three eggs.  Only a handful of the eggs have hatched but should be out for the final visit in a couple of weeks.  The Black-headed Gulls are the most numerous bird on the island and I would hazard a guess at a of 500 pairs, probably many more.  They are at many different stages with birds already fledged, to eggs yet to hatch and everything in between. 

The greeny/brown areas the newly exposed parts of the Islet because of the low water levels

The trip was a great success with another 154 Sandwich Terns ringed, taking the total up to 334 and the first 10 Common Terns.  Adam and Gary have a colour ringing project for Black-headed Gulls in the North and have picked up metal ringed birds from Inch as part of their study.  They came armed with colour rings and added 70 new birds to the study with 66 of those being new birds and 4 from the last visit when 43 were ringed.  The majority of the birds colour ringed were well developed chicks, close to fledging.  The colour rings are orange with a four digit alpha-numeric black inscription.  The first digit is always the number 2 then three letters after e.g. 2ABC.  Please keep an eye out for these birds and for more information check out: http://bhgullsni.blogspot.co.uk/ .


You can follow updates from Inch Wildfowl Reserve on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/inchandfoyle/?fref=ts

We plan to do the first visit to the Sand Martin colonies on Saturday before I head to Croatia for three weeks.  I'll try and post an update on that before I head off on Sunday.  Looking at other first visits around the UK it looks like the Sand Martins have bred early with come catches of up to 30% juveniles already! 

Summer Season - Terns, Gulls and Nest Boxes

John hosted two trainees at the University River Site on Bank Holiday Monday.  The conditions started off overcast but the cloud soon burnt off leaving a hot sunny morning.  They had a decent session, catching the first fledged birds of the year in the form of two Robins.  Two Sedge Warblers were also a nice catch as they don't breed that often at the site and we usually only manage half a dozen each year in total.

Sedge Warbler

River Site 30/05/2016                                 

                                   New       Retraps          

Blackbird                    1                                                                                 

Bullfinch                     2                1               

Dunnock                     1                1              

Lesser Redpoll           1

Robin                          2                1                

Sedge Warbler           2     

Song Thrush                                 1

Willow Warbler          2                 1 

                   

Total                          11                5             

Ken and a team of five (three from the National Parks and Wildlife Service) made the first follow up ringing trip to Inch Wildfowl Reserve in Donegal on Tuesday, following the initial visit back on the 10th of May to gauge the number of nests, eggs etc.
The team  had a successful day and ringed 180 Sandwich Tern chicks, which is only 9 birds shy of last years total with the second visit to come in a week or so.  There had been around 400 eggs counted on the first visit so, all being well, there should be many more fledged birds on the final visit.  They also managed to ring 43 larger Black-headed Gull chicks.  Andrew took the opportunity to count the Common Tern nests and found 57, the majority with 3 eggs.  If the fantastic weather and lower water levels continue and the local predators stay at bay, we could be set for one of the best years for the Common Terns.  The most productive year at Inch was back in 1999 with 86 chicks ringed.

For some videos of the trip check out the Inch Wildfowl Reserve on Facebook -  https://www.facebook.com/inchandfoyle/


Over the long weekend I managed to get around the rest of the general nest boxes scattered around the estuary and in Castleroe Wood.  The boxes in the estuary haven't had a great uptake with just one pair of Blue Tits at each of three.  I did manage to get at least one pair of Tree Sparrows with eggs and a second partially complete nest.  It is a decent start for the target species and they will hopefully use the boxes further and increase. 
Castleroe Wood has improved on the dismal year in 2015 when only 27% of the boxes were occupied.  So far this year it looks liked c40% are occupied, which is still down on the norm of c75% in the wood.  I ringed 24 Great Tit chicks, 3 adult females plus two adult female Blue Tits on this visit.  The Blue Tits are well behind, mostly still at the egg stage but they should be ready for ringing this weekend.  I did find 4/5 Spotted Flycatcher territories around the wood, 3 with vacant open faced boxes but no interest in them as yet.     

Blue Tit

Ken also checked his boxes back on the 26th of May in the University campus and ringed 39 Blue and Great Tit chicks.  This scheme is part of a study on the preference of tree species for nesting, comparing c30 species, so it will be interesting to hear the initial results from year one! 

John has been keeping an eye on an accessible Long-eared owl nest in the University campus over the past few weeks but we have missed the opportunity and the chick has fledged already.  It is still nice to see the birds in such close proximity and that they continue to fledge young every year. 

Long-eared Owls by John Clarke

I have received news of one of the colour ringed Black-tailed Godwits and of a local movement of a Meadow Pipit, so I'll try and update on those next time!