As the video in the last post shows, My mate Kane Brides from the Species Monitoring Unit at The Wildfowl Wetland Trust And trainee ringer Gillian Dinsmore came to stay with me for 3 days. Me and Kev had certain stuff planned and some worked out and some the rain put a stop to.
A small Cormorant colony has started to nest on an island in the Gravel pits and this was the first time we had got permission to Canoe out to them and colour ring the chicks. A lot of nests were still on eggs so we will go back. A big thank you goes to Chris Wade the manager of the Gravel pits for giving us permission and filling out the risk assessment for us to sign :-).
While we were on site we also made are first visit of the year to the large gull colony to colour ring the Gull chicks that were big enough.
The first day finished with us ringing Cormorant Herring Gull Lesser black backed Gull Greater Black Backed Gull Little Tern Curlew Oystercatcher and Ringed Plover.
Friday saw us down at Peel to try and catch and colour ring some more Herring Gull in the large Moudry Spring trap. The weather was taxing to say the least but in between the rain we managed another 17 Herring Gulls and 3 Adult Black Guillemots 2 of which were new birds and a re trap from 2005.
The day ended catching 2 more Herring Gull in the garden and a Jackdaw for Gillian as she had not ringed one before.
Today saw the heavens open again and rain stopped play so we relaxed and had a drive round the island, we ended up down at the sound looking across to the Calf of Man.
Another Herring Gull was caught before we made our way to the airport for goodbyes.
A great few days with dear friends and people who have a passion for the Ringing Scheme
Great to see Kane and Gillian again
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