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Environmentalist Kerry Leonard writes the first of a series of fascinating
wildlife reports for our Breathing Places website.
Samba
Seabirds: from Belfast to Brazil
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"I am at Copeland Bird Observatory, on Lighthouse Island
at the mouth of Belfast Lough. I am here to help find and
ring chick Manx Shearwaters as they prepare to leave the
colony for their wintering grounds in the southern oceans.
The Manx Shearwater is perhaps our most curious seabird,
being a close pigeon-sized relative of the albatross. Indeed
it behaves very much like a miniature albatross, using navigational
senses we can only guess at and admire, to travel great
distances across featureless seas in order to find fish
and squid.
The Copeland Islands have approximately 5000 pairs and it
is the only colony in Northern Ireland. Manx Shearwaters
are particularly curious in two regards: firstly in order
to avoid predators they only visit their nests in the dead
of night, under the cover of darkness; secondly, again to
avoid predators, they nest in burrows under the ground.
The chicks take over two months to grow to independence
and as they come close to fledging the adults stop returning
to the nest with food and the chick is on its own. For a
few nights before they leave the birds sit quietly on the
surface preparing themselves to leave – and that is
our chance to catch and ring them.
Some chicks do run into difficulties and every year birds
turn up in Belfast and along the Co. Down coast, usually
having been disorientated by street lights. Already this
year several have turned up on the mainland, indeed bird
EW88407 was found in a garden in Whiteabbey a few days after
being ringed on Copeland. The more successful birds migrate
to Brazil and then on to Argentina.We do know from ringing
that some birds will survive these exciting adventures and
safely return to breed on the island in later years."
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