A Koel proclaimed its residence in my street as I rode off to work this morning.
A few bird stories in the news ...
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=335811
Antarctic birds found in Britain for the first time
By Brian Unwin
23 September 2002
Antarctic seabirds never before seen north of the Equator have been discovered
in Britain ? thousands of miles from home.
One brown skua was found in a weak state on a beach on the Isles of Scilly, and
another at Aberavon in Glamorgan. Bird watchers first thought the birds were
great skuas, which nest on Orkney and Shetland. But the birds seemed to be too
dark for the species and feather samples were sent for DNA analysis at Glasgow
University. The verdict was that both birds were brown skuas (Catharacta
antarctica) which have not been recorded flying further than the coasts of
Argentina or southern Africa.
******************
http://www.gla.ac.uk:443/newsdesk/pressreleases/stories.cfm?PRID=922
'A bewildering darkness...'
A University of Glasgow project has successfully eradicated rats from Ailsa
Craig allowing puffins to breed for the first time in fifty years. The project
began in 1991 in collaboration with the island?s owner The Marquess of Ailsa and
Scottish Natural Heritage with advice from Rentokil, the pest control company.
Rat predation had substantially reduced several seabird populations on Ailsa
Craig, most notably the puffin which is particularly vulnerable due to its
burrow nesting. Ailsa Craig was once a major stronghold of the puffin on the
west coast of Scotland. When in flight over the island in the 1870?s, their huge
numbers were said to cause ' a bewildering darkness'.
Following invasion of Ailsa by brown rats in the late 19th century, puffin
numbers declined from many tens of thousands to only a few hundred by the
1930?s. No puffins have successfully bred on Ailsa for over 50 years.
Dr Bernard Zonfrillo of the University who has studied the seabirds on Ailsa
Craig for over twenty years said, 'It is just wonderful to see the puffins back
breeding on the island. At least two pairs were seen carrying fish to their
chick on Ailsa Craig this summer. Given time and left to their own devices, I
hope that their numbers will gradually increase.'
In a massive operation, several tons of rodenticide was airlifted by Navy
helicopter to the island and distributed by a team of workers. Follow up baiting
took place in 1992 and no rats have been recorded on the island since then.
Professor Pat Monaghan, University of Glasgow, Division of Environmental and
Evolutionary Biology, commented, 'The return of burrow nesting seabirds like
the puffin is just hat we had hoped would happen following rat eradication. The
loss of bio-diversity that occurs when predators like rats are introduced to
offshore islands is tragic. Seabirds originally bred on such offshore islands
because they were free of predators like rats.'
The first rat was seen on Ailsa Craig in 1889 around the time of construction of
a new lighthouse. It is thought to have either escaped from ships bringing coal
or possibly from the number of ships wrecked on the rocks before the lighthouse
was
built.
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