Ornothology

The islands are bird sanctuaries and special conservation areas (SACS). In spring and early summer the Little Saltee is probably at its most beautiful. Acres of bluebells give a sheen that is not only colourful but aroma laden too. And the bracken hasn’t grown to a great height. Wild turnip and rape seed plants abound – all to the liking of our pheasant population.

April to July, birds are nesting everywhere, Soays are lambing, Kerries are calving down, Fallow deer spring the light fantastic and fawn down..

The gull population (Black Backs and Herring) had decreased over the last decade due to the proximity of both Wexford and Waterford landfill rubbish dumps. The result – Botulism. Over the past six seasons we had noted an almost 90% decline in population. 2010 seems to have an increase in numbers and nesting is within the bracken. Our stalwart sentinels of the homestead are still with us, thank goodness.

On the pastures and around the homestead we have noticed an increase in Oyster Catchers and Shell Duck numbers annually. Snipe and lapwings were very prominent last July and are on the increase numerically.

Flights of mallard from nearby Tachumsin Lake drop down onto the usually still bay to the west of our most northern point. They meet up there with an increasing 'count' of curlew who have made that area their base. Two pairs of mallard now nest annually in our Habitat

Patrick and Liezel once again, welcome David Cabot and Maurice Cassidy for their'stay over'. We enjoyed filming their exploits by day and bouncing off wild life anecdotes within the Boma over a 'braai' in the evening. What a difference some fine, warm and calm days make to such island work. Long may it last!

Little Saltee Field Work Report 2010

We spent more time on fieldwork during 2009 than in any previous year. This was because we invited Lucy Quinn, a PhD student from Aberdeen University, to work with us on the fulmar population. Little Saltee is now one of her key research locations. Lucy is studying the foraging behaviour of fulmars by fitting known aged birds with data loggers which are extremely small recorders and attached to the BTO ring on each bird. The fitting of the data loggers is carried out under licence from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Dublin When the data logger birds are recaptured the information from the logger is downloaded and analysed to plot the movements of the bird during the previous 12 months.

Three field trips were made. The first was 23-27^th May with David Cabot, Maurice Cassidy and Lucy Quinn. Connor O’Brien also joined the expedition. The second trip on 11-13^th June was made by David Cabot, Maurice Cassidy and Steve Meany. The third trip on 7 - 9^th July made by Maurice Cassidy and Lucy Quinn.

Fulmar: there were 160 apparently occupied nests (AONs) on 26^th May as determined from a boat close to the cliffs, down from 173 AONs in 2009. The population has been in slow decline for many years now, as noted in other colonies. A total of 133 adults were trapped on the nest of which 108 had been previously ringed by us on the island. This retrap rate of 81% was the highest recorded since the ringing study started in 1974. A total of 26 adult fulmars were ringed, either for the first time or re-ringed because rings on old birds were seriously abraded. Lucy Quinn fitted a total of 44 data loggers onto the rings of recaptured birds. The nest site of each data logger bird was photographed as well as its location fixed by a hand held GPS to facilitate recapture of these birds in 2011. Our extensive data base, which commenced when David was an undergraduate at Trinity in 1960, has been used together with the data base from the research carried out by Aberdeen University on Enyhallow, Scotland, since 1950, by Helen Hedworth BSc (Hons) in her thesis as part fulfilment of her MSc degree Applied Marine and Fisheries Ecology Aberdeen University The thesis was supervised by Professor Paul Thompson of the School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Scotland.

Cormorant: the numbers breeding on the island continued to decline with only 136 breeding pairs census, the lowest number since 2003 when there were 367 pairs. To try and understand the relationships between the Little Saltee, Great Saltee and Keeragh Island. Tony Murray of the NP&WS and David Cabot are analysing the numbers at each of these closely placed colonies to try and understand inter colony movements. On Little Saltee the breeding colonies are now confined to the cliff tops and in some instances lower down on the cliff systems, probably in response to the curiosity of the cattle, sheep and deer on the island. A total of 200 pulli were ringed bringing the total ringed on the island to 11,354 since ringing commenced in 1961.

Shag: breeding numbers again remained low at 13 breeding pairs, down from 20 pairs the previous year. A total of 17 pulli were ringed compared with 27 in 200 total.

Other seabirds: numbers of razorbills and puffins were at approximately at 2009 levels while guillemots breeding in the razorbill colony at the south end of the island increased with a total five birds noted. The three species of gull - herring, lesser and great black backed are still recovering from the set back of several years ago and numbers appeared to have increased slightly since 2010. Numbers of Manx shearwaters appear to be similar to last year as judged by the number of calling birds around the farm stead at night.

While on the island we noted two pairs of grey lag geese, possibly breeding as indicated by their behaviour Two choughs were also noted while Patrick Bellow reported 12 pairs of water rail breeding on the island.

We are grateful to Patrick and Lizel Bellew for allowing us to work on the island and also for being most hospitable hosts. Moreover, Patrick joined the team and helped us greatly during our work on the fulmars.

Work for the summer 2011 season will be focused on re-trapping the data logger fulmars.

Copyright also applies to all previous reports published on Little Saltee website.

Great Benefit

With three different graziers on the island it is now most noticeable how the areas of pasture have increased. The southern region is especially favoured by Soays and their close cropping has assisted in the furtherance of luxuriant nesting areas for both Manx and Puffin populations.

Elsewhere, our pheasant population is on the increase thanks to the continued devout care taken by our supplier, Marty Scallan. Some very exotic colours are now appearing. Strong chicks become great birds. Our only problem with the pheasant population is the constant attacks waged by our neighbouring island's peregrines? At times we wonder who is going to win out