'PUL' the other one!

An important part of our work in Dublin Bay involves the ringing of key waterbird species to learn more about the birds and how they use Dublin Bay. As well as providing us with important information on their usage of breeding/feeding/roosting areas within the bay, we also get some very interesting ring resightings of ‘our’ birds from further afield – some of the Terns we’ve ringed in Dublin Bay have been resighted in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and on migration in Namibia!

Common Tern - the most numerous Tern in Dublin Bay. (BB)

For the terns, these resightings are largely in line with what we’d expect – we’d expect the terns that breed in Dublin would be using parts of the Irish coast on migration and eventually end up in Namibia. We’d also expect that the majority of the Terns that roost in Dublin Bay after the breeding season might be from different parts of Ireland, or colonies nearby in the UK. Though somewhat expected, this is still all very useful information to collect from a conservation point of view! That being said, we do enjoy some of the more ‘novel’ and unusual sightings – so imagine our delight when we got an email from Oddvar Olsen in Norway!

Enclosed in the email was the picture below of yellow ring PUL – a ring we had put on an adult Common Tern at Sandymount Strand in south Dublin last August. Sandymount gets several thousand terns in August and September each year, roosting in the evenings for the few weeks between leaving their breeding site and setting off on migration for African waters for the winter (it's quite the sight on a late summer's evening!).

Colour-ring PUL - put on a Common Tern at Sandymount Strand last Autumn.

PUL was caught in Dublin last Autumn, but won't be back this year! Ring found at Raudholmane in Norway this year.

Now it’s always great when someone accompanies a resighting with a picture, so we can be absolutely 100% sure that the ring was read correctly etc. That being said it’s less great when there’s no bird in the picture… 

Oddvar found our Common Tern ring while investigating causes of decline of Black Guillemots along the Norwegian coast. The ring was  close to the nest of a Great Black-backed Gull. 

Great Black-backed Gull - the largest gull in the world (BB)

Great Black-backed Gulls have a very flexible diet, that often includes young seabirds at this time of year – those that aren’t great at flying take a few seconds extra to take off and they aren’t as manoeuvrable in the air. An adult Common Tern like PUL is a much trickier meal though – these ‘Sea Swallows’ are skilful and pacy flyers compared to a lumbering GBBGull. I have found the rings of adult terns myself near GBBGull nests and roosts though – sometimes the Tern might have been sick or injured, and sometimes the GBBGull might just get lucky! It’s all part of the circle of life and has been going on for thousands of years. In recent times us humans have been disrupting the natural order by destroying the habitat, nesting sites and food sources of terns and gulls alike – that’s where the problem lies! The resulting effects are felt throughout the seabird communities and wider ecosystem biodiversity around our coasts.

Great Black-backed Gull. (BB)

In the coming weeks our Dublin Bay Birds Project staff and I-WeBS team, along with some very dedicated volunteers, will be counting and recording roosting Tern flocks around the country. We'd very much appreciate records/counts of tern flocks from around the country - full details here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Terns2017

For anyone who thinks they might have spotted one of our Dublin-ringed Terns, please enter the details of the sighting here and we'll get back to you: https://bwi.maps.arcgis.com/apps/GeoForm/index.html?appid=6abe0ae78f9b4879937d2c1447537c46

Keep an eye out for the next blog later in the month!

- Brian B

Dublin Tern Colonies Bursting With Birds

Tern breeding season is in full swing! We had our first ringing visit of the year to Dublin Port to check up on our summer visitors from Africa. The terns now nest on several structures within the greater Liffey/Port area, such as the disused mooring pontoons near the Poolbeg Chimneys. Most of these support strong numbers of nesting terns, to the extent that some structures near full capacity with adult terns making nests on all available space. As the boat approaches each colony the adults often 'flush' to the skies, screeching and diving. Apart from a small risk of being pecked on the head this is quite a spectacle! It's also a great chance to get a sense of how many terns there are present at the time. From the boat, a count of 290 terns were seen coming off the "ESB Dolphin" - the first established nest site on the Liffey for Common Tern and now protected as part of the many SPA's (Special Area Of Conservation) within Ireland.

The 'ESB Dolphin',
 as seen from the River Liffey Brian Burke 

Adult terns terns flush as the boat approaches the 'CDL Dolphin' Richard Nairn

On a sunny Wednesday afternoon we visited three of the structures in the bay; "Pontoon 1" on the outer Tolka Estuary , "Pontoon 2" and the "CDL Dolphin", both near Poolbeg. Boat transport provided through Dublin Port Co by Jimmy based at Poolbeg Yacht Club, which beats rowing out in the dinghy for sure...thanks Jimmy!

Boat ride with a view of the iconic Poolbeg Brian Burke

Once on the structure the first port-of-call was take a census of all the pulli (young birds that are not yet able to fly) in each section. Then those that were big enough (medium pulli and upwards) were ringed. Common Terns get a metal ring on their right leg and Arctic Terns get a metal ring on their left, so it's easier to differentiate between the two when re-sighted. A "biometrics"  (measurement) are taken for each chick ringed. Wing length is representative of a bird's size so this a good way to keep track of how well they're growing when we visit again.

Pontoon 2. compartments are top real estate for port terns; complete with only the best nesting
gravel, hideaways, chick shelters and not to mention a great view of the port! Brian Burke

Ringing the young terns is a team effort.  Brian Burke

We are sure to spend no more than 30 minutes at each site so as to allow parents to get back to feeding the chicks and all 'round minimise stress on the colony, so we are as efficient as possible when ringing. It's safe to say that it wasn't a bad day's work as c. 150 chicks were ringed and some were even big enough to get colour rings. It's a bonus getting some colour rings on. As demonstrated in the previous blog post, colour rings are so important for re-sighting live birds as they make ring reading so much easier.

"Feed me" - a young Common Tern chick Brian Burke

A young Arctic Tern chick definitely fits in the palm of a hand Brian Burke

A tern nest (using the word "nest" loosely) is just a scrape in the substate and eggs are well camouflaged in the shallow cup, so they can be hard to find but easy to step on. However once you step lightly and know what to look out for the little ones are safe. We are happy with the numbers we've found so far - over 300 nests were found on Pontoon 2 alone. We ringed all suitably robust chicks and will ring the remainder during our next visits.

Although nests are basic, you sometimes see them
decorated with items like this toy plastic fish, which
was probably mistaken for the real thing Brian Burke

A splash of colour. This red/orange colour
 is unusual to see in terns eggs Brian Burke

Creative with crab legs - 
all sorts of materials are used for the nest scrape Brian Burke

So far this season the birds within the wider port colonies are doing a great job and all is going well. In saying that the young terns are sensitive to bad weather conditions and predation events so we'll be eager to get out to the colonies again and keep an eye on their progress. Let's hope those parents keep up the good work! Keep an eye on the blog for updates on how they're doing.