Finishing off the Razors - Puffin Island, Anglesey - 6th June 2011

Steve invited me to join a small party visiting Puffin Island again today to help finish off the Razorbill ringing and help retrieve data-loggers on several birds backs. Sadly, we weren't able to capture any tagged birds, but we did find a logger that had fallen off in the nest which is extremely useful.
Once we'd 'given up' trying to retrieve the logged birds, we moved onto the ringing which involved noosing adults on ledges and extracting adults and chicks from their 'caves'. I did surprisingly little ringing as I was put in charge of noosing and also extracting birds from the nest sites along with Steve. Very few of the Guillemots were ready, but we ringed 10 chicks and 1 adult.
above - Razorbill chick
Above - Guillemot chick (appologies for out of focus/rushed photo)

As we were primarily targeting Razorbill, I was hoping to remain relatively clean, but to kill some time, Ian and I were send off with a string of 10 K rings to catch some Shag. A few bites and 10 rings later, I was covered in poo again!
Another really enjoyable day however, and a much more relaxed session that Saturday as there was less to be done and a smaller party. I'm now pretty confident with fitting 'Razorbill and Guillemot Specials' which is a plus!

Thanks to Steve for the invite, aswell as Ian and Katrina (3rd year PHD student)for another thoroughly enjoyable ringing session!