Visit of Nationwide to Balbriggan Community College



Roseate Terns

A mention of  www.birdwatchireland.ie might be nice too!
 
From Sean Pierce, Avid Birdwatcher/Supporter, also Balbriggan Community College PE teacher :

The following is the info so far. ( The date is dependent on the Nationwide team not being side tracked by anything else) Other dates may have to be selected but it has to happen before Friday 11th May as that is the propsed date for Nationwide team to go to Rockabill.
Incidently as part of that outing  to Rockabill some of Balbriggan Community College  students will be invited along 3-4 max I reckon.
Special boxes to boost breeding numbers


Tuesday 24th April 2012

Niall Martin of  the RTE Nationwide team is due to film and report on the school's long involvement with the Rockabill Roseate Tern Conservation Project.

• The project began in 1989 under the joint efforts of Birdwatch Ireland and National Parks and Wildlife Service.
• Birdwatch Ireland has monitored, placed wardens and co-ordinated the project every year.
• Balbriggan Community College became involved from 1995 onwards through the provision of specialised nestboxes that have made an huge contribution to the success of the project.
• 3 woodwork teachers, Mr Harford, Mr Macken and Jim Boylan  and numerous students have constructed close on 1000 nestboxes for the project.
• The Fingal Branch of Birdwatch Ireland has sponsored the costs of the materials for the nestboxes every year.
• The Roseate Tern breeding numbers have risen from a serious low of 150 pairs in 1989 to over 1,000 pairs in 2011. The nestboxes provide safe nesting places, cover from bad weather for the newly hatched chicks and security from predation from various Gull species.
• The boxes will be transported out to Rockabill during the first two weeks of May.

"Chick with attitude"

 

Rockabill – Maggie Hall

I got my first glimpse of Rockabill on the way into Loughshinny early this May – it really is that small!  Our season on the Rock then started with a busy weekend of clearing vegetation, erecting hides and putting nest boxes out, ready for the arrival of the terns.  Volunteers Julie Roe, Fiona Farrell, Niamh Conneely and Kevin McCann wielded shears, wheelbarrow, hammer and paintbrush in preparation for the 2004 breeding season.  Early morning counts of black guillemots at this time suggested 149 birds were present around the island.  Oystercatchers, turnstones, purple sandpipers, dunlin and knot fed on the shoreline of the Bill, an outcrop lying north of the main rock.  Up to a dozen grey seal and an occasional common seal were also hauled out on the Bill and rocks surrounding the north end of lighthouse island.  13 swallows were seen on 15 May, with three individuals hanging around throughout May.  A pair attempted to breed but apparently failed, as they were not regularly seen beyond late June.  After the first weekend’s frantic activity, the human population of Rockabill crashed!- to two.  However, Graham Barker, the other BWI warden, and I have at times had company from Paddy Enwright and a team from Irish Lights, who are upgrading the roof of the Lighthouse keepers’ house, as well as occasional visits from Sean Pierce and other Fingal sea-kayakers.  Stephen Newton, Oscar Merne and friends joined us for the main nest census and chick ringing sessions.
As the tern numbers on Rockabill grew, so they encroached on the house.  No more leisurely sitting on the south end of the rock at dusk looking across to the lights of Dublin, unless you want to brave a bombardment by common terns!  The first sighting of a roseate tern was made on May 8th, with numbers of common tern estimated at 200 at that time.  By the 1st June there were more than 850 common and roseate terns sharing the rock, and approximately 130 arctic terns on the Bill.  The first common tern egg appeared on the 21 May, the first roseate tern egg a couple of days later, and arctic eggs were spotted on a visit to the Bill on the 29th.  A pair of oystercatchers also bred this year on the Bill, producing three young in the first week of June.  Several adult terns were found predated by peregrine this summer.  These birds of prey have been seen several times flying overhead, often being chased off by a vast swarm of terns.
Although I have previously stayed on an island dominated by seabirds, while working on European shags on the Isle of May, Scotland, tern antics are novel to me.  As tern parents mostly deliver one sandeel or clupeid at a time to their offspring (of which there may be two or three), the chicks are fiercely competitive when it comes to getting that fish.  A lasting image from Rockabill is of two young roseate chicks in the entrance of their nest box, each with their bill clamped firmly onto one end of a sandeel, jostling back and forth for possession!
Grey Seals

 

Graham Barker
I was inspired to come to Rockabill, in 2003, to see at hand, and to ring, seabirds.  At home, in Sussex, I spend my ringing time with passerines in reedbeds or woodlands.  This year I wanted to complete a full term of wardening at a seabird colony.  My previous workmates called me ‘mad’.

Perhaps not everyone is keen enough to go beyond birdwatching or ringing to live and breathe with a group of birds for three months.  But it is a true marvel to witness the sublime eloquence of nature, yet witness its unsympathetic cruelty – a Roseate Tern picking up a Common Tern chick, carrying its innocence out to sea and throwing it away!  Giving terns, especially Roseates, a helping hand, and tip the odds a little towards a positive outcome, is what its mostly about here.

Nest Boxes

But it’s not the whole story.  When we arrived in May we had a fantastic ‘fall’ of migrants, stalled on their way north or west by fog.  Setting up two mist nets we caught Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Linnet, Redpoll, Blackcap, Goldfinch, Whitethroat, Wheatear and Spotted Flycatcher.  Other birds seen included Meadow Pipit, Wren, Common Redstart, Swift, Sand and House Martin.  On the rocky shore were Turnstone, Dunlin, Knot and Purple Sandpiper.

There are other birds that breed here apart from the three tern species.  The self-introductory onomatopoeic call of ‘kittiwake-kittiwake-kittiwake’ and their child-like crying never fails to draw attention.  The ‘south colony’ on the Bill had a rough time at the end of June, being lashed by a storm, waves crashing up the rock face, where their nests are, and over the top!

Black Guillemots, their wide eyed, crazed look and plaintiff cry, hurling themselves from dizzying heights, madly trying to have control over a direction other than down!  Straight out of the ‘whoah – look out’ school of flying.  The Puffin may be having its day as the ‘clown’ of birds, but a challenger is in the wings.

Not having been a ‘gull person’ that much, I have learned a new respect for the Greater Black-back.  As terns flap wildly for control across a force 5 sky the ‘dark destroyer’ flicks its wings and floats past looking ominous, and for a light lunch of tern chick!  Occasionally, in the ‘pack’ of Greaters will be Lesser Black-backs and Herring Gull.  The decline of the latter is not too noticeable at homein Sussex yet, with a pair on most roofs.
Other visitors have simply stopped for a respite or passed us by: Pied Wagtail, Manx Shearwater, Puffin, Razorbill, Guillemot, Collared Dove, Woodpigeon, Lapwing, Quail, Spoonbill and Storm Petrel.  The exception seems to have been the 2nd summer Glaucous Gull, arriving mid-May and still present in early July.
Sandeel, the main food source

Lastly, it couldn’t be the experience it is without a lifeline.  Supplied by Johnny and the Kingfisher crew – along with good humour, chocolate and, on occasion, a beer too!

So who’s the ‘mad’ one now?

Rockabill Tern numbers – nesting pairs

Rockabill Tern productivity (chicks fledged per egg-laying pair)

Roste = Roseate Tern
Comte = Common Tern
Arcte = Arctic Tern

Table 3: Roseate Tern primary nest statistics, Rockabill 2011.

Section / Enclosure	Boxes deployed	Boxes used	% Box uptake	Open nests	Total nests	% of Total nests	Mean clutch size (boxes)	Mean clutch size (open)
GDN 1	22	14	63.6	3	17	1.5	1.86	1.33
GDN 2	0	0	-	8	8	0.7	0	1.38
GDN 3	0	0	-	3	3	0.3	0	2
GDN 5	0	0	-	1	1	0.1	0	1
4C	0	0	-	3	3	0.3	0	1.67
4AN	61	58	95.1	76	134	11.9	1.62	1.58
4AS	240	181	75.4	152	333	29.6	1.77	1.59
4BN	140	126	90.0	127	253	22.5	1.75	1.50
4BS	103	91	88.3	65	156	13.9	1.67	1.49
6N	35	20	57.1	112	132	11.7	1.50	1.36
6S	51	27	52.9	58	85	7.5	1.74	1.60
Bill	0	0	-	0	0	-	-	-
2011	652	517	79.3	608	1125	-	1.72	1.71
2010	663	531	80.09	562	1093	-	1.42	1.27
2009	681	506	74.3	546	1052	-	1.87	1.74
2008	654	501	76.6	427	928	-	1.41	1.31
2007	684	454	66.3	362	820	-	1.83	1.68
2006	686	438	63.9	358	796	-	1.59	1.53
2005	553	336	60.76	321	657	-	1.65	1.76
2004	509	321	63.1	356	677	-	1.92	1.76
2003	397	284	71.5	354	638	-	1.8	1.61