As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Friday 29 September 2017

Rare birds return as isles cull black rats


Mike Merritt
September 22 2017, 12:01am, The Times

Storm petrels have been recorded calling for the first time on a chain of Hebridean islands after thousands of black rats were cleared as part of a £1 million eradication scheme to save seabirds.

The characteristic “churring” of the endangered birds was heard this summer from their breeding burrows, an encouraging sign that the project’s conservation work is paying off in the Shiant Isles and the birds may be nesting.

The EU-funded project by RSPB Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage, and the Nicolson family — the private owners of the islands — began in 2014 to provide safe breeding grounds for Scotland’s globally threatened seabird populations on the Shiants, in the Minch, five miles off the coast of Harris.


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