Oil-covered birds are being washed up at an 'alarming rate', charity warns

Monday, 23 March 2020 - Environment

Seabirds covered in oil are being washed up on the island’s beaches at an alarming rate, a charity has warned.

The Manx Wild Bird Aid charity is currently dealing with some 17 guillemots that have been picked up.

The first cases were reported on Saturday lunchtime with distressed birds found on beaches along the east coast from the Point of Ayre to Port St Mary.

It is thought the oil spill originated near Anglesey, where there have been reports of oiled seabirds for a week or more.

David Cole, of Manx Wild Bird Aid, said he had reported the issue to the Coastguard.

Marine Operations have been notified and are in touch with the UK Coastguard. A spotter plane was expected to be sent up to investigate.

Mr Cole said: ’We picked up one bird from the Point of Ayre and one bird from Port St Mary but the epicentre seems to be around Laxey and Douglas.

’We treated more from the south on Sunday so the oil spill is obviously moving with the tide.

’On Saturday we just found the birds with no reports of oil on the beach but on Sunday people have reported finding tar on the beach.’

He added: ’It’s unusual that all the birds we have found have been guillemots.’

Some very small patches of what looked like heavy fuel oil were found on Port Soderick beach.

Mr Cole said there were two categories of bird - those that had been washed ashore that people have been able to pick up, and others which were obviously in distress but had gone back out to sea, preventing their recovery.

He said: ’The 17 are just the ones we have been able to pick up from the beach.’

Mr Cole, of Victoria Road, Castletown, admitted the birds’ chance of survival was ’not great’.

He explained the birds try to preen themselves and ingest the oil. They had to be hydrated and kept warm and fed before they were strong enough for the cleaning process to begin, which itself could be distressing for them.

Dog walkers are warned to be careful if they go on beaches.

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Controversial anti-bird netting defended by council after county was declared 'plastic-free'

The measures have been put in place at the site of a new super school

By Gareth Wyn-Williams Local Democracy Reporter

05:00, 1 MAY 2019

UPDATED07:31, 1 MAY 2019

The council for a county which recently became the first in the UK to be declared "plastic free" has defended the installation of controversial netting on the site of a planned super school.

Construction is set to start on the multi-million-pound primary school in Llangefni in Anglesey, which will replace Ysgol Bodffordd and Ysgol Corn Hir as part of a school reorganisation project.

But the presence of the plastic nets on hedgerows around the site has caused concern for the RSPB, who fear that birds and other animals could become trapped in them.

Such nets have become a common sight at developments across the UK over recent months, as nesting birds found at a construction site can mean work has to be delayed until the end of their natural season.

The nets are designed to deter birds from nesting and therefore speed up the process.

The installation of the nets at the school site comes a month after Anglesey was awarded "plastic free" community status by conservation group Surfers Against Sewage in a move unanimously backed by the county council.

Continued

Rare Royal Tern makes an appearance on Anglesey

Bird Notes columnist Julian Hughes of RSPB Cymru reveals what birds have been spotted in the past week and lists 10 upcoming birding events

Andrew ForgraveRural Affairs Editor

23:05, 10 DEC 2018

Anglesey's Royal Tern's metal ring suggests it was originally from North America (Image: Tony White)

A Monday lunchtime visit to Traeth Dulas, north of Moelfre, proved an excellent decision by Angleseybirder Tony White, who found a Royal Tern on the incoming tide.

It flew out to sea but was refound at nearby Traeth Lligwy, enabling local birders to catch up with this mega sighting.

It’s not the first Royal Tern to visit North Wales. One on the Llŷn Peninsula in June 2009 relocated to Llandudno for a few hours and attracted birders from across the UK, though its short visit meant that only locals got to see it.

I remember a frantic dash from West to North Shore to follow the bird as it flew across town.

But not all Royal Terns are the same. It’s the second largest species of tern, with populations on both side of the Atlantic.

Recent studies show that Royal Terns nesting in West Africa are genetically distinct from those that breed from North Carolina south to Argentina, and some authorities consider them to be different species.

The problem is that birds from each population look very similar, and the Llandudno bird couldn’t be assigned to one or the other.

This week’s Anglesey bird sports a metal ring on its right leg, consistent with a ringing scheme in North America, indicating its likely origin.

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How Puffin Island's bird population is fighting back from effects of invasion of shipwreck's four-legged stowaways 200 years ago

The colony was ravaged when the ship went down in 1816, and the island's puffin population has never fully recovered

Tom Molloy

19:00, 11 SEP 2018

UPDATED19:51, 11 SEP 2018

The bird population of Puffin Island has spent 200 years trying to recover from a shipwreck that brought unwelcome stowaways to its shores.

At the peak, more than 50,000 puffins resided on the island, just off the east coast of Anglesey.

But a shipwreck in the 1800s plagued it with brown rats. Their number exploded, and the consequences for the puffins were catastrophic.

To this day, the puffins that give the island its name have never got back up to their previous strength. But work is going on to try to reverse the damage.

An estimated 500,000 rodents were on the island by 1971, virtually wiping out the thriving sea bird population, cutting the number down to around 2000 by 1907, and leaving less than 20 pairs of puffins by the 1990s.

By 1998 the situation got so bad that the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) stepped in to eradicate the vermin.

Despite the intervention, according to Puffin Island Seabird Research, there were only eight breeding pairs of puffins left on the island in 2010.

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Plans for Welsh nuclear power plant delayed by concerns over seabirds

Next stage of planning process for Anglesey site postponed as effect on tern colonies is assessed

Adam Vaughan

Mon 9 Apr 2018 13.57 BSTLast modified on Mon 9 Apr 2018 22.00 BST

Plans for a nuclear power station on the Welsh island of Anglesey have been delayed by concerns over the plant’s impact on colonies of protected seabirds.

The proposed twin reactors at Wylfa were given the green light by the UK’s nuclear regulator in December, with backers hoping to win financial support from the government.

The Welsh plant would have a capacity of 3GW, similar to the 3.2GW of the nuclear power station being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Horizon Nuclear Power, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Hitachi, told planning authorities it would submit its planning application for the Wylfa plant by the end of March, which it called a “major milestone”.

But the company postponed submitting the development consent order because it needs to thrash out the impact building the power station will have on colonies of sandwich, Arctic and common terns.

The species are protected under the EU birds and habitats directive.

Nearby Cemlyn nature reserve is home to thousands of sandwich terns, which account for about fifth of the birds’ UK population and is the biggest on the country’s west coast.

Wildlife groups are concerned about the effect of noise and light from the power station’s construction, as well as a reduction in food for the birds to forage on. Land clearance for the vast site is also expected to displace potential predators, such as rats and foxes.

Chris Wynne, a senior reserve officer at North Wales Wildlife Trust, said: “We are looking at a range of ecological impacts at one of the most significant tern colonies in the UK.”

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Rare Shrike found in Anglesey and Cattle Egrets nest on the Dee Estuary

30th May 2017

Bird Notes columnist Julian Hughes of RSPB Conwy reveals what birds have been spotted in the past week and lists 20 birding events in the coming days

Of the dozen or so birds that we’ve lost as breeding species in Wales in the last century, the Red-backed Shrike is one of the most striking.

It is suspected that a changing climate combined with new agricultural practices to end its presence here.

Regular nesting ceased in Wales in the 1950s, though a couple of nests in the 1980s gave false hope of a return.

A few Red-backed Shrikes turn up as passing migrants, brought on southeasterly winds, as we experienced last week.

A male at Anglesey’s Penrhos Coastal Park was a Bank Holiday weekend surprise, with some birders lucky to hear it singing, as well as getting views of this smart bird.

While some birds have been lost, others have arrived; the RSPB revealed last week that Cattle Egrets are nesting on the Dee Estuary , just a few hundred metres beyond the Welsh border.

This follows an unprecedented influx of the Mediterranean heron into western Britain. Burton Mere Wetlands is only the third location where Cattle Egrets have nested in Britain.

Continued

Group of five cattle egrets on Anglesey is 'unprecedented in Wales'

Bird Notes columnist Julian Hughes of RSPB Conwy reveals what birds have been spotted in the past week and where to go birding in the coming days

If you have time off work this week, it’s an ideal time for some mid-winter birdwatching, especially as the weather forecast is reasonable.

Birders who keep a year-list will be totting up their counts for 2016 and preparing to return to zero on Sunday morning.

If you fancy a bracing sea-cliff walk, watching Choughs hang in the wind, take a trip to Anglesey’s RSPB South Stack ; these specialist crows even come and hang on the feeders outside the café window!

Wetlands are good places to find a gathering of birds. Burton Mere Wetlands and RSPB Conwy are well worth a visit, especially in the afternoons when birds come into roost: geese at Burton Mere and Starlings at Conwy .

North Wales Wildlife Trust has some terrific nature reserves, with The Spinnies just east of Bangor good during the winter, especially on an incoming tide.



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Booming call of the endangered Bittern once again being heard across Anglesey

15:01, 20 Oct 2016

By Andrew Forgrave

 

Local birdwatchers were sworn to secrecy as nestlings fledged this summer at RSPB Malltraeth - the first in Wales for 32 years

Bitterns successfully bred this summer at RSPB Malltraeth Marsh 

A rare wading bird has nested on Anglesey more than two decades after a wildlife reserve was created specifically to lure it back to the island.

The reed-loving bittern, a type of heron, was last known to have bred in Wales at Valley on Anglesey in 1984.

Males are renowned for their remarkable booming mating call and in 2015 one was heard on Anglesey.

Now RSPB Cymru has confirmed a female nested and reared fledglings at RSPB Malltraeth Marsh this summer – the first time in Wales for 32 years.

The reserve’s site manager, Ian Hawkins, said RSPB Malltraeth Marsh was established in 1994 with the goal of attracting bitterns back to Wales.

“It’s been a long time coming!” he said.

Read on  

Bird Notes: Bitterns are booming on Anglesey

Less than 20 years ago, Bitterns were on the verge of extinction in Britain. The males’ low booming call can carry more than a kilometre. With just 11 males in 1997, it was feared we would lose this reedbed-dwelling heron.

The shock figures triggered a huge habitat restoration effort, led by the RSPB with significant funding from the European Union. New reedbeds were created away from the east coast, vulnerable to rising sea levels. Other reedbeds were made wetter, with better access to fish.

This year, wardens counted 140 booming Bitterns, including 40 in Somerset where until recently no Bitterns had bred for decades. New reedbeds have been established on Anglesey, where RSPB wardens heard a Bittern booming this Spring, a positive sign for the future.

Another bird almost lost from our shores is the Roseate Tern, a seabird that winters off West Africa.

Over 100 pairs nested on Anglesey in the late 1980s. Now they are scarce visitors, though two were at NWWT Cemlyn Bay at the weekend, along with a Little Gull. A count of Little Terns at Gronant recorded 72 pairs settling down to nest on the beach.

Read on ...