Rat-Free Islands
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The Shearwater Issue 6 December 2016 Working with the local community and visitors on the Isles of Scilly to enhance their important seabird heritage Manx shearwater and storm petrel numbers continue to climb on our rat-free islands. We have lots to celebrate this year. In January Biz Bell and the Wildlife Management International team carried out their final check and in February we were declared officially rat-free. Thanks to all the residents of St Agnes and Gugh who made our ‘rat-free celebration’ such a wonderful event. Manx shearwaters and storm petrels continue to increase on the two islands. For Manxies, we recorded 72 nesting pairs and 32 chicks this year. For storm petrels there were 9 nesting pairs and 6 chicks across a new survey site from Troytown to Castella Down. Big thanks to community members who joined these Above: St Agnes school children, community members, project team, WMIL’s Biz Bell and volunteers celebrate rat-free status at Manx shearwater surveys and our ‘chick-check’ evening walks. the ’rat-free celebration’. Photo Ed Marshall. We completed the final year’s field work of ecological monitoring for wider species. Results will be out in the Spring. And as these surveys came to a close, the training of community members in biosecurity and incursion response training was stepped up, ready for the final year of the project. Please do keep assisting us, do report any possible sightings to the team by ringing 01720 422153 and for any further information on the project just visit www.ios-seabirds.org.uk A Merry Christmas to one and all! Jaclyn Pearson— Project Manager, Lydia Titterton—Project Officer, Holly Paget Brown—Project Assistant. Above: Project Manager Jaclyn Pearson and Volunteer Coordina- tors John and Trish Peacock carry out biosecurity and incursion response training. Photo Nick Tomalin. Your Manxies and Stormies Need You! For more information; Phone: 01720 422153 Above: Project Officer Vickie Heaney delivers community seabird survey training on Manx shearwater burrows. Photo Lydia Titterton. [email protected] Project Partners and supporters Thanks to St Agnes Councillor Richard McCarthy for editing the newsletter. Issue No. 6 Page 1 Manx shearwater and storm petrel numbers climb on St Agnes and Gugh We are all thrilled that these seabirds are thriving since rat removal. Project Officer Vickie Heaney recorded breeding populations in June and July. For Manx shearwaters, numbers are up from 22 pairs pre - rat removal in 2013 to 73 pairs in 2016, with new areas colonised around Castella Down and Kittern Hill on Gugh. We then recorded 32 ‘star-gazing’ chicks outside their burrows. Storm petrels have also been recorded breeding again this year. We now have a sample survey area running from Troytown campsite on to Castle Vean and have placed 6 storm petrel nest boxes into the area. We recorded 9 apparently occupied storm petrel breeding sites and heard 6 chicks. Again many thanks to community members who’ve joined this year’s seabird surveys and our ‘chick-check’ evening walks. It’s been lovely to catch your responses. Monitoring work elsewhere on Scilly: from the annual count on Annet, it was good to find out that common terns have returned to breed at the south end of the island. It was also nice to see storm petrels on rat-free islands Illiswilgig and Castle Bryher. Left: Volunteer Amy Horn -Norris places storm petrel nest boxes into boulder beaches on St Agnes. Middle: Adult storm petrel incubating egg on Castle Bryher. Right: Cllr Richard McCarthy and Jaclyn recording Manx shear- water chicks as part of a ‘chick check walk’ (Photo Nick Tomalin). Community Fetes and prize winners Applause for everyone who came to our stand and activities at island fetes this summer. You helped us raise £320 towards seabird conservation through the ‘Storm petrel bucket game’ as well as with our colouring and map compe- Left: Volunteer Jo leading the ‘storm petrel bucket game’. titions. The colouring competition saw Johan May win the 6-12 years age Middle left: IOSWT’s Nikki Banfield with the ‘storm petrel category; Phoebe Moulden, the 5 years and under. Merryn Smith won a beau- map game’. Middle: Phoebe Moulden wears the project hat as the winner of the 5 yrs and under colouring com- tiful storm petrel print by our Project Officer and artist Vickie Heaney in the petition (her picture is bottom right). Middle: Merryn Smith wins the Vickie Heaney storm petrel print. Right: map game. He correctly guessed the position of the first storm petrel chick Johan May wears his project hat as the winner of the 6- nest site from September 2015. Well done all. 12yrs colouring competition (his picture of Manx shear- water is top right) Project Steering Group Paul St Pierre Project Supervisor RSPB Jaclyn Pearson Project Manager Sarah Mason Chief Executive Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust Richard McCarthy St Agnes representative Will Garratt Estate Assistant Duchy of Cornwall Kate Sugar Project Leader Natural England Julian Pearce Senior Officer: Physical Assets and Natural Resources. Council of the Isles of Scilly Paul Buckley Regional Conservation Manager RSPB Leigh Lock Senior Species Recovery Officer RSPB Issue No. 6 Page 2 Young seabird ambassadors A vital part of the project is inspiring young people - Young Seabird Ambassadors – about the world of seabird conservation. The project has been delivering a mix of activities to local schools and visiting schools, youth groups, colleges and universities. St Agnes School: the school continues to check 5 permanent monitoring stations on the island and this year has shown our Isles of Scilly Council visiting funders how to tell the difference in wax between Extended School Ser- snail, shrew and rat marks. They have taken part in wildlife vices, Youth Hub treasure hunts, Manx shearwater burrow surveys and Apple Holiday Club: this year Day. In fact, each Autumn they've been picking up wind-fall activities included field apples, so helping reduce potential food for rats. Should a rat trips to St Martin’s. get back, it's more likely to be detected nibbling wax in moni- One group went to the toring stations if fewer food sources are available. Head to ‘flats’ for coastal creature identification and bird watching at the website www.ios-seabirds.org.uk to watch the video low tide. Another group took part in beach art activities and ‘Apple day’ by volunteer Matt Brierley. seabird bingo! One member of the group commented: “Today it was just awesome to learn what lives on our beaches”. Above: Holiday club bird-watching with Jaclyn at on St Martin’s. Natura 2000 Day! May 14th Natura 2000 is the name given to nature protec- tion sites within the territory of the European Union, of which Scilly’s Special Protection Area (SPA) is just one. This year we took St Agnes school to Manx shearwater burrows, carried out wildlife sound- recording and a bird watching tour. The tour included seeing nesting fulmars, calling oystercatchers Top left: Wildlife treasure hunt. Top right: Visiting the Manx shearwater and spotting ’weetabix bird,’ also known officially as the North- burrows at Troytown, St Agnes. Bottom left: Collecting wind-fall apples ern wheatear! on Apple Day. Bottom right: Feedback words on apple artwork. Above: In support of Natura 2000 Day, St Agnes school did the ‘butterfly symbol’ recognised throughout Europe Higher Education Field Trips and projects: Five Islands School and We laid on a seabird workshop for Cornwall College Ecology students on visiting mainland Gugh. Top three words used to describe the field trip were: ‘Interesting, schools: fun and educational’. Exeter University Zoology students carried out re- This summer’s weather search projects during their week’s stay on Scilly. We were grateful many was ideal for outdoor students assisted our ‘pitfall pop-up labs,’ categorising invertebrates col- beach activities. Blue and lected as part of wider ecological monitoring work. Students assisted lab Yellow classes at Five Is- work for two days and based their own project on the data. They visited lands School took part in pitfall survey sites and learnt about our key project species by listening beach games, bird watch- to call back from Manx shearwaters. ing and rambles. When asked ‘what words do seabirds make you think of top answers were ’flying, splash, fish, and happy’ Top: Five Islands School Blue class ’coastal creatures’ activity on St Mary’s. Bottom: Five Islands school Yellow Left: Exeter University Zoology students listen to Manx shearwaters in burrows. Right: class wildlife bingo at Old Town beach, St Mary’s. Cornwall College Ecology students birdwatching on Gugh Issue No. 6 Page 3 Monitoring of wider species and ‘pop-up pitfall labs’ We’ve now finished fieldwork for wider species. By comparing St Agnes and Bryher, this work aims to uncover whether rat re- moval has had any impact on vegetation as well as numbers of rabbits, land birds, the lesser white-toothed shrew and inverte- brates. In 2013 ‘baseline surveys’ were conducted by Spalding’s Associates. In 2014 project staff and volunteers carried out first year surveys and this year they completed final surveys. Field work in 2016 was led by Project Assistant Holly Paget-Brown with volunteer support. There was help too from RSPB staff and volunteers in Penzance and on Scilly while University of Exeter Zool- ogy students sorted through and categorised thousands of invertebrates. We’re grateful as well to the campsites on both St Agnes and Bryher; to the Judson family on St Agnes and to Issy Tibbs on Bryher for storing equipment in their barns. Spalding Associates are currently crunching the data. Their full report will be completed in April and a community talk will be arranged on St Agnes to share the results.