Chough report: July 2017

Posted on August 22, 2017 by Glyn Young

One of this year’s wild-hatched chicks arriving at the aviary. Photo by Liz Corry.

By Liz Corry

Fledging news!

Previously on Choughs…cue theme music…On 27th June Beanie baby was the first of four wild chicks to appear at the aviary with parents, Kevin and Bean, by its side.

Six days later another chick arrived. Unringed, but accompanied by Green and Black, and sneezing and wheezing, so it wasn’t hard to determine which nest it came from. It wasn’t hard to find a name for the new chick either. Lil’ Wheezy, who clearly wasn’t well, but it had made it to the aviary, so it’s odds were looking up.

A wild-hatched chick arrives for the first time at the aviary with parents begging for food. Photo by Tanith Hackney-Huck.

The third chick made an appearance on 5th July. We knew which nest it came from because of we could see pink and black leg rings. We didn’t know who it’s parents were. Well, not until it started guzzling food down its throat provided by Lee and Caûvette. This meant that our Les Landes pair had been travelling 9km away from their nest and the group finding food for their chick.

The news of this chick also means that another of our four hand-reared choughs has successfully bred in the wild; Dingle (fathered two in 2016), Caûvette and Bean. Poor Chick-Ay has yet to find a dedicated partner.

The fourth and final chick was spotted flying around the quarry on 6th July. Again, we knew which nest it was from, but did not know the parents. Two days later we were in for a pleasant surprise. Q and Flieur, a new pairing, led their chick over Sorel Point to join the flock feeding at the aviary.

This now brings the total number of free-flying choughs in Jersey to 38. Almost a quarter of which were wild born in Jersey. There is a video of the group in flight on Jersey Zoo’s Instagram page or just click here if you don’t have an account.

Lil’ Wheezy gets wormed

We needed to worm the sick chick that was now visiting the aviary twice a day. It couldn’t be done straight away. We needed the chick to become accustomed to flying in and out of the aviary in order to trap it inside. It took a good week for Lil’ Wheezy to grow in confidence and fly all the way in at each feed.

A wild fledgling caught up under licence to treat for nematodes. Note the bill colouration due to its young age. Photo by John Harding.

Patience paid off on the 19th when the team were able to trap it inside and catch under licence. Dave Buxton fitted leg rings and the Vet gave it a wormer before being released back to it’s parents and the rest of the flock.

Classic reaction to a vet holding a needle. Photo by John Harding.

MSc project wraps up

Guille finished collecting data for his research at the end of this month. He now has the delight of returning to Nottingham Trent University to make sense of it all. I will let Guille explain in his own words…

“Birds, and other animals have personalities. Consistent behaviours that are different between individuals, maintained through time and favouring -or not!- the survival of the individuals and their successful breeding.

Studying the boldness-shyness continuum in choughs. Photo by Liz Corry.

With the choughs I am looking at a classical behavioural trait: the boldness-shyness continuum and how it might affect survival.

Basically, if you are a bold bird you may be good at defending your food patch from others, get stronger and healthier and be able to feed your nestlings properly. However, if you are a very bold bird that would not leave the food patch even when there is a falcon approaching, you are in serious trouble.

I want to see if we can predict how far the released choughs will go to find food everyday just by looking at their personalities. Some studies have already shown that boldness has an effect on habitat use and distance travelled, which may be useful in a project like this one, where every bird is highly valuable and the distance they will travel will increase the chances of finding more food, or getting lost! If a correlation is found, it would help the project team to select which birds should be released depending on what behaviour is best to assure survival in the area.

Does Lee’s personality type predispose him to travel several kilometres away from the release site to feed? Photo by Mick Dryden.

For assessing their boldness, I presented them a squirrel-proof bird feeder that they had not seen before, as they have their daily supplementary feeding in open trays. I recorded the latency of each bird to pick food from it for the first time, during 15 minutes. After that, they were given their daily meal and I would not repeat the test until approximately ten days later, so they would not get used to it. Finally I gave every bird an average boldness score based on how long they took to pick food for the first time.

This year’s wild chicks were clearly not shying away from the feeder. Photo Guillermo Mayor.

Assessing the distance travelled was the fun part, as they had lost their radio tags. I had to become another chough and follow the group during their morning stroll. They leave the roost by 5am, returning for the 11am feed. I learnt lots about chough behaviour in the field. I saw their games, love arguments, gang fights, first trips of their chicks, but still they are very complicated birds.

By the end of July, after having cycled every single track of the north coast, I had a bunch of observations, from which I would pick the furthest point from the roost I saw each bird. Some of them were a bit surprising, such as Trevor and Noirmont. I found them perching on a German WW2 cannon, south of Les Landes. They looked like nobody could mess with them. I would definitely keep an eye on those two.

The two and a half months passed too quickly and I wish I could have stayed longer. The support I received from the project staff was amazing, and I would definitely recommend anyone that has cool ideas that would help the project and the broad bird recovery knowledge to think about doing some research here.

I am currently in front of the computer, missing the field and the choughs, and for now it seems that the boldness was consistent, which is good news! I really hope I can come back soon and see the noisy choughs again soaring over the windy cliffs, and all the lovely people who were like a family for a summer.”

Birds On The Edge wins a RHS award

Birds On The Edge received a Silver award in the conservation section of the annual ‘Parish in Bloom’ event, a hugely popular and well supported national floral competition held under the professional auspices of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Glyn Young met the judges and Mike Stentiford on Sunday 23^rd July to show them around Sorel to see the grazing flock of sheep, conservation crop fields, and the choughs. Although only two choughs showed up!

More information about the Parish in Bloom event run by Natural Jersey can be found at http://www.parish.gov.je/Documents/NatJerBrochureA4_ParishSites.pdf.

Chough report: June 2017

Posted on August 17, 2017 by Glyn Young

By Liz Corry

Chough numbers increase in the wild

Jersey’s free-living choughs have had another productive nesting season. There are seven pairs in the group and we discovered five nests. As reported last month, Dingle and Red’s clutch of four eggs failed to hatch.

That still left four active nests with chicks. The team was taken to the nest-sites on 9th July by Ronez operational assistant, Toby Cabaret. Dave Buxton, licensed ringer, joined the team in order to fit leg rings on the chicks.

We were initially greeted with bad news. We found two dead chicks on the floor under a nest, approximately two and three weeks old at time of death. Post mortem results were inconclusive due to decomposition of soft tissues. Fortunately there was still one chick alive in the nest.

Licenced bird ringer Dave Buxton with a chough chick. Photo by Liz Corry.

Fitting plastic leg rings and taking DNA samples for sexing. Photo by John Harding.

A second nest had also lost a chick leaving just one chick for the team to process.

The third nest was checked and also found to contain just one chick. In all of the above nests, the parentage was unknown; although we had our suspicions.

Each nest checked contained one chick. Photo by Liz Corry.

The fourth nest belonging to Green and Black was in one of the nest-boxes fitted this year. Despite the nest camera being blocked with wool and twigs we had strong suspicions there were chicks inside. Due to access issues it would be a case of waiting for fledglings to emerge to determine if this was the case.

On the 21st we received news from Toby that one of the ringed chicks had started to explore outside the nest. We estimated it would be a week before it made an appearance at Sorel.

Photo of the first chick out of the nest. Photo by Toby Cabaret.

We were right! On the 27th the dulcet tones of a begging chick could be heard over the cliff tops and upon its arrival at the aviary accompanied by its parents. Finally we knew who its parents were. Kevin and Bean were the only two choughs hurriedly feeding the chick. This was quite a moment for the team since young Bean is one of three hand-reared females at Sorel. There could only be one name for this chick; Beanie baby.

The first fledgling to arrive at the aviary begging for food from its parents. Photo by Tanith Hackney-Huck.

Our question over the fourth nest was answered two days before Beanie baby flew to Sorel. Paul Pestana’s voluntary observations paid off on the 25th when he spotted a commotion on the roof of one of the quarry buildings. Two chicks had jumped up through a hole in the roof and started begging frantically at Green and Black who had returned with food from Sorel. Within minutes of being fed they hopped back out of sight and the adults flew off to find more food.

This breeding season seems to be one of give and take. Therefore, our news of two unringed chicks was followed by news of a loss the next day. Concerned quarry staff phoned in the morning to report a chick on the ground in a building looking like it couldn’t fly. A somewhat common appearance in chough chicks that haven’t fully fledged. However, it soon became apparent it was more serious. Sadly the chick died before it reached the vets. A post-mortem showed a severe syngamus infection as likely cause. Black was showing symptoms of a syngamus infection. If she was ingesting infected insects it was highly likely she was also feeding them to the chicks. The survival of the second chick was now in doubt, but there was nothing we could do until it flew to Sorel.

Cliff hanger!

Chough travels

Whilst staff have been busy observing nests, the choughs have been off gallivanting along the north coast. Nottingham Trent student Guille has been attempting to follow them as part of his MSc project. He wakes at dawn and tracks groups or individuals armed with a pair of binoculars and a trusted bicycle. He also put a plea out to the Jersey public via social media to report any sightings. They didn’t disappoint.

After an initial slow start, Guille has been able to observe choughs foraging at Crabbé, Plémont, Grosnez, and Les Landes. All places we knew they visited already, but thought they had ditched during the breeding season to stay close to nest sites. At least that is the impression you get when you go to the aviary to feed twice a day.

One warm day, a pleasing find was seeing a group of choughs bathing and drinking in the stream at Mourier Valley. Rather more interesting was the discovery of the breeding pairs travelling several kilometres away from their nest sites. White and Mauve with at least 16 others were photographed at Grève de Lecq at the start of the month. We had started to think this pair had failed to breed this year, so it wasn’t too surprising for them to be away from their nest site.

Choughs photographed at Greve de Lecq on June 12th by Nick de Carteret

We suspected the Les Landes pair, Lee and Caûvette, were responsible for one of the chicks in the quarry. Guille’s observations and public reports meant that the pair were spending considerable time and distance (~5km) away from their nest to forage. Grosnez, Plémont Headland, and Les Landes being their favourite spots. Kevin and Bean were also spending time away from their nest having been seen 2-3km away in the mornings and early afternoon.

Lee (on the left) and Caûvette photographed at Grosnez by Mick Dryden.

Catch up with Caûvette

We trapped Caûvette in the aviary at Sorel and caught her up to remove her back digit from her plastic leg ring. Unlike Bean she had not managed to free it unaided. There appeared to be no damage. The only thing was that claw had become overgrown and needed a trim. Once weighed she was released from the aviary to join the others. In the process of catching her up we also caught up Green and Q much to their displeasure. Not one to waste an opportunity we recorded body weights for those two prior to releasing. The two males and Caûvette were all good weights suggesting that they must be finding enough food whether wild or at the aviary.

An unappreciative Cauvette before her toe was removed from the plastic leg ring. Photo by Liz Corry.

Han Solo takes flight

Zoo chough chick Han Solo in the nest box…one imagines anyway.

Our zoo chick, Han Solo, took his first flight out of the nest box on 15th June and there wasn’t a Millennium Falcon in sight! Well maybe a kestrel hovering over the valley.*

He had been teetering at the edge for several days beforehand. Once out it took him a little while to get used to his new-found flying skills, preferring to hang out in one of two places. He doesn’t seem too perturbed by the public. We assume mum and dad have explained the situation to him.

Recently fledged chough chick and parents at Jersey Zoo. Photo by Liz Corry.

*apologies to anyone not a fan of Star Wars and to everyone for the bad pun.

RBC helps out Jersey Zoo’s own RBCs (red-billed choughs)

On 9th June a team from the Royal Bank of Canada volunteered their time at Jersey Zoo to help with the choughs.

Team RBC: The Royal Bank of Canada staff who volunteered their time for the Red-Billed Choughs. Photo by Gisele Anno.

They were set the task to weed the borders outside the display aviary and plant it up to look like chough habitat found on the north coast. Species such as foxglove, red campion, bladder campion, knapweed, lady’s bedstraw, birds foot trefoil and heather were added. Most of the plants were coming to the end of their flowering period, but they will grow back next year.

RBC volunteers weeding the borders outside the chough aviary at Jersey Zoo. Photo by Gisele Anno.

Gorse bushes translocated from the old green lizard enclosure into the aviary when the choughs first moved in, have now spread to the outside. Volunteers made sure these young growths received a bit of TLC to encourage them to grow.

RBC volunteers working hard on the native species border. Photo by Gisele Anno

At the end of a hard day’s work they were treated to a talk from Glyn about Birds On The Edge, the choughs, and the reason why conserving coastal farmland is important.

On top of volunteering their time, the RBC have donated money to help rodent proof the release aviary and repair netting damage. For which we and the choughs are extremely grateful.

LIVE Teaching through nature

The choughs participated once again with Alderney Wildlife Trust‘s LIVE Teaching Through Nature schools programme. Their blogging skills almost as good as their flying skills if I may say so myself. The online paid programme offers schools the opportunity to bring nature into their classrooms by utilising live streams of Alderney’s seabirds, videos and blogs from Durrell and the choughs in Jersey, and the occasional live chat with field staff.

This project links directly to the key stage 1 & 2 curriculum, and is an effective way of teaching science and literacy skills, and encouraging pupil creativity and confidence. Feedback from our two week takeover in June was yet again positive hopefully inspiring some young conservationists along the way.

Chough report: May 2017

Posted on June 19, 2017 by Glyn Young

Wild flowers at Sorel. Photo by Liz Corry.

Jersey’s coastal habitat was home to spring lambs, wild flowers, and baby choughs this month. Here is what the choughs got up to. Or, as we can now call them, what the award-winning choughs got up to!

May the 4th be with you

On May the 4th the first of the three eggs in Issy and Tristan’s nest hatched. Staff were naturally excited and considering the date, the geeks amongst us (i.e. everyone), started putting bids in for Star Wars related names for the clutch.

Chough eggs hatch sequentially so we expected it to take a few days. However, the days passed and it became clear that this would be the only egg to hatch.

Han Solo was duly christened.

The parents were keen to remove one of the failed eggs. The other was left in the nest for quite sometime.

With only one chick to care for, Han Solo was well fed and grew steadily day by day.

Breeding in the wild

This year’s wall planner had a rather colourful month in store with various predicted hatch dates starred and scribbled in colour-coded marker. First off the blocks were to be Red and Dingle (hand-reared) who raised their first chicks last year. This year’s eggs were due to hatch around the first week in May. A change in Red‘s behaviour on 4th May suggested the eggs might have started hatching. Instead of waiting for the cue from Dingle, she was already waiting at the aviary for food in the morning. As soon as she picked up a mouthful of mealworms she zoomed back to her nest.

We asked Kevin le Herissier, responsible for ‘their’ building (Ronez naively still believe that the buildings are theirs not the choughs’), to check the nest the following week. This was to allow time for the entire clutch to hatch and so that the parents were not as sensitive to disturbance.

To our bemusement the photo he sent back was of a perfect nest containing four eggs.

Red and Dingle’s nest early in May. Photo by Kevin le Herissier

A follow up check on the 19th also found four eggs. Guess what was found when the nest was checked for a third time on the 31st? Sadly, not a case of third time lucky. Still four eggs. Under license by the States of Jersey, these eggs were candled in the nest to find answers to what had happened, why they hadn’t hatched. One egg had failed during embryonic development while the others looked like they contained almost fully developed chicks. The eggs were returned to the nest.

New nest-site discovered

Student John Harding and Ronez operational assistant Toby Cabaret checked on the nests in the quarry on the 19th. Armed with a GoPro and a very long pole they checked nest-boxes and known nest sites. One of the nest-boxes we fitted in the quarry in 2015 had nesting material in it. What flew out wasn’t a chough though. It was a kestrel!

Most of the nests were just centimetres out of reach of the pole and suspiciously quiet. The team did, however, spot a female on a nest in a building not previously used by the choughs. With no wish to disturb her the nest was left alone. We now have the task of trying to work out which pair this nest belongs to.

A neighbouring building was also found to have a nest. This one didn’t have a female on it, but from the begging noises it was clear there were at least two chicks in there. Again this is a new site and new pairing.

This video shows Toby and John trying to use the GoPro to check the cheeping nest. They didn’t realise at the time how close they were to the nest. You can see the chicks.

They look extremely young. Normally we would avoid disturbing a nest at this age. From our calculations we expected any chicks to be a few days older. From their begging they look strong.

All nest checks are done under license from the States of Jersey.

Chick ringing and revelations

On the 31st we returned to the nest sites. This time with Channel Island ringer Dave Buxton in case the chicks were old enough to fit with leg rings. We were also armed with a new piece of equipment…a USB endoscope camera. It doesn’t provide HD images like the GoPro. However, it is equipped with LED lights and a lot more manoeuvrable (and only cost £25).

Toby Cabaret checking a chough nest with the Potensic endoscope. Photo by Liz Corry.

Three chicks could be seen with the endoscope plugged into a smartphone. Photo by Liz Corry.

Due to health and safety concerns, two nest-sites were out of bounds. We were able to check the nest with the cheeping chicks. This time eerily silent, although it was clear from the endoscope image that there were three bills. They still had pin feathers on their heads and from their size they looked no more than two weeks old. Too young to fit rings.

Before leaving the building John and Toby went a checked the next floor up on a hunch that there could be something. They were right! They found a nest tucked away behind girders.

Spot the nest? Photo by Liz Corry.

Despite a grainy image, the colour and shape of a bill could be seen and possibly a second body. The image below is a snapshot from the endoscope. The image is less clear than in realtime. You will be forgiven if you can’t spot the head of a chick.

Screen grab of endoscope view in nest showing the pale bill of a chick (far right). Photo by Liz Corry.

Whilst checking this nest Kevin and Bean flew in and appeared slightly aggrieved that we had discovered their little secret. The disappointment of the chicks once again being too young to ring was quickly overshadowed by this news. Bean is one of our hand-reared females released as a juvenile in 2014 and now, three years later, rearing chicks of her own!

Chough-watch

We received several reports of choughs out and about this month from members of the public. Of interest was a report of a pair from Tabor Park, St Brelade. They had been seen on the allotments, but flown before leg rings could be read. Five days later another report came in of a chough calling at the desalination plant by Corbiere.

We have radio-tracked choughs to the south-west before in 2014 and 2015. Since then there have been a handful of sightings around Gorselands, Le Creux and Red Houses.

Choughs on the move. Photo by Liz Corry.

Regular chough watchers Mick Dryden, Tony Paintin, and Piers Sangan reported choughs at Crabbé, Île Agois, and Grosnez during the day. We assume these are the sub-adults and non-breeders who don’t have commitments at the quarry. Without leg ring records we can’t be sure.

Grosnez to Plémont with Sorel point in the far distance: areas visited by the choughs this month. Photo by Liz Corry.

Personality research with Nottingham Trent University

Guille Mayor arrived this month to start his MSc research looking at personality traits in released choughs. He is trying to see if personality relates to dispersal distances and success in the wild. Part of his work will involve behavioural observation at the release aviary and how individuals react to a novel object.

The trickier part of his study requires him to find where the choughs go each day. He obviously likes a challenge since only three in 34 have radio tracking devices and Guille is on a bicycle. If you do spot a chough away from Sorel please as also let us know. Send an email, call 01534 860059, or post on Jersey Wildlife Facebook page. Location, date, time, and, if possible, leg rings need including.

And finally

British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) held their annual awards at The Deep in Hull this month. Durrell had entered four categories and came away with three gold and one silver. We are delighted to announce that the return of choughs to Jersey was awarded gold in the conservation category.

Many thanks to everyone involved over the years that have helped plan, raise, release, monitor, and protect the choughs, many of which have volunteered their free time to do so. And of course our partners at the National Trust for Jersey, Department of the Environment, and our extended chough family at Paradise Park.

Chough report: April 2017

Posted on May 5, 2017 by Glyn Young

by Liz Corry

April started on a tragic low note progressing, the only way it could, into a steady crescendo to a high and hopeful cadence. In fact, April started as it always does with April Fool’s Day. So when an email entitled ‘chough vs. peregrine’ was opened on the 2nd, wishful thinking wanted to dismiss this as a delayed prank.

The email was from Mick Dryden and Romano da Costa, two of Jersey’s top birders, who had been out at Sorel Point doing a migration count.

Mick described observing “an immature peregrine fly onto the cliff with a black bird in its talons. We both thought it was the remains of a chough. The peregrine was hassled by gulls and flew off west, but dropped the bird in the sea where a greater black-backed gull performed the last rites. I had the scope on it distantly and think I could see red legs very briefly, possibly also a ring which may have been green. So if you are short of a chough, you know why!”

For legal reasons we would like to state that the peregrine flying over Sorel in this photo is innocent until proven guilty. Photo by Liz Corry.

The email was read at home after spending the day out at Sorel monitoring seemingly very content choughs. In fact, it was the first day the choughs had been seen carrying nesting material. Not only that, but the first bird spotted carrying material was Pyrrho, a female of only two years of age. A potential new breeder!

Pyrrho carrying nesting material, but to where? Photo by Liz Corry

Added excitement had come when a large group of choughs spent the day hanging out around the section of cliffs where we fitted a nest-box in 2014. Birds were seen to come and go from the box. Could one of them be adding nesting material?

The acrobatic aerial displays they were putting on, launching themselves off the cliff face were a joy to watch.

Acrobatic choughs at Sorel. Photo by Liz Corry.

To get home and find out that one of them had most likely been skewered by talons, plucked apart, and unceremoniously dropped in the sea, only to be further shredded into oblivion, was a little disorientating to say the least.

The choughs have started changing their daily patterns most likely as a result of the breeding season. Pairs have been spending less time near the aviary, some turning up late. In the case of Lee and Caûvette, the notorious absentees, they did the opposite and started turning up for both morning and afternoon feeds.

Lee and Caûvette (centre) have started returning for the supplemental feeds suggesting they might be nesting nearby. Photo by Liz Corry.

Once the choughs had grabbed their free handouts they would swiftly return to their business of either nest-building and/or wild foraging. There has been an abundance of leatherjackets and other grubs in the fields this month keeping them fuelled for the day. It, therefore, didn’t raise alarm bells when only 32 of the 35 choughs were counted on the morning Mick described the attack.

A leatherjacket larvae unearthed and being tenderised before adding to the chough menu of the day. Photo by Liz Corry.

The following day was spent staking out Sorel ticking names off the chough register. Mick’s description of a green ring turned out to be a red herring when, after a few hours, all the choughs sporting green rings were alive and well. This is included a breeding male, Pale Green, a wild-hatched chick, and hand-reared Bean. Never believe parents when they say they don’t have a favourite!

Ticking off the chough register each day isn’t easy with birds like Helier whose broken green ring has slipped over the blue one. Photo by Liz Corry.

By the end of the day the identity of two birds still remained unconfirmed. Hayle and Yarila, both hatched at Paradise Park last year, and wearing almost identical leg rings. One blue and white striped. One black and white striped. Out in the field with the glare of the sun, the white-out of the fog (we had both), and the desperation in your mind, it is very difficult to determine the difference between the two rings.

Attempts to get a clearer view of leg rings by feeding choughs outside of the aviary failed when the sea fog rolled in. Photo by Liz Corry.

Even when Hayle’s radio transmitter was tracked down to the cliff face where the peregrine attack occurred your mind wants to add the element of doubt. What if she just shed the transmitter there and is merrily foraging in the fields? Sea fog and sheer cliffs prevented the recovery of the transmitter.

Somewhere beyond the gorse lies a cliff face and a lost radio transmitter. Photo by Liz Corry.

Not that it would have told us anything other than Hayle was no longer attached to it. Three days later, with a total count of 34 birds, none of which wore a blue and white striped ring, we reluctantly concluded Hayle wasn’t attached to anything in this world.

And now for the steady crescendo…

Breeding season update

The chough group did not spend long mourning the loss of their friend. Priorities were focused around breeding and collecting nest-liner courtesy of the sheep. We were able to ascertain a few new potential breeding pairs thanks to this. We have also noticed a few unexpected couplings based on mutual preening and feeding behaviour.

The most intriguing of which is a new trio. Pyrrho has teamed up with one of last year’s wild-hatched chicks. At only 11 months old (someone call Social Services) he would seem a bit young for Pyrrho. The young male is still very close to his sister and the three are often spotted flying to the quarry together. It would be unusual if this trio were to produce anything other than a nest this year.

Wild-hatched siblings Pink-Orange (male) and Black-Orange (female) have teamed up with Pyrrho this breeding season. Photo by Liz Corry.

We already have a trio of Dusty, the original wild-hatched chick, and two females Egg and Chickay. Both females have been building nests; however, Dusty pays more attention to Egg and we believe she has started incubating. Last year, when this trio formed, they did not get beyond the nest-building stage so Egg’s behaviour is very encouraging.

Egg collecting nesting material from the quarry for her nest with Dusty. Photo by Liz Corry.

Chickay, a hand-reared chick, collecting nesting material from the quarry. Photo by Liz Corry.

These were not the only choughs to be busy nest building. We have seen five pairs visiting the sheep pens to collect wool. Not straight from the sheep’s backs I hasten to add.

Choughs busy collecting wool to line their nests at Sorel. Photo by Liz Corry.

The choughs have been making the most of the sheep’s confinement to the aviary field this month. Photo by Liz Corry.

We have struggled to assign each pair to a nest site. With so many choughs using the quarry now simply for recreation it is difficult to know who is who and what they are up to. Working with quarry staff, we believe we have double the number of nest sites compared to last year.

A tell-tale clue as to where this pair has chosen to nest is in the fact that they are covered in quarry rock dust. Photo by Liz Corry.

We started to notice behaviour in the last two week’s of April that suggested some of the females had started incubating. It has not been as clear-cut as in previous years making it trickier to predict hatch dates. Bets aside it is certain that May will be a productive month.

Health updates and post-release care

Monthly faecal screenings showed the parasite count in the flock to be lower than last month. It would be a statistical miracle to assume that the entire flock was represented equally within a sample. However, taking into account fewer observations of sneezing birds it appears to be a fair reflection of the group’s general parasite loads. The reduction was possibly helped by the absence of Hayle who had been seen sneezing and wheezing a few days before she encountered the peregrine.

One of the wild-hatched choughs was seen to have something wrapped around her foot on 17th April. We monitored her closely and it soon became clear the offending material was not going to come off unaided. We are permitted to catch up and handle wild-hatched choughs for welfare reasons under our license granted by the States of Jersey. Therefore, to avoid any potential problems with blood circulation in the future, we caught her up and snipped the thread free.

PP003 had to be caught up in the release aviary to remove tangled thread from her foot. Photo by Glyn Young.

At the same time as attempting to catch this bird (it took several days) we noticed Bean had managed to wedge one of her digits up into her plastic rings. We had hoped that she might manage to wiggle it free or break the plastic since the rings are now quite old. She didn’t comply so she too was caught up.

We had to be very careful with Bean and the rest of the group when it came to entrapment. Not for legal reasons. We did not want to inflict any unnecessary stress on any of the egg-laying females. We had suspected Bean could be one such female since her and her partner have collected nesting material. Once in the hand her brood patch was a big giveaway. Her foot was quickly freed, replacement rings fitted, and she was allowed to return to her nest within minutes of being trapped in the aviary.

Yarila preened out her broken tail feather this month complete with radio transmitter. Photo by Liz Corry.

Yarila conveniently preened out her radio-transmitter on 24th April whilst sat on the aviary roof. At the start of the month one of her middle tail feathers was sticking up at a right angle to the other eleven. Obviously loose, but hanging on to something. In fact we noticed it the day after the peregrine incident. Coincidence?

Looking at the recovered transmitter it is clear that the loose feather was still holding on by a thread to the base of the transmitter. The other central tail feather, which gets glued to the transmitter, has snapped off and detached from the base of the transmitter hence the tag falling off. This is the first time we have seen this with our choughs.

Jersey Zoo breeding pairs

CI Fire & Security Ltd kindly installed a new wireless system at the chough breeding aviaries this month to allow staff to monitor all three nests. CI Fire & Security Ltd have previously installed cameras at Durrell in the bear and orang enclosures. Whilst seemingly not as challenging as designing an orang-utan-proof camera, the chough-cams proved trickier than expected. Two of the three cameras were up and running in March. The third, in Issy and Tristan’s aviary where we hope the pair will parent rear took a bit longer, but finally went online on 13th April. At which point we discovered she was sitting on three eggs!

Keepers had found an egg on the floor near to the nest-box earlier in the week. We don’t know why it was on the floor. We do know that she has not laid anymore eggs since the day the camera went online. An unusually low clutch number for Issy, but at least she has eggs and is looking after them.

Now we have the nest-camera we can closely monitor the progress of these eggs, any subsequent chicks and support the parents along the way if needed. We expect the eggs to hatch at the start of May with a view to release healthy fledged chicks in the summer.

Simon Inman’s fundraising last month has managed to raise £140.73. This has help pay for the new wireless nest-camera in Issy and Tristan‘s aviary. Simon’s sponsored skydive is in summer so there is still time to donate.

Our other two breeding pairs appear to be dawdling. It took them a while to start building nests and now they just don’t want to stop. This footage of Denzel and his partner was captured on 25th April…

It is a little harder to tell what Gwinny and Lucifer are up to thanks to Gwinny inadvertently repositioning the camera.

For our tame bird Gianna she has to sit and wait for the likes of Gwinny to start egg-laying. We can then give Gianna a dummy egg to stimulate her to start laying her own (infertile) eggs. When the time is right we can swap eggs or chicks for foster rearing purposes. Timing is partly influenced by the behaviour of the pairs especially Lucifer who has a tendency to dislike eggs appearing in his nest box. We’re not exactly sure what he expects to use the nest for.

Gianna taking nesting material for her foster nest. Photo by Liz Corry.

Gianna completed her nest and is now waiting for the cue from keepers to start laying eggs. Photo by Liz Corry.

Chough report: March 2017

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Glyn Young

By Liz Corry

Preparations for the breeding season were well under way this month both at the Zoo and out on the coast. The breeding pairs at the Zoo moved into their seasonal accommodation ready to begin nesting. For Issy and Tristan that meant staying put and keeping a watchful eye on the visitors to the Zoo. Our other two pairs headed off show. Last year Issy and Tristan successfully reared two chicks who were later released onto the north coast. We are hoping for the same success this year. Maybe even more as keepers can now monitor activity in the nest from their computers thanks to a new wireless CCTV installation in their aviary.

One of the off-show breeding aviaries at Jersey Zoo. Photo by Liz Corry.

The off-show aviaries had a spruce up before the other two pairs moved in. The birds had a quick health check by the vets prior to moving. All appeared physically OK. Mentally? We will have to wait and see.

We are hoping that Lucifer learnt his lesson last year and allows Gwinny to incubate her eggs in peace.

A reminder of the ‘domestic dispute’ can be found in the April 2016 report.

In case he does live up to his namesake, we have set up the artificial incubation room at the Bird Department. We also have foster-mum Gianna on standby.

Gianna is on standby to help foster-rear chicks with the Zoo keepers. Photo by Liz Corry.

To ensure that she is in sync with the pairs we moved her into her own ‘breeding’ aviary when the others moved into theirs.

Nesting material was provided over several days by keepers. Each pair received material at the same time to encourage the pairs to nest in sync.

For some the prospect of a new nest is way too exciting…

By the end of the month Gianna had pretty much completed her nest. Material could be seen sticking out of Issy and Tristan‘s nest. The other two pairs were a bit slower on the uptake. From watching this video taken from Gwinny and Lucifer‘s nest camera you will understand why.

Our cameras are not online for public viewing. However, over in Cornwall, our partners at Paradise Park have their nest cameras up and running. You can follow their progress by clicking here.

Back on the north coast the free-living choughs were also busy with nesting material. The established breeding pairs started turning-up late to the feeds and not foraging as much around Sorel as the others.They were spending their time in the quarry trying to keep what they were up to under wraps. However, thanks to the new chough nest-box cameras in the quarry they could not keep it a secret for long.

To everyone’s relief Green and Black decided to use the nest-box Ronez fitted to encourage them away from working machinery. Within a week of the box being up, the birds were adding twigs. This will provide extremely valuable information to the team if the pair complete their nest.

Chough CCTV in the quarry providing evidence that nest building began in early March. Photo by Mark de Carteret.

The other nest camera is located in the building used by Dingle and Red. The monitor showed an empty nest-box, but we know from their antics they were up to something. It will be a case of wait and see.

The trickier detective work this month focused on trying to determine if Lee and Caûvette would attempt to nest for the first time? If so would it be away from Sorel? And will there be any other first timers now that the birds coming of age?

We know Lee and Caûvette like hanging out at Les Landes in the morning. Towards the end of March they also started missing out on the afternoon supplemental feed. They would arrive 20-40 minutes later than everyone else. We delayed the afternoon feeds by 30 minutes to give them a shot of getting some food before all the others scoffed it. This worked out well for a bit. Then the clocks changed and the birds gained at least an extra hour of daylight to frolic in before roost.

Lee and Caûvette seemed quite content without the aviary feed. They were obviously finding plenty of wild food. Probably because they had added Plémont to their list of daily foraging sites. From the aerial images below, courtesy of Chris Brookes Aerial Photography, you can understand why.

Plémont Bay. Photo by Chris Brookes Aerial Photography.

A view of Plémont café with Sorel Point visible on the horizon (top left). Photo by Chris Brookes Aerial Photography.

Headland at Plémont at high tide. Choughs have been seen foraging in this area. Photo by Chris Brookes Aerial Photography.

I am personally indebted to Tony Paintin for his feeding observations from Plémont since they reaffirmed my sanity as, on the 25th March, I looked up from my lunch plate at Plémont cafe and watched as two chough-like birds flew across the panoramic window view towards the headland. It meant that when I ran down the steps to the beach like a crazy lady I knew I would be rewarded with the site of Lee and Caûvette exploring the nooks and crannies of Plémont’s coves and crevices.

They didn’t stay for long. Minutes later they were off exploring Grand Becquet and Grève de Lecq. They probably wanted to get a look at the black guillemot reported there to see what all the fuss was about.

No sign of them collecting nesting material, but then again we only get to see them for about an hour each day. The radio-tracking study stopped at the end of this month allowing the team to spend more time observing behviour. Only five of the original eleven birds were still wearing their transmitters. Besides, apart from two birds, the flock was staying put at Sorel.

Project student Simon monitoring the choughs at Sorel. Photo by Liz Corry.

During this time we discovered a shift in one of the non-breeding couplings. Q has ditched Pyrrho in favour of Flieur who is a month shy of her 3rd birthday and prime age to start breeding.

We also noticed a few of the youngsters sneezing. The monthly faecal screening showed presence of Syngamus and Coccidia within the group. The condition of the birds was not as severe as on previous occasions so there was no urgent need to catch them for worming injections. Instead we focused on repairing the aviary so that we could catch birds and continued to monitor the group as closely as we could.

The aviary finally had a spring clean. More like overhaul with new hatch wires, in some cases new hinges. The hatches themselves were cleaned and painted and the broken central beam was replaced and, thanks to Trevor’s trusty truck, the partitions were hauled back into place.

Maintenance staff came up with a novel idea to operate the release hatches. Photo by Liz Corry.

At the same time the National Trust for Jersey were up replacing the sheep fencing a Sorel. The sheep are still confined to the aviary field and adjacent field. Once the lambs at St Catherine’s are old enough they will move up and roam free at Sorel and Devil’s Hole.

Not content with their wool, their dung larvae, their drinking water, and their feed, the choughs found another way to exploit the grazing flock…a shelter box. Photo by Liz Corry.

Other activities this month included a visit by Allen Moore from the Isle of Man. Allen is pretty much chough aficionado and not just in the Isle of Man. In fact he flew to Jersey from Las Palma (indirectly sadly) where he had just spent a two week ‘holiday’ studying the choughs and the other birds of La Palma. The La Palma chough is a bit of an oddball of the chough family (there is always one). It can be found in a wide range of habitats, including pine forest, and eats olives!

Part of the chough flying display at Sorel put on for the DESMAN students. Photo by Anna Chouler.

Durrell Training Academy is hosting the annual DESMAN course at present. Running from February until May. Participants spent time this month learning about the Birds On The Edge project via lectures and site visits. They also received training in radio-tracking techniques. For the tour of Sorel they were joined by a visiting course group from Nottingham Trent University. Despite the number of visitors and disturbance caused by maintenance work, the groups got to see the choughs in action.

The video below shows project student Simon feeding the choughs. Sometimes you don’t need to worry about whether or not the choughs will hear the whistle and come for food.

Due to ‘unnatural’ weather conditions at one point this month (i.e. no wind!), staff at Ronez Quarry tried to see if an alternative to a whistle cue would work…

And finally,

if you want to read the moving story behind the first ever chough at Jersey Zoo then grab yourself a copy of Dingle by Marie Marchand. It has a introduction by Gerald Durrell who was responsible for bringing the original Dingle to Jersey.

Published in 1961, hard-copies are few and far between. We got hold of one through the good folks at Cotswold Internet Books Ltd. However, if you prefer a digital copy then register for free with www.archive.org, an online lending library.

Want to study choughs?

Posted on April 14, 2017 by Glyn Young

From DICE (Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology)

Scholarship opportunity: Restoring a Kentish icon: feasibility of reintroducing the chough to Kent

DICE are seeking applications for a PhD in Biodiversity Management supported by the University of Kent’s Vice Chancellor’s Research Scholarship Fund. Applicants need to be versatile with a demonstrable aptitude for conservation science, interdisciplinary research and quantitative analysis, together with an interest in bird conservation and/or reintroduction biology.

Supervisors: Dr Bob Smith, Prof Richard Griffiths, Prof Jim Groombridge & Dr Dave Roberts

Advisor: Professor Carl Jones MBE.

The science of reintroducing species back into the wild has evolved into a distinct branch of conservation science. The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology has been working at the forefront of species conservation and reintroduction biology with partners around the world for over two decades. An opportunity has now arisen to apply this experience and expertise locally, with an analysis of the feasibility of bringing back the iconic red-billed chough to Kent. The chough population has become highly fragmented with several isolated populations around the coast of Britain. The chough was once more widespread and formerly occurred as far east as Kent where it became extinct c. 160 years ago. However, it still lives on in the Coat of Arms of Canterbury City and the University of Kent, and potential habitat remains in Kent, with large areas of nature reserves and farmland across the Dover area.

Partners This project builds on the experience of Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust who lead the chough reintroduction to Jersey through the Birds On The Edge project. The project will also partner with Operation Chough, based at Paradise Park in Cornwall, who have led the ex situ components of the reintroduction programme; and Wildwood Trust in Kent, a leading centre for the conservation and rewilding of British Wildlife.

Aims & Objectives

1. Habitat suitability analysis: this will involve combining an ecological assessment of potential release sites with an impact and risk assessment of a potential reintroduction. This will require spatial analysis and species distribution modelling using GIS;

2. Assessment of local attitudes to a proposed reintroduction: this will use social science methods to gather quantitative and qualitative data on awareness, attitudes, and knowledge of the chough and broader conservation issues among the wider local community;

3. Systematic conservation planning assessment: This will involve working with local NGO and government groups to map the different protected areas and management activities in the focal area, and identify sites where habitat management would support chough conservation;

4. Flagship species potential: this will use choice experiments and other social science methods to identify whether the chough would make a suitable flagship species for different target audience groups, including neighbouring communities and visiting tourists.

Training The project will require a versatile student who will be trained in both social science and natural science survey methods, GIS and species distribution modelling. The student will be required to take forward dialogue with local organisations, identifying potential release sites with them through applying the research, and help produce a reintroduction plan in conjunction with IUCN/SSC (2013) guidelines. The student will be expected to undertake some teaching as a Graduate Teaching Assistant on undergraduate programmes.

Funding £14,296 (2016/17 rate) plus tuition fees at the Home/EU rate. This scholarship is administered under the Graduate Teaching Assistant Scheme

Applications Applicants should have at least a 2:1 Honours degree and a good MSc in a relevant subject. Graduates who can demonstrate equivalent relevant experience to MSc level through professional work, research and publications may also be considered.

Applications should comprise of a covering letter (1 page) and CV (2 pages max including the names and contact details of two referees) and should be sent to Dr Bob Smith (R.J.Smith@kent.ac.uk) by midnight on May 8th 2017.

Further information

Project title Restoring a Kentish icon: feasibility of reintroducing the chough to Kent

Application deadline: midnight on May 8th 2017

Interview: May 18th 2017

Start date: 16 September 2017

Programme: PhD

Mode of Study: Full time

Studentship Length: 3 years

Chough report: February 2017

Posted on March 14, 2017 by Glyn Young

By Liz Corry

Considering February is the shortest month, Mother Nature managed to fit in pretty much every weather type bar drought. The choughs faced blinding fog, F10 gales, hailstorms, thunder, and glorious sunshine.

Rolling sea fog to the west of Mourier Valley (left) glorious sunshine to the east at the same time. Photos by Liz Corry.

This might explain why Lee and Caûvette failed to turn up for supplemental feeds four days in a row. In fact they were not sighted anywhere for almost five days. We are not entirely sure if they stayed out at Les Landes the whole time or just waited until sunset to reach their regular roost site at Sorel. Staff attempted to find the answer by stalking the pair around Les Landes and staking out the roost site. Both of which failed because they were either nowhere to be seen to stalk or the roost site was shrouded in fog.

Just as panic set in with the sighting of peregrines hunting at Les Landes the pair were spotted. Both completely fine, behaving as normal feeding around the parade ring at the racecourse.

There was the slight twinge of excitement about their absence if we went with the train of thought that they had chosen to roost at Les Landes. Would this be a clue about where they will attempt to nest?

Chough nest-site prospecting with the Channel Island Occupation Society

Choughs will nest in man-made structures and down mine shafts as well as sea caves and crevices. We know Jersey’s choughs have been hanging around the German observation tower at Les Landes so we decided to investigate the various structures built during the German Occupation in the 1940s. We met with Tony Pike from the Channel Island Occupation Society (CIOS) and his dog Sal who very kindly gave us a guided tour of the site.

Tony Pike kindly allowed access to several German military structures to assess feasibility of chough’s nesting. Sal, his dog, was also keen to show us around as long as it wasn’t underground. Photo by Liz Corry.

We started at the tower, known as the Kriegsmarine Marine Peilstand 3 tower. This was originally built by the German Navy for observing targets at sea. There are seven floors to it, five of which look out to sea and take a fierce battering from the sea winds. Birds cannot enter the tower from this side as the openings have been blocked off with perspex to preserve the interior.

View of the MP3 tower at Les Landes. Photo by Liz Corry.

There is one opening on the land side left open by CIOS members for bats to access if needed. Theoretically, the choughs can use this to access the tower. The walls of the tower are two metres thick providing a convenient shelter ledge for choughs at the opening. Despite the depth it might still be too exposed for choughs to choose to nest on.

Looking inland from inside the tower. Photo by Liz Corry

Once inside there are just flat walls, no ledges to build a nest on with the exception of the concrete spiral staircase. When it rains the floors can become very wet and although they dry out fast I imagine that a smart bird like a chough will quickly realise that this is not a suitable place to raise young.

There are two ‘brother’ towers of Bt Steinbruch on Guernsey and Bt Annes on Alderney allowing the Germans to pass semaphore messages throughout the Channel Islands. The mobile network of its day. Maybe that is what the choughs are doing? Trying to scope out the other islands to decide whether its worth the flight across?

Choughs practising semaphore in an attempt to communicate with Guernsey. Photo by Liz Corry.

As a side note Tony pointed out two sites along the cliffs which the Germans had blasted square holes into the rock face to provide sheltered artillery positions for a soldier to sit in. This side note turned out to be extremely relevant as one is positioned a metre below where we have stationed ourselves several times in the past two months watching the choughs. If only we had known we could have saved ourselves a lot of earache and a few less head colds.

View from a rifleman’s lookout position blasted out of the cliff face. Photo by Liz Corry.

A chough foraging on a cliff face the profile of which was changed when the Germans blasted rock and dumped rubble when building the bunkers. Photo by Liz Corry.

The other structures we were interested in are to be found below ground. There is an extensive complex of passage-linked personnel and ammunition bunkers at Battery Moltke. Precision engineering by the Germans meant that the bunkers had heating and ventilation through a series of shafts and underground piping. None of which look accessible by choughs. Most of the public entrance ways to the bunkers and passageways are behind locked metal-sheeted doors to stop vandalism. If the choughs did find their way in I would like to think they would appreciate what is hidden away underground as much as we did.

Battery Moltke under the ground. Photo courtesy of the Channel Islands Occupation Society

One particular bunker was unearthed by Tony and a team of volunteers last year several decades after the States of Jersey had back-filled it with rubble for health and safety reasons. The ‘flower bunker’ as Tony called it, is an anti-aircraft bunker with a decontamination unit in case of a gas attack. On the walls inside you can see the original artwork by German officers of flowers in what one assumes is an attempt to brighten up the doom and gloom one would face being locked away in an air raid.

Original artwork by German officers on the walls of an anti-aircraft bunker at Les Landes. Photo by Liz Corry.

Original artwork by German officers on the walls of an anti-aircraft bunker at Les Landes. Photo by Liz Corry.

From what we observed it looks unlikely that choughs would nest successfully in any of these places. We are very grateful to Tony nonetheless and now have a greater appreciation of Les Landes when we go out radio-tracking. The choughs still have the option of sea caves and crevices along that stretch of coastline. They may look to the farm buildings behind the racecourse. We will keep a close eye on Lee and Caûvette in March. At the first sign of twig carrying we will be on them like…falcons (in a non-aggressive way).

Big brother is watching you

Simon visiting the dusty nest sites at Ronez Quarry. Photo by Glyn Young

Ronez Quarry very kindly agreed to fund nest cameras in the quarry this year. With help from quarry staff nest-boxes have been installed to try and encourage two particular pairs to nest away from active machinery.

We cannot be sure that the pairs will use the boxes, but if they do we will be able to follow their progress closer than ever before. Using equipment supplied by Handykam we will be able to record what goes on inside the box and hopefully learn more about clutch size, hatch rates, and general day to day activities of nesting choughs.

We do not currently have the option to view live footage. This incurs a greater cost and would be a gamble since we are not even sure if the birds will use the boxes.

The set up also includes monitors at each site to allow quarry staff to check the nests whenever they like without disturbing the birds. Their attentiveness over the past two breeding seasons has been invaluable to the success of the choughs. In the past we have had to wait for a scissor lift or something similar to be brought into the quarry to look in a nest if staff alert us to a situation. Now we just flick a switch.

Highly sophisticated calibration techniques for setting up nest cameras. Photo by Liz Corry.

If the pairs decide not to use the boxes we may be able to reposition the cameras and still capture nesting activities. However, it all depends on timing as we do not want to disturb the choughs unnecessarily. We are very grateful to Ronez Quarry for funding and supporting this project. In particular Mark de Carteret and Andy Paranthoen for co-ordinating and fitting the cameras.

Last, but not least

A future chough diet?

Orlux Remiline granules, a complete food for song thrushes, is being gradually added to the supplemental diet this month. We are trying to see if we can switch from an egg-based diet which can spoil relatively quickly to a dry pelleted diet.

If successful we will then look into automated feed stations similar to those used in Mauritius and New Zealand.

Chough report: January 2017

Posted on February 9, 2017 by Glyn Young

by Liz Corry

New Year, new adventures. That appears to be the motto of the juveniles, in particular the foster chicks who have taken a liking to the bay at Le Pulec, known to locals as “Stinky Bay”. This area is just below Battery Moltke, Les Landes, where we reported the choughs were last month. So not a surprise, but certainly an interesting addition to their home range. The bay has plenty of rotting seaweed, hence the name, harbouring insects attractive to many shorebirds. Are the choughs also exploiting this food resource as Scottish choughs do?

Seaweed collects by the sea wall defence providing birds with plenty of invertebrates to feed off. Photo by Liz Corry.

So far our observations suggest not. Trying my best to avoid analogies to a certain president and his wall, there is a current divide between the shore birds foraging below the sea wall defence and the choughs probing the loose soil on the other side.

Dozens of rock pipits were down at Stinky Bay to raid the strandline for tasty morsels. Photo by Liz Corry.

Black redstart at Le Pulec joining in on the breakfast feast. Photo by Liz Corry.

That may change as January’s freezing temperatures restrict the amount of food available in the coastal grassland forcing the choughs to look for alternative sources. The choughs were definitely more hungry this month than last. Wing-begging at staff is just one way to determine how hungry each individual is. Having the entire group of 35 stalk staff from the public car park along the cliff path to the aviary shows just how little wild food is available. They also had a great desire to cache food in preparation for the cold days that lay ahead. Something I think the magpies have cottoned on to as I observed a pair promptly dig up a stash once the unsuspecting chough had left.

The first time the juveniles were spotted alone at Le Pulec there was concern that they might not have the gumption to make it out of the bay and back to the aviary. Would they find enough food in the bay?

View over Le Pulec and L’Etacq from the Battery Moltke where the juveniles have been spending their mornings. Photo by Liz Corry.

I had spent the first hour of the morning above the bay at Les Landes trying to pinpoint the radio signals. When I arrived at Le Pulec car park and walked around to look across the bay I could make out six chough shapes on the cliff face, but couldn’t identify them. Until that is, they took to the air calling excitedly and four choughs flew over to land behind me within 5 metres of where I stood.

Vicq and Wally flying to greet the keeper at Le Pulec. Photo by Liz Corry.

In a roll-call fashion I ticked off Ubé, Wally, Vicq, and Xaviour, i.e. the four foster chicks, from the list of missing choughs. Once they realised I had no food for them they re-joined the other two juveniles in the bay. By 10:50 I had to leave so I could put the supplemental feed out at Sorel. On arrival at Sorel twenty minutes later the entire flock greeted me, headed up by none other than Ubé, Wally, Vicq, and Xaviour!

Choughs foraging at Sorel. Photo by Liz Corry.

This demonstrates how well the birds have learnt to associate the aviary with food, how they can map out the land, and how they somehow know what time it is!

The older choughs have also been spending more time away from Sorel although they don’t seem to wander as far. Crabbé is still a favourite for them. They like flying around Plémont and have been seen at Les Landes, but in terms of foraging they prefer to stay within sight of Sorel.

Twenty-two choughs congregating on the roof of Crabbé Farm. The rest of the group were over on the west coast. Photo by Liz Corry.

The choughs at Crabbe tried their best to find food in the fields despite frost and formidable chickens. Photo by Liz Corry.

The choughs at Crabbé tried their best to find food in the fields despite frost and formidable chickens. Photo by Liz Corry.

Lee and Caûvette are still doing their thing over at Les Landes in the mornings. Inching far too close to peregrine territory for our liking. Especially now the juveniles are following their lead.

Seven choughs (yellow arrow) foraging on the cliffs by the Pinacle. Three had radio-transmitters attached making it a bit easier to locate and identify them. Photo by Liz Corry.

There is another pair, Bean and Kevin, who have started playing truant at the morning feed although not as frequent as yet to suspect anything. We may struggle in future weeks to identify individuals as some of the plastic rings are snapping off. Notably breeding males Dingle and Green have lost rings. Once the repair work on the aviary is completed, we should be able to trap birds inside once again allowing rings to be replaced before the breeding season kicks off.

Red has been missing her red leg ring for sometime. Now with the others losing theirs we need to catch her up to fit a new red ring. Photo by Liz Corry.

Bird flu precautions

With cases of bird flu being declared in France and the UK we are taking various precautions within the Zoo to minimise the threat to our collection in Jersey. For this reason staff working on the chough project are changing footwear when entering zoo grounds, a disinfection footbath and separate wellies are in use at Sorel aviary, and chough food is being prepared away from the Zoo Bird Kitchen to reduce any potential cross-contamination.

To date bird flu has not been recorded in the Channel Islands. However, the States Vet is asking Islanders to be cautious and follow recommendations including reporting dead birds to the States Veterinary Office. Click here for more information.

Ube and Wally checking themselves for bird flu. Photo by Liz Corry.

Free-falling for choughs!

Simon Inman, our current student placement on the chough project, is loving his time at Durrell so much that he is going to jump 10,000 feet from a plane!

Student Simon Inman is raising funds for the choughs and Durrell through a sponsored skydive.

That sentence might need re-wording, but essentially Simon is going to do a skydive in summer and would like to raise funds for the choughs at the same time. So if you would like to support the choughs, and Simon’s craziness, please click here to visit his JustGiving page and donate.

His fundraising target is £150 which will pay for camera equipment for the nest box in the display aviary at the Zoo. We hope to set up a wireless network to send live footage direct to a PC and our smartphones.

Last year, the pair in that aviary successfully reared two chicks for the first time. A third unfortunately died. We might have been able to save it if we could have observed nest activity in real time and intervened at the first sign of decline.

Any donations will be gratefully received.

Plus, if you all donate money it makes it harder for him to back out at 10, 000 feet in the air!

Chough report: December 2016

Posted on January 13, 2017 by Glyn Young

By Liz Corry

Winter 2015: Jersey’s re-established chough population takeover Crabbé shooting range.

Winter 2016: the choughs occupy former WW2 coastal artillery Battery Moltke.

Winter 2017?: Be afraid, be very afraid!

Or rejoice in the fact that the choughs are now becoming more at home in Jersey, expanding their range, and slightly less reliant on the aviary at Sorel.

The choughs were on the move again in December. Photo by Liz Corry.

Binoculars and patience needed at this site to ID the choughs. Photo by Liz Corry

Crabbé is even more appealing to the choughs this winter compared to 2015. A local farmer has moved sheep onto land by the shooting range. This area is halfway between Sorel and Les Landes (as the chough flies) making it a convenient rest stop if the weather isn’t at all brilliant for flying.

Or if the birds simply want a peaceful getaway from the hubbub of the flock.

Yarila, one of the Paradise Park chicks, likes this area. She seems to prefer hanging out with a few of the older birds rather than the other youngsters. Luckily for us she still has her transmitter making it easier to follow her movements.

Yarila with the antennae of her tail-mounted transmitter visible. Photo by Liz Corry

The view from the farmhouse chimney at Crabbé also holds appeal as shown below by Lee and Caûvette.

Lee and Cauvette doing their best Dick Van Dyke impressions on top of the farmhouse chimney. Photo by Liz Corry.

However, as we learnt last month their favourite location away from Sorel is out west at Les Landes and down to the Battery Moltke. Lee and Caûvette continue to stay down at the racecourse until flying back to Sorel around 1pm to 2pm in time for the 3pm supplemental feed. The radio-tracked youngsters spend time in the same area, but fly back to Sorel for the 11am feed. We tend not to see the entire group at Les Landes at the same time. Generally 16 or so stay back at Devil’s Hole or Sorel. Although the public, through reports, have seen groups between 20 and 30 birds.

The choughs have been hanging out along the cliffs at Rouge Nez, St Ouen. Photo by Liz Corry

Inside the rifle targets at Les Landes. Photo by Liz Corry

Panoramic view of Rouge Nez to Les Maillots (left to right). Photo by Liz Corry.

A British nickname for a chough is the ‘sea crow’ which certainly applies in Jersey. Photo by Liz Corry.

Back at Sorel there has been very little to report over December. It has been a very mild winter to date. Less demanding for the choughs in terms of energy expenditure. They still get just as dirty getting stuck in to looking for insects in soil, sandy cliffs, and animal dung.

Choughs lack table manners when it comes to eating. Photo by Liz Corry.

They are still stealing the sheep pellet Ewen and Aaron put out for the Loaghtans. Apt timing as we have been looking into an alternative diet to provide at the aviary. After looking at nutritional values, potential palatability, and cost-effectiveness of various avian pelleted diets the vet and I chose to try Orlux Remiline pellet with the choughs in the Zoo. Since they are confined to their aviary and there are less of them than out at Sorel it made it easier to see if they ate the pellet and in a more controlled environment.

Bird Department keepers measured how much of the standard diet was being eaten over a period of five days. Then measured how much was being eaten when 50% of that diet was substituted with the pellet. As expected the birds initially preferred their original diet. No one likes change. They did, however, eat the pellet. In the New Year the choughs at Sorel will be introduced to the pellet and we will monitor how it goes. At a tenth of the cost of Orlux, I’m also going to investigate the sheep pellet!

Could sheep food be an alternative supplemental diet for the released choughs? Photo by Liz Corry

A few of the older birds are starting to lose their original colour rings. The material has become brittle and is snapping as evident from the pieces of one found in the aviary. The rings are designed for use on gulls and should, therefore, be fairly tolerant of cliff top conditions. At present everyone can still be identified by one means or another. Which meant when it came time for the annual audit on 31st December we could say with confidence that Jersey has 35 choughs living wild; 12 male, 23 female.

All 35 ‘wild’ choughs were accounted for on the annual animal audit day 2016. Photo by Liz Corry.

In other news…

One of our ex-students Paul Pestana returned from his travels in Asia. With a beaming smile on his face he sat us down to show us a very specific selection of holiday snaps. Whilst camping and hiking in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan he recognised an all too familiar sound. Choughs! Both red-billed choughs and alpine (yellow-billed) choughs were present. Below are a selection of photos he has kindly shared with us. It is hard to know which is more impressive his find or the scenery where he found them.

Red-billed chough in Tajikstan. Minus the mountain in the background, it felt very similar to watching choughs living in the quarry back in Jersey. Photo by Paul Pestana.

Red-billed chough in Tajikistan. Minus the mountain in the background, it felt very similar to watching choughs living in the quarry back in Jersey. Photo by Paul Pestana.

Lake Ala-Kol, Kyrgyzstan. Photo by Paul Pestana.

Alpine choughs in Kyrgyzstan. Photo by Paul Pestana.

Chough report: November 2016

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Glyn Young

By Liz Corry

With thirty-five choughs now flying around Jersey at their leisure, the field team certainly clocked up the mileage in November trying to keep track of them. Aside from navigating the green lanes of Jersey, the team also had to deal with servicing the aviary in gale force storms, juveniles losing their radio-transmitters, and uninvited house guests.

Post-release monitoring

Monitoring the choughs in November divided the team in two directions. Photo by Liz Corry.

We continue to radio-track the 2016 release cohort to find out how far they disperse and which areas in Jersey they favour. The youngsters tend to stay together which makes it easy to follow them.

Durrell’s parent-reared prodigy, Trevor, will occasionally favour hanging out with the sub-adult group which means he drops off our radar. He has been found with a group over at Les Landes from time to time. He may be going further afield.

One of our Bird Keepers, Kathryn Smith, spotted a small group flying over Gorselands on her day off. We know the sub-adults have flown over there in previous years and there was a report back in October of choughs at Beauport. Kathryn’s sighting was somewhat unusual since it was later in the day at a time when the group normally stay put at Sorel. Could this be the start of something new?

Sunrise search at Beauport. No choughs, but at least the view paid off. Photo by Liz Corry.

Reports of choughs on the south-west coast of Jersey this month kept the team on their toes. Photo by Liz Corry.

We don’t know if Trevor has made it over to the south of the Island. Now we may never know, unless we can see his leg rings since he has lost his radio transmitter. By the end of November, a total of four choughs had lost their transmitters out of the group of eleven; Trevor, Ubè, Duke, and Zennor. This is an unusually high number for us to lose within the first two months of use. In each case the middle tail feather, to which the transmitter is fitted, has become detached rather than the transmitter slipping its fastening.

Trevor has lost his radio-transmitter and is now only identifiable by his red and orange leg rings. Photo by Liz Corry.

We still have seven with transmitters and because they tend to stay in groups we have a fairly good record of where the other youngsters are. We get extra assistance with monitoring via the farmland bird transects carried out by volunteers across the island. The choughs have now been recorded on the transects at Crabbé, Les Landes, Les Creux, and of course Sorel.

Choughs flying over the Crabbé transect. Photo by Maddie Rusman.

Lee and Caûvette take up residency at Les Landes

Lee and Caûvette have been inseparable over the past year. Lee was imported from Paradise Park in 2015 and released a month later. At that point Caûvette, one of our hand-reared females, had already been flying around Jersey for a year. She played it cool, eventually falling for his charm and now they go everywhere together. Next year, at the ages of two and three-years-old, they should begin to show an interest in breeding.

They may well have already started planning ahead. Their absence at the morning feed was noted several times this month and has now become the norm. They always show up for the afternoon feed and stay around to roost out at Sorel. By sunrise they are gone (unless its horrible weather and then they can’t be bothered to travel anywhere and who can blame them).

Radio-tracking choughs (?) at Les Landes. Photo by Bea Detnon.

“I said they look like slender crows, not cows!” – Liz. Photo by Bea Detnon

They spend their mornings at Les Landes either pilfering the race course or gleaning the cliffs for insects. In between feeding they like to hang out on one of the many concrete structures dotted along the cliff tops, remnants of the German occupation during World War II. Gun turrets, bunkers, and look-out towers to name a few. Hated by some Jersey residents, loved by the choughs.

WW2 German observation tower sits on the cliff top at Les Landes constructed during the occupation. Photo by Liz Corry.

The rest of the flock visit the area, but not as regularly and there always seems to be a slight division between the pair and the others whilst feeding. As an unsuspecting springer spaniel out for a walk can attest for. Lee, closely followed by Caûvette, appeared out of nowhere, flew towards the dog, and landed within two metres shouting at the confused animal. Suddenly six other choughs flew up from the cliffs behind and it became clear that Lee’s disapproval was not at the dog’s presence, but the other choughs in his patch.

It will be interesting to see if the pair continue to visit Les Landes throughout winter. We would like to attach a radio-transmitter to Lee prior to the breeding season to get a clearer idea of what they get up to. However, that means we need him to return to the aviary for the morning feed so we can catch him. Leaving it until the afternoon feed is not practical whilst roosting time is so close together. That certainly isn’t happening anytime soon.

Lee has taken a liking to the headland at Les Landes. Photo by Liz Corry.

The release aviary suffered minor damage in Storm Angus. Photo by Liz Corry.

Storm Angus

The aviary took a battering from Storm Angus towards the end of November. Fortunately most of the damage was cosmetic.

A side panel blew off and the signposts cracked under pressure. The timber support running down the middle of the poly-tunnel snapped and needs replacing. A couple of the hinges on the hatches have been bent out of shape which means we cannot close them. We discovered this the hard way when we tried to catch up one of the birds to fit a radio-transmitter.

The framework on the poly-tunnel has a noticeable lean to it now as well. Although after surviving three winters I’m not sure all the blame can be put on Angus. Hopefully, we can address these issues before there is any serious damage.

Friends with benefits

Friends with benefits – a small flock of sheep has been moved into the aviary field. Photo by Liz Corry.

Whilst we complain about the onset of winter, the shepherd out at Sorel has already turned his thoughts to spring and preparations for next year’s lambing season. A select group of ewes were moved off the cliff tops into the aviary field to join one very excited ram.

A ram and his ewes moved into the aviary field this month Photo by Liz Corry.

They are provided with lots of extra food whilst confined to the field. To our surprise the choughs have taken a liking to some of the sheep’s food. A bit cheeky since they have their own.

The choughs stealing food put out for the sheep. Photo by Liz Corry.

Uninvited house guest(s)

Over the years the release aviary has been of interest to a number of species other than the choughs. As soon as the aviary was built, the local kestrels started perching on the roof to scope out the fields and hedgerows. Stonechats, robins, and magpies have all benefited from the supplemental feed. Magpies being the only bird species to venture inside the aviary with the choughs to dine.

The aviary structure itself and spillage from supplemental feed makes it attractive to rodents, typically mice and shrews. Feral ferrets have also shown an interest, luckily from the outside only.

Over the past three years we have found the odd owl pellet now and then on the shelving outside the aviary. Last month we started getting pellets on a daily basis INSIDE the aviary! Now we know why.

It took a week of recording before we got a glimpse of a barn owl. A few days later this video showing a second owl stunned us all. Two barn owls have been using the aviary to hunt and eat. The owls only visit at night. The choughs don’t appear to mind sharing. Probably because they are asleep at the time. We have at least a dozen birds who choose to roost in the aviary and they haven’t changed their behaviour with the presence of the owls.

VIP visitor

At the start of November we welcomed Paradise Park keeper Logan Ody to the island. Logan spent the first week attending the Avian Egg Incubation workshop held at the Durrell Training Academy and run by staff from Los Angeles Zoo and Durrell. This workshop is designed to equip the participant with the necessary skills to artificially incubate a wide range of avian species increasing captive breeding success. Skills which have been put into full use on the chough project over the past four years.

When the five day workshop finished, Logan joined the Bird Department to see behind the scenes then headed out to Sorel to spend his last two days with the choughs. Some of which Logan helped rear back at Paradise Park and could now see flying around Jersey. His enthusiasm for the project had a huge impact on staff. His penchant for wearing shorts on a cliff top in a blustery November was less contagious. Maybe its a Cornish thing?

Paradise Park keeper, Logan Oddy (right) learning how to radio-track choughs with Durrell student Bea Detnon (left). Photo by Liz Corry

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Saving coastal birds and habitats from extinction

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RBC helps out Jersey Zoo’s own RBCs (red-billed choughs)

LIVE Teaching through nature

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Breeding in the wild

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Chough-watch

Personality research with Nottingham Trent University

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