Birds On The Edge reported last year on the bird species that have been recorded throughout the Channel Islands (Just how many birds are there in the Channel Islands?). Well, each year the full list gets updated by bird groups in each of the islands and is now complete up to the end of 2014.
Besides including new species, we try to update the local status of each one to reflect just how they are faring. This is not always a nice job as so many species are declining so it’s always good to provide positive news. With European storm petrel remaining a rather enigmatic bird in Jersey (do they ever breed, hidden away somewhere?) we received a possible answer as to just where all the birds we see at sea and, occasionally, ring on the north coast might be coming from. In 2006 we said that storm petrels breed on Burhou (Alderney) once in large numbers but now scarce but annual. At the end of 2010 we revised this and added that there may be 150+ pairs. However, in 2012 we further changed this to say that there might only be 40+ pairs on Burhou. Well, now, following an analysis of ringing studies on Burhou we have revised the figure once more – to 1,000 or more pairs! True, this represents a better understanding of the birds rather than a definite increase, but it does give us something better to go on with the support for this bird and increase further the international importance of Burhou!
Of new species, Jersey fared best with the only bird new to the Channel Islands, a Caspian tern seen briefly over St Ouen’s Pond on 25th April. Jersey also recorded its very first great spotted cuckoo in March and a paddyfield warbler in September – both species already on Guernsey’s list. A great bustard was a remarkable sight in Alderney in November – this bird, the first recorded in the Channel Islands to leave the islands alive – was from the reintroduction project in England. The bustard stayed for five days giving some great views.
Alderney recorded only its third ever garganey, Guernsey its third subalpine warbler and fourth Kumlien’s gull and Jersey its fifth red-rumped swallow. An unconfirmed report of two spoonbill in April would constitute only Sark’s second record of this increasing bird if accepted. Black-winged stilt were seen in both Jersey and Guernsey, while Guernsey further increased its grip on visits by red-breasted flycatcher and rose-coloured starling while Jersey did likewise with tree sparrow. Another Jersey highlight, of course, was the presence of a free-flying flock of red-billed chough! I must, however, reiterate that although 329 species have now been recorded in Jersey to Guernsey’s 325 there is no competiveness between the islands at all.
We have an apology to make to our faithful readers. We have not been entirely honest with you over the past month. In May we reported that there were two nests in the quarry and that Mauve and White’s nest had not produced any chicks. What we didn’t tell you is that, in the same week of visiting their nest, we also took a sneak peek into Green and Blue’s nest.
Looking at potential chough nest sites in the quarry. Photo by Liz Corry
On 12th May we were taken to the nest site by Matthew Sharpe, (then Assistant Quarry Manager) of Ronez quarry. The position of the nest and its careful concealment meant that there was no way we could see into it.
We knew from the female’s daily routine that she was incubating. Not wanting to disturb her we patiently waited. The incubation period is about 19 days from the last egg being laid. We could only guess a start date for laying and allowed a couple of days error either side. Add to that a few more days post-hatch so we don’t spook mum and risk the nest being abandoned.
We had a long wait.
Accessing the nest required a scissor lift or cherry picker to be brought into the quarry. Site foreman Kevin Gray very kindly and efficiently juggled their work schedule to allow their pre-made plans to hire in the machinery to coinincide with our availability to check the nest.
On the 29th, with hard hat, high vis, safety specs, and a 1001 butterflies in the stomach I went up to find out exactly what Green and Blue had been up to over the past three weeks.
Green and Blue’s nest. Photo by Liz Corry
The first thing I saw was a very cleverly constructed nest, exactly how you woud expect a wild chough pair to build one.
Watchful parents. Photo by Liz Corry
Very proud of Green and Blue, who were watching on from above, my journey upwards in the cherry picker continued (at a comical pace) until I was level with the top of the nest.
It was a very proud moment as I gingerly peered in and said hello to a little naked chough chick.
The first sighting of Green and Blue’s chick. Photo by Liz Corry
From our experience with the captive choughs at the Wildlife Park we judged the chick to be about 4-5 days old. It is slightly tricky to judge as you are comparing hand-fed to parent-fed chicks housed in different conditions. However, the lack of emerging pin-feathers allowed for fairly accurate dating. All chough chicks hatch with a bit of ‘fluff’ on them, as can be seen in the photo above, but these are not the feathers.
Whilst this might seem like the perfect time to celebrate we had to be cautious. It takes about 42 days from hatch to the point of flying. In the last week or so before that flight the chick will be ‘bouldering’ around. This could be quite a tricky feat in an active quarry building especially when the nest is built on an overhanging steel girdle. There were potential hazards inside not to mention those outside. What if something happened to the parent(s)? Will there be adequate food for a chick?
Harriet with the free-living choughs waiting for their supplementary feed. Photo by Liz Corry
The latter was easy to control. Our supplementary feeding at the aviary meant the parents knew when and where to get food for the chick even if wild supplies dried up (quite literally as the weather gets hotter and the ground becomes harder). We can’t control what happens to the parents when they are out and about. We simply monitor their behaviour and look out for any signs of problems. Ronez helped where they could by keeping an eye on the parents and nest in the quarry.
Even lunchtimes became occupied with nest watches. Photo by Liz Corry.
When the chick was approxiately three-weeks old we paid another visit to the nest. This time to give the chick leg rings, take morphometric measurements, and get a blood sample for sexing. This is the best age to do this as the chicks are almost fully grown but not at risk of jumping out of the nest in panic. Licensed ringer Dave Buxton accompanied myself and Harriet into the quarry. This time Ronez had arranged the use of a scissior lift. We knew from the parents’ behaviour that they had still been taking food to the nest and as soon as we were underneath we could hear the chick calling away.
Once again with parents watching, I went up to the nest, this time to remove the chick so we could process it on the ground in a calm and safe environment. It was amazing to see the size difference between our hand-reared chick and this one. This chick was 70g heavier! We felt shamed as surrogate parents, but it is to be expected as chough parents are bound to be better feeders.
David Buxton rings Dusty at Ronez Quarry. 16-6-2015. Photo by Liz Corry
We will not know the sex until the DNA results come back from the lab, although we have started placing in-house bets based on weight and leg length. Regardless, the team at Ronez have already taken this chick to heart and proudly named it Dusty.
Dusty was returned to the nest as soon as possible and we quickly left the area so the parents could return to see that their chick was fine. Quarry staff fitted a hammock-style tarpauline underneath the nest to act as a safety net in case the chick was to fall out. Each day they would check the site at the start and end of their working day to make sure Dusty was ok.
Then on 2nd July I received an urgent text message from Harriet to call her as soon as I could. Two days after we lost our foster chick ‘Special K’ on the operating table I naturally feared the worst.
After a quick chat, and strict instructions never to leave me hanging like that again, my fear subsided and I rushed over to Sorel. Dusty was out!
Without us knowing, Dusty had left the nest-building and moved to the tallest building it could find. The parents were the give-away as they flew to feed it and then spent several hours trying to coax Dusty back down so they could roost in the safety and familiar home of the ‘crusher’ (that is the actual working name of the building!).
Like all toddlers Dusty was intent on ignoring its parents and stayed put. It will probably take a week or so of short practice flights before Dusty spreads its wings further. We fully expect Green and Blue to bring Dusty to the aviary and teach it about the supplementary food as well as how to probe for wild insects. We will be there every step of the way and as ever will keep you posted on its progress…we promise.
Thank you to everyone at Ronez whose support throughout the project has helped tremendously. We would also like to thank Paradise Park, all our colleagues in the Birds On The Edge project and all of the students and volunteers over the last two years as without them Green and Blue would not be flying free and have the resources they need to successfully breed in the wild. This is the first successful breeding attempt by choughs in the Channel Islands since the 1920s. With the continued help of the team and the people of Jersey we hope we can truely see the red-billed chough return to its full glory in the years to come.
If you regularly wander around some of the Island’s woodlands, in particular those associated with water, you may see one or two additions to the trees.
Thanks to Jersey Water, National Trust for Jersey and the Department of the Environment for authorising us to use their land for our project.
We are using these nest boxes as a tool for discovering which species of bats inhabit our woodlands. We will be monitoring the boxes, which are of the Kent box design with two chambers (see details on the Kent box here), from April to October using non-invasive methods such as the collection of droppings for analysis, detection of echolocation, direct observation and emergence surveys. These boxes have a good record in the UK for bat occupation so we are hoping that some may be in use this spring/summer.
As well as providing additional roosts for our woodland bat species, we hope to expand local knowledge of the status, distribution, ecology and population trends of our woodland bat species through the monitoring of these supplementary roosts.
A full list of Jersey’s bat species can be seen here
This is a 5-year project during which time we will be expanding and diversifying the project to cover more of Jersey’s woodland. Full details of the project can be downloaded here
Spring is here and seabirds are returning to their nests in the Channel Islands. This year there are increasing opportunities to watch these birds from wherever you are through nest cameras and video links.
Puffins on Burhou
The Alderney Wildlife Trust plans to have several webcams that stream 24 hours a day. This year again two cameras are focused on Burhou’s Atlantic puffin colony but viewers can often see storm-petrels, gulls and even the occasional rabbit!
The AWT webcams are available for everyone to watch and can be found on the LIVE Website. You can also keep up to date on all the activity and see the latest highlight clips on the LIVE Facebookpage. Highlights from previous years can be seen on the websites too (this is one below).
In 2015 there will hopefully be two further cameras keeping us up to date with our seabirds.
Shag nest on Jethou
The seabird web camera was installed on Jethou on 17th March 2015. This was only possible with the support of Jethou Island staff who transported the equipment over to the island including camera, solar panel, car battery, support structure and weights. The south-west coast of Jethou Island was chosen for the site to install the camera as shags were known have nested in this area before. A suitable shag nest in the early stages of construction was chosen (no eggs yet) and installation was carried out by two seabird volunteers in 1½ hours. The exact positioning of the web camera may require adjusting but the first image of an adult bird on the nest was taken that day. The development and plans of this seabird camera can be seen here
The Jethou camera does not yet provide a live feed but takes an image every five minutes. However, the IT gurus put together a YouTube film (see example below) of each day’s clips joined together as a short film which can be accessed here. If possible, a live web camera may be installed in future – if sponsorship can be arranged.
If the Jethou camera continues to be as successful as it appears to be so far, plans will be developed for a similar web camera on the Humps, the small islets off the north coast of Herm, which also are an important seabird breeding area. Everyone is very grateful for the continued support of Jethou Island in this and other seabird initiatives.
Gannets
This year AWT will be reinstalling Gannetcam, which was trialled in 2014. If all goes to plan this camera will give an insight into the dramatic lifecycle of Alderney’s largest breeding seabird, the northern gannet. In the meantime you can watch videos of previous years activities (below) at the gannet nests (and other local wildlife) here
How are Jersey’s garden birds faring? Not all that well it seems. The results of this year’s Great Garden Bird Watch show some genuine causes for concern in our bird populations. Don’t forget, the majority of the bird species that are recorded during this survey are those that have adapted well to people and, we had assumed, to our modern way of life. These are generally the birds that we feed and enjoy to have around us.
The good news this year is that at least the weather over the count weekend was better than in 2014. This year we received 315 completed survey forms and although the weather was still pretty poor it could only have been better than last year’s gales.
House sparrow. Jersey Garden Bird Watch 2002-2015
The Top 10 bird species recorded was pretty consistent with previous years’ counts. Again house sparrow topped the poll, recorded at 225 of the households that reported. With 1,637 sparrows counted, that’s 5.2 sparrows per garden in the survey. House sparrow has declined alarmingly in Jersey over the last 25 years and this is reflected in our 14 years of garden counts. However, despite the overall decline since 2002 there may be some cause for optimism as the last few years have shown a slight increase in numbers. St Saviour, St Helier and St Lawrence have the most sparrows which suggests that in Jersey at least sparrows can still be found in a town.
Starling. Jersey Garden Bird Watch 2002-2015
Chaffinch was the second most recorded species, spread nicely across the Island, and starling the third with most reported from St Saviour and St Brelade. We have dealt before on overall reductions in starling numbers and that this can be further seen in the survey since 2002 is a stark reminder of just what is happening to this formerly abundant bird. Following the starling in the Top 10 were blackbird, wood pigeon, great tit, magpie, blue tit, collared dove and…….herring gull. Robin only came in 11th which may be a surprise. However, at least the robin population appears relatively stable with an average of 1.2 per garden.
Greenfinch. Jersey Garden Bird Watch 2002-2015
Great tit (blue) and blue tit (red). Jersey Garden Bird Watch 2002-2015
What of the other ‘typical’ garden birds? Well, both great and blue tit numbers show slow declines while the blackbird population does look pretty stable (1.9 birds per reporting household in 2015) despite them having such a good year in the UK. This might suggest that, while big numbers of blackbirds fly into Jersey in winter, these immigrants don’t turn up in our gardens. Sadly, greenfinch numbers are, as predicted, very poor with now around one quarter of the number recorded per garden compared to 2002. The only consolation we can see in the trend of the greenfinch is that it may have levelled off and that it seems that those that do live here don’t go into gardens in winter as much as they once did.
Wood pigeon. Jersey Garden Bird Watch 2002-2015
Are any of our garden birds actually doing ok? Well, while you might not be surprised that magpie numbers stay the same year on year (around 1.5 per garden) only really wood pigeon and blackcap have gone up in numbers. Neither should be a surprise, the pigeons are rather obvious (and they can be bullies) and their increases much noted and the blackcap’s change in wintering habits widely reported. So, all in all, it’s not really very good. We do still have quite a few birds in our gardens, which is nice, but overall they may not be faring very well. And what does that say about our lives that the birds in our gardens are declining?
As in previous years we are excited to see what comes out in the ‘others’ columns of the report sheets when they come in. That red squirrels are widely recorded, although most seem to be in St Brelade and St Lawrence, is not a big surprise but it’s nice to hear too of toads and newts. This year several early bees made it onto the forms as well as marsh harriers, including three in a hedge in one site, buzzards, a very bold little egret and a grey wagtail that was the first recorded by the house owners in 46 years of occupancy. We even had three cirl buntings reported. But that was from Grouville where all our cirl buntings are!
Once again, as organisers on behalf of Action for Wildlife, Birds On The Edge and the JEP we are very grateful to everyone who sends in their counts. Here’s hoping for further improvements in the weather during next year’s count and for better news about all our birds!
Once again our team of hardy, stalwart bird counters has gone out in whatever Jersey’s weather can throw at it to record birds across the Island. To give you some idea of the effort that the team put in in 2014, 540 data sheets were submitted from the 22 transects. That equates to around 50,000 bird sightings, recording more than 70,000 individual birds during the year. That’s a lot of birds counted. Especially as we don’t include herring gulls!
Highs and lows
Highest bird numbers are typically recorded from the St Ouen’s Pond transect because we often see large flocks of some species there. During the autumn migration almost any of the transects can get very busy as there may be an almost constant stream of wood pigeons, meadow pipits, swallows, chaffinches or redwings overhead. It is sometimes difficult to concentrate on those birds at ground or bush-level when the sky is full of finches; indeed, it is possible to lose interest in chaffinches some days! By contrast, mid-summer days with no migrants and resident birds moulting can seem very relaxed. That’s when I find butterfly numbers pencilled onto the forms.
And the worst, the lowest count received? Awful weather, especially high winds, horizontal rain, thick sea-fog (think of a Jersey summer) can really dampen bird activity and counter enthusiasm. However, for sheer rubbish, Miranda’s count of 28 birds across the two Les Landes transects in late-August takes some beating! This count, surprisingly included a common redstart, three stonechats and five wheatears, which didn’t say much for the resident birds up there. Miranda did have to put up with an F5 wind and heavy rain though and other counters have reported F9 winds and thick fog from visits where the expletives written into the margins of the forms give a more realistic interpretation than the requested weather info.
Citizen science
Firecrest records from two eastern woodland sites in 2014
So, why do so many people get out there and count birds all year? What is the reward? Well, it has been suggested that we bury chocolate bars and soft drinks along the transects as a bribe. However, in fact, taking part in such a big project is reward in itself. In December we received the 3,000th completed recording form: one of Tim’s from Les Blanche Banques. In April 2015 we will have been collecting data from five sites for 10 years and we will celebrate by showing exactly what has been happening to many of birds (spoiler alert: it may not all be good news). Can you imagine the power of these results? This is citizen science at its most productive so we are indebted to Miranda and to Jess, Cris, Harriet, Harri, Sally, Neil and Ali, Tim, Tony, Jon, Jonny, Neil and Glyn and all the National Trust Rangers for the incredible effort they put in throughout the year.
A true birder’s reward and the one that got away
However, if you were to ask any of the counters if there was any other reward for getting out there to do the counts they would, no doubt, under bribery of those chocolate bars and soft-drinks, tell you that there was actually one, very un-scientific, reward. There is always that chance of seeing a bird that you weren’t expecting. Or that no one expected. 2014 was no exception and 10 new species increased the list to 170 recorded on the transects. Some of these were at St Ouen’s Pond where, although we don’t count the birds of the open water (so no grebes), habitat not found elsewhere on the survey does throw up a few new species like the first jack snipe and grey plover records in 2014.
Real megas (a term us birders use I’m afraid), however, during the year did include a remarkable flock of 16 black-winged stilt that dropped in on the St Ouen’s Pond transect, a great white egret at Gorselands (Glyn hasn’t even seen a great white in Jersey yet), a juvenile red-backed shrike that was seen on two visits to St Ouen’s Pond, a woodchat shrike at Noirmont, cattle egrets at Les Landes and even a rook! Mind you, we missed the great-spotted cuckoo that literally stood on the transect the day after a count.
When projects meet
We have been very fortunate that the cirl buntings had a very good year and at least one pair stayed on one of our transects all year. That makes keeping an eye on them easy. And the red-billed choughs? Well, we knew that they would eventually be recorded on at least one transect and were looking forward to records first from the Sorel transects and then from any of the others. Bets were placed! Well, at the end of the year we had recorded them at Les Creux, Crabbé and Grantez. They did visit the sites at St Ouen’s Pond, Gorselands and Les Landes too, but, disappointingly, not on count days.
Brent geese must be amongst the best known birds in the Channel Islands. Up to 1,500 may winter in Jersey with smaller numbers in Guernsey, Herm and Alderney each year. The main reason that these geese come to our shores is because there are beds of the highly vulnerable eel-grass, one of the birds’ most important food sources here. However, despite spending around eight months with us, how much do we really know about these little, approachable geese? For one thing, how many Channel Islanders actually know that our islands are almost unique in annually hosting populations of two very distinctly different brent geese?
Dark-bellied brent geese (Branta bernicla bernicla) return to us each year in September from the Russian arctic. They breed up in the wilds of the Asian tundra but spend their winter in much tamer environments of British and French beaches, harbours and, at times, farmers’ fields and even golf courses. It is often hard to imagine that the calm little geese we see in winter are the same birds that disperse across a hostile arctic wilderness each spring.
Earlier in the 20th Century, dark-bellied brent geese were quiet rare. The numbers we see now (over 200,000 worldwide) are testament to a successful global conservation campaign. The population began to rise when UK and France banned hunting in 1954 and 1966 respectively. However, things really changed when the flocks migrating through Denmark were given legal protection in 1972. Safe in their breeding grounds, their wintering areas and on their migration stopovers in between, this endearing little goose quickly recovered.
In winter, we see these Russian visitors collecting in our quiet bays and beaches or flocking inland on the high tide in a handful of places (most still roost out to sea). Over recent years, many geese have been given coloured plastic rings by researchers that are easy for birdwatchers to see allowing us to keep an eye on the birds’ activities. These ringing studies, some geese have been caught locally, some in the Netherlands and some in the arctic, show us how long the birds might live, how productive their breeding seasons are (did you know their breeding success is linked to the abundance of lemmings?) and, most importantly, how they distribute themselves along our coastline. Perhaps the most important discovery has been that individual geese return to the same bay or stretch of beach each year and don’t visit other bays. This means that loss of one site might mean the total loss of that site’s geese. They won’t just go to another bay. Put simply, they’ll probably die.
Pale-bellied brent geese (Branta bernicla hrota), the other brent goose present in the Channel Islands over the winter, arrive rather later, in November each year, and are much less numerous. These, as their name suggests, and as can be seen in the photographs, have much paler bellies than their Russian counterparts. Juvenile upper-wings have a barred appearance when the bird is at rest, compared with the more uniform back of adults. Up to 150 can be observed in Jersey, concentrated in St. Aubin’s Bay (look out for them at West Park or by St Aubin’s Harbour), but only a handful has been recorded in the other islands.
Similar ringing studies to those for the dark-bellied brent geese have shown that there are two distinct flyway populations of pale-bellied brent geese, one which breeds in Svalbard and North-eastern Greenland, the other in arctic Canada. The latter population, to which our birds have been shown to belong, currently numbers around 40,000 birds, and has been subject to intensive study by the Irish Brent Goose Research Group and their Icelandic collaborators. When they arrive in Jersey, the geese have undertaken an amazing annual migration, travelling from the breeding grounds over the Greenland Ice-cap, then staging in western Iceland before an onward flight to Ireland, where an amazing 75% of birds gather initially at a single site, Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland. Peak numbers generally occur there in early October, following which the geese move on, as the eel-grass which attracts them there gets depleted. About 90% of these pale-bellied brent geese will disperse to within the bays all around Ireland for the rest of the winter, but others will travel further, to spend the rest of the winter in Western Britain, Normandy, and here in Jersey. Jersey is, therefore, particularly special as it is near the southern limit of the flyway range, as shown by the re-sighting of marked birds.
The resightings of the pale-bellieds further demonstrate just how site-faithful these geese can be. An example is 3XYY (see photo), which was ringed near Reykjavik in Iceland in May 2006 and has appeared at St. Aubin’s Bay every winter since then. Another is PUWR, seen every winter but one since being ringed in west Iceland in May 2010, passing through Jersey en route to Régnéville in Normandy.
Both these geese are back this winter.
Whilst the numbers of geese in this population have approximately doubled over the past 10-15 years, they can experience low reproduction in years when conditions in the arctic are inclement, as the suitable weather window of time for successful breeding can be very narrow. This was particularly evident after summer 2013, when birds returned to the wintering areas with virtually no young. Birds are highly dispersed whilst breeding, and nests are liable to predation. Brent geese tend to congregate, often in very large flocks, during passage and the winter. The fact that such a high proportion of the flyway population gathers together at a single site in autumn also renders the geese potentially significantly vulnerable to a major problem with their main food source there (eel-grass), and to contagious disease. This year again, very few young birds have been seen in Jersey while, in contrast, the dark-bellied birds appear to have had a very good year.
So, next time you see a flock of this most maritime species of goose, take a good look and see whether you can spot any of these amazing little pale-bellied brent geese, and marvel.
Interestingly, to complete the record, a third brent goose, the black brant (Branta bernicla nigricans) lives in the Pacific. This goose too occasionally, but not annually, visits the Channel Islands usually in the flocks of dark-bellied brent, presumably having joined them in the Russian far east.
Read Graham McElwaine’s blog on monitoring brent geese from their breeding grounds (watch out for those polar bears), to the winter beaches here.
The Jersey toad or crapaud has long been associated with the Island and Jersey Islanders – Jersey is the only one of the Channel Islands with any species of toad. Decades have passed, however, since toads have been present in “scarce credible” numbers “crawling over the rocks like an army” (as quoted by Frances Le Sueur).
In 2004, while with the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), University of Kent, I began a three-year PhD study on Jersey toads, investigating their ecology, populations and genetics – as well as anything else that might account for observed reductions in numbers on the Island. I found that they behaved very differently to toads in England and parts of France, breeding much earlier and using different (much smaller) ponds on average. A central reason for the toads’ decline in Jersey has probably been the shift away from traditional agricultural reservoirs to mobile stock watering tanks, coupled with the fact that demands on the Island’s water supply are heavier so any ponds dry up more quickly in the summer. Jersey toads are now almost completely dependent on Islanders’ garden ponds and occur mainly in parts of Jersey where people have suitable clusters of ornamental ponds in which they can breed. This also makes them susceptible to road mortality and isolation from nearby populations when new developments occur and/or roads are constructed.
I was asked by an old colleague if I had any genetic samples from Jersey as a new species of toad (Bufo spinosus) had been described that was found in parts of nearby France as far north as the Contentin Peninsula. With no expectation of anything other than contributing to an ongoing study, I sent off some “old” genetic samples from my PhD research to Pim Arntzen at the Naturalis Institute in the Netherlands, where much work on the conservation genetics of European amphibians is carried out…. Some while later, the news arrived that the samples had proved “interesting” and that a morphological study was needed to establish what species the Jersey crapaud really was! So, in Spring 2013, I returned to Jersey and, with the help of Department of the Environment staff, took measurements of toads from various parts of the Island…. all on the day before the dramatic snowfalls of that year that Islanders will certainly remember. Those morphological data were also sent to Naturalis and analysed along with data from the earlier DNA.
Fast forward to October 2014 and Pim, mine and colleagues’ paper revealing the Jersey crapaud as a new species for the British Isles was published in the Herpetological Journal. Toads in Jersey are indeed Bufo spinosus, a species that split from the usual “common” toad (Bufo bufo) some nine million years ago with the rising of the Pyrenees. The species evolved in Iberia and has since spread south into North Africa and north through Western France as far as Jersey – but nowhere else in the British Isles. So Jersey toads share more of their history with toads from Algeria and Spain than they do with English toads!
Bufo spinosus grows bigger than B. bufo, irrespective of latitude, and has evolved to take advantage of smaller ponds that dry out over summer (as are found in Iberia, for example) in dryer, often open habitats. B. bufo prefers large, deep permanent lakes and woodland areas. So when toads arrived in prehistoric Jersey and encountered dune slacks and maritime heaths, they would probably have been perfectly at home. Only recently have larger water bodies such as reservoirs become much of a feature in the Jersey landscape.
The ability of Jersey’s B. spinosus to adapt to smaller breeding ponds and open landscapes has probably been a factor in allowing them to use Islanders’ ornamental ponds for breeding. Armed with this new knowledge, we can better make decisions to help conserve the crapaud in Jersey and ensure that it is still around to be associated with many more generations of Jerseymen!
Download the paper A new vertebrate species native to the British Isles: Bufo spinosus Daudin, 1803 in Jersey here
Following the very successful Inter-Island Meeting, Birds On The Edge invited Vic Froome to contribute with news of concerns facing birds and the environment in the Bailiwick of Guernsey and to highlight the important Channel Islands conservation work being undertaken in the ‘northern isles’.
In his first posting here, Vic highlights some of his favourite groups of birds and habitats in the Bailiwick and the challenges his islands face.
Marine birds and other wildlife
Gannets have been studied on the Alderney colonies of Ortac and the Garden Rocks (Les Etacs) since 1947, the longest regular annual ringing of this species in the British Isles. The gannet population is currently estimated at more than 7,500 pairs and, while still increasing, is not without its constant threats, notably through discarded plastic, ropes and netting that often leads to horrible deaths in the colony.
Gulls too have been studied around our coasts for years and a new ringing station on Guernsey’s Refuse Tip has been in place for six years in association with the North Thames Gull Group (the London canon ringing group), and us Islanders. Large plastic, numbered, rings are fitted on the gulls that one can read by eye, binoculars, or telescopes. To date, 7,000 herring gulls, 3,000 lesser black-backed and 400 great black-backed gulls have been ringed.
100,000 gull sightings have been returned to Paul Veron making this a quite stunning project in the Channel Islands or anywhere.
On Alderney’s Burhou, nesting lesser black-backed gulls have been studied too for 20 years. This year this island has more than 1,300 pairs of lesser black-backeds, as well as good numbers of storm petrels and puffins. Shags and cormorants are also studied around our Islands, but it can be quite a messy job!
Sark, Herm, Jethou, and their islets, have puffin, razorbill, guillemot, fulmars, all the Channel Islands’ gull species and the only known colony of little egrets in the Bailiwick. The guillemot colony may even be increasing.
Rats are, unsurprisingly, present and represent a major threat to our seabird colonies. Following the success of rat eradication projects in the Isles of Scilly and on Lundy, we are now looking into a brown rat reduction plan. This problem is now so acute that some of the major islets are bare of breeding species, and we are sure that those well hidden species which nest in burrows are suffering as well.
One of my favourite birds is the kittiwake: they look magnificent when out in the big seas. This gull is synonymous with our oceans, but their food source is becoming worryingly depleted and declines in this delicate gull are being recorded throughout our area. Until recently easy to see, this lovely bird is now extinct as a breeding species in the Channel Islands.
Our seas around us have migration under the water as well with important numbers of cetaceans and fish. Dolphins, minke whales, seals, basking sharks, catfish and mullet are just a few we host.
The intertidal zone
Brent geese come back to our Islands for the autumn, winter and spring seasons. A major part of the diet of these geese is eel grass. Eel grass beds, like seaweeds, hold a habitat/world all of their own at high tides and many species live and breed here – a true paradise on their own.
Our Islands’ foreshore and intertidal zones have to be protected as they are so special. But, even locally, knowledge of these areas is poor and they are little studied or given publicity to educate the general public, government, and the media. Our Ramsar areas must be constantly researched and updated to alert us of any changes that are happening. We need much better information about our all our marine habitats before future electric generation plans come to fruition.
Wading birds
We, in Guernsey, have carried out 40 years of monthly beach wader counts for the BTO and collected a tremendous amount of scientific data. For me, these birds look beautiful, but sadly, through constant disturbance of many kinds, many species that we were famous for in Guernsey, winter visitors and breeding populations alike, are now EXTINCT, and we feel impotent to do anything about it.
Another problem of our coasts is “RECLAMATION” – this is often simply tarmac, where wildlife used to be. Now we see turnstones running around our harbours on tarmac where once they had beaches. We still have some shingle banks for now, special places that are very effective for coastal protection and breeding and feeding birds, flowers and other plants. These banks are a habitat of their own, and we have them here: let’s love them, and look after them.
Raptors
It is 45 years since DDT and other insecticides were sprayed all over the world but only now are we getting many of our raptors back. Peregrine, marsh harrier, buzzard, sparrowhawk and long-eared owl are nesting again in Guernsey. All we need now is to get our farming practices sorted to allow/encourage our winter visitors to come back: short-eared owls, merlins and hen harriers. Ground feeding birds will come too.
Our Island home
Let’s clean up our act and reduce waste: stop it from hitting our shores and littering our land. What more can we do to help our nature? Plant wild flowers in our gardens that have pollen, attract butterflies and give us, colours and seeds. Let’s plant fruit trees, wild and propagated. Let’s dig ponds for our birds, frogs and newts. You will be amazed at how much enjoyment you will get, and your “tick list” will go through the roof!
Swifts
Swifts are another bird that is suffering, this time it’s because of “OUR” clean and tidy lifestyle. They need places to nest and places to feed. Remember, those wildflowers you plant will attract insects and what do swift, swallows, and house martins eat? Those insects!
In August 2012 Birds On The Edge was delighted to announce the return to Jersey of a much missed resident, the cirl bunting. Unlike the chough, these songbirds came back without any assistance. That they are still here, perhaps, is, however, the result of a lot of hard work and dedication (see report from October 2012).
In July last year, we reported that the bunting pair had successfully raised at least one chick. So, are they still living here in Jersey? Are they hanging on?
The pair and another bird presumed to be their fledged chick were seen regularly at their east coast haunts into the winter. Often at the seed put out in special feeders by Richard Perchard (following advice from the RSPB Cirl Bunting Project) aimed at helping the buntings get through the winter when, through changes in land use, they might struggle. The feeders are topped up and cleaned every third day, or more frequently in bad weather.
While the eastern birds remained in the territory we were very surprised to find two males at Noirmont on 26th of October last year. These two, unexplained, males stayed around at Noirmont well into November before disappearing.
Cirl buntings are, at least in the UK, typified as being highly sedentary. Many only move a few kilometres in their whole life. While other populations in Europe are very migratory, all are dispersive – that is individuals may wander, often lengthy distances, away from the breeding areas. Dispersal like this is well known in most birds and often follows successful breeding seasons when numbers are high, or when food supplies may be low. Migrant birds have set breeding and wintering areas and, while they may look very much at home, are unlikely to be looking for somewhere new to breed (think of all those contented brent geese, they never hang around in spring). Dispersive birds, on the other hand, may well be looking for a new home and this is how most species spread out around the world. It’s how birds take up home on an island like ours.
We don’t know where the birds at Noirmont were from just like we don’t know where the breeding pair in the east came from. On 2nd January this year, a female was watched at one of the feeders and both she and a male were seen feeding there a week later. The pair was monitored, but not too closely for fear of disturbing these vulnerable birds, throughout the spring and everything looked good. Three birds were seen in July not very far from the pair. Another pair, another chick? Well, a definite chick was seen at the well-known site a few days later adding to the possibility of two pairs. In August it was confirmed that there were two pairs and both had young. Fourteen birds (four adults and 10 juveniles) were counted across the whole site on the 14th! Nine birds were seen again on 13th October.
Richard has seen up to three ‘pairs’ at the feeders this month but it is possible that these ‘pairs’ may include sibling juveniles sticking together.
Exactly how many buntings there are in Jersey remains a bit of mystery, but they are surviving and even thriving it seems. We could try to catch and mark them but this might easily upset these nervous birds and stop the recolonisation in its tracks. Disturbing them through visiting the site too often might also cause the birds to leave. What the increase does mean is that Richard might have to put more food out to help the growing flock through the winter!
Interestingly, a juvenile cirl bunting was seen at Noirmont on 20th October. One of ours leaving us, a new one coming in or one just passing through? Check up on the Jersey Birds website to see if any more turn up.
Birds On The Edge reported last year on the bird species that have been recorded throughout the Channel Islands (Just how many birds are there in the Channel Islands?). Well, each year the full list gets updated by bird groups in each of the islands and is now complete up to the end of 2014.
Besides including new species, we try to update the local status of each one to reflect just how they are faring. This is not always a nice job as so many species are declining so it’s always good to provide positive news. With European storm petrel remaining a rather enigmatic bird in Jersey (do they ever breed, hidden away somewhere?) we received a possible answer as to just where all the birds we see at sea and, occasionally, ring on the north coast might be coming from. In 2006 we said that storm petrels breed on Burhou (Alderney) once in large numbers but now scarce but annual. At the end of 2010 we revised this and added that there may be 150+ pairs. However, in 2012 we further changed this to say that there might only be 40+ pairs on Burhou. Well, now, following an analysis of ringing studies on Burhou we have revised the figure once more – to 1,000 or more pairs! True, this represents a better understanding of the birds rather than a definite increase, but it does give us something better to go on with the support for this bird and increase further the international importance of Burhou!
Of new species, Jersey fared best with the only bird new to the Channel Islands, a Caspian tern seen briefly over St Ouen’s Pond on 25th April. Jersey also recorded its very first great spotted cuckoo in March and a paddyfield warbler in September – both species already on Guernsey’s list. A great bustard was a remarkable sight in Alderney in November – this bird, the first recorded in the Channel Islands to leave the islands alive – was from the reintroduction project in England. The bustard stayed for five days giving some great views.
