Ray Collier Country Diary - Puffins
3rd March 2008 - Puffins
The publication of the two volumes of "The Birds of Scotland" in December of 2007 by the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club has, quite rightly, been hailed as a major step forward in the existing knowledge of birds. The accounts give the up-to-date knowledge of the various species with detailed information on such aspects as Scottish range, distribution and status plus trends and population. In a sense it is a celebration of the knowledge of very many people apart from the 157 authors co-ordinated by a team of nine editors. There is another aspect of the book that may be, by some, overlooked and that is the fact that it is a very important document for the conservation of birds and, for that matter, other wildlife. One of the most fascinating aspects of the accounts of each bird is the very important section simply highlighted by one word, namely "Threats".
One of the most important of these is briefly mentioned in the beginning of Volume 1 under the section on "Seabirds". It states that in the early years of the 21st century many species of seabirds are experiencing food shortages and links this to over fishing and lack of discarded fish by trawlers. It also mentions that a rise in sea temperature, particularly in the North Sea, may also be having an effect on the food supply chain. Whatever the reason, and it seems likely to be a combination of events rather than a single one, it could be disastrous news for seabird colonies around the coast of the Highlands. The numbers of many of these are of international importance and there is now a serious cause for concern. The signs were there some time ago such as Volume 2 reports for July 1959 when 8,000 four to six week old puffin chicks died on St.Kilda. This was explained as a dearth of sand eels and sprats. In the last two years there have been reports of many puffin chicks dying with pipe fish at the entrance to the burrows. Pipe fish are nutritionally far less value as food to seabirds as opposed to whitebait or sand eels. Other seabirds have also suffered such as kittiwakes, razorbills and guillemots.
This may, on the face of it, seem fairly straightforward but the situation is made more complex by the predatory great skua. These large seabirds are about the size of a herring gull but even bulkier and it has a powerful looking partially hooked beak. It was renowned for its piratical behaviour with other seabirds such as puffins by harassing them until they dropped the food they were carrying, particularly sand eels. The great skuas were so quick they could often catch the discarded fish before it hit the sea below. They occasionally took adult birds and also fed extensively on fish discarded from trawlers. When the fish stocks such as sand eels decreased and trawler discards were lowered the skuas started taking the adult birds instead.
The skuas have even begun to prey at night under the cover of darkness on the small petrels such as the Leach’s on St. Kilda. Volume 1 give some facts about these rare petrels on St. Kilda where the skuas went from 42 pairs in 1986 to 229 in 1996. In recent years it is estimated that the skuas take well over 14,000 petrels each year. The books highlights these problems and many others such as brown rats, pike, pollution, mink and other predators on a wide variety of birds. It will be interesting to see what is to be done about all these problems many of which are, needless to say, man made.
The publication of the two volumes of "The Birds of Scotland" in December of 2007 by the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club has, quite rightly, been hailed as a major step forward in the existing knowledge of birds. The accounts give the up-to-date knowledge of the various species with detailed information on such aspects as Scottish range, distribution and status plus trends and population. In a sense it is a celebration of the knowledge of very many people apart from the 157 authors co-ordinated by a team of nine editors. There is another aspect of the book that may be, by some, overlooked and that is the fact that it is a very important document for the conservation of birds and, for that matter, other wildlife. One of the most fascinating aspects of the accounts of each bird is the very important section simply highlighted by one word, namely "Threats".
One of the most important of these is briefly mentioned in the beginning of Volume 1 under the section on "Seabirds". It states that in the early years of the 21st century many species of seabirds are experiencing food shortages and links this to over fishing and lack of discarded fish by trawlers. It also mentions that a rise in sea temperature, particularly in the North Sea, may also be having an effect on the food supply chain. Whatever the reason, and it seems likely to be a combination of events rather than a single one, it could be disastrous news for seabird colonies around the coast of the Highlands. The numbers of many of these are of international importance and there is now a serious cause for concern. The signs were there some time ago such as Volume 2 reports for July 1959 when 8,000 four to six week old puffin chicks died on St.Kilda. This was explained as a dearth of sand eels and sprats. In the last two years there have been reports of many puffin chicks dying with pipe fish at the entrance to the burrows. Pipe fish are nutritionally far less value as food to seabirds as opposed to whitebait or sand eels. Other seabirds have also suffered such as kittiwakes, razorbills and guillemots.
This may, on the face of it, seem fairly straightforward but the situation is made more complex by the predatory great skua. These large seabirds are about the size of a herring gull but even bulkier and it has a powerful looking partially hooked beak. It was renowned for its piratical behaviour with other seabirds such as puffins by harassing them until they dropped the food they were carrying, particularly sand eels. The great skuas were so quick they could often catch the discarded fish before it hit the sea below. They occasionally took adult birds and also fed extensively on fish discarded from trawlers. When the fish stocks such as sand eels decreased and trawler discards were lowered the skuas started taking the adult birds instead.
The skuas have even begun to prey at night under the cover of darkness on the small petrels such as the Leach’s on St. Kilda. Volume 1 give some facts about these rare petrels on St. Kilda where the skuas went from 42 pairs in 1986 to 229 in 1996. In recent years it is estimated that the skuas take well over 14,000 petrels each year. The books highlights these problems and many others such as brown rats, pike, pollution, mink and other predators on a wide variety of birds. It will be interesting to see what is to be done about all these problems many of which are, needless to say, man made.
posted by Corinne @ 10:57 AM
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