July was a relatively quiet month for ringing with the team holding 12 different sessions over 5 different sites.
Sessions included 2 at our Constant Effort Site (CES), ringing at three headland gardens and a very popular public Storm Petrel Session.
The Storm Petrel session was held at our seawatch observatory as part of FBO’s nocturnal wildlife weekend. We erected six 12m nets up in pairs along the cliff top with tape lures set at each pair. Around 20 observers waited patiently until almost 3am when we caught a single Storm Petrel on our last net round! This gave us all a wonderful opportunity to see this tiny oceanic wanderer up close, a real treat as these birds are occasionally seen passing the headland but always very distantly. When releasing the Storm Petrel it was very interesting to see it turning its head, listening to the sea and then fly off strongly towards the waves.
Over the sessions we caught 181 birds of 24 different species, 153 of these were new birds and 28 were retraps.
