On Monday we reported on the fire at Grouville Golf Course and the devastating impact it would have had on local wildlife. The focus of the report was Jersey’s only known pair of cirl buntings and what effects the fire in their breeding territory may have had. After the fire the birds were nowhere to be seen and there was justifiably a lot of concern for their wellbeing. Well, today we found out what happened to them! Almost exactly a year to the day after the first Jersey-bred cirl buntings of recent years were found, and rather late in the year again, what appears undoubtedly to be a chick was seen with its father and photographed by Mick Dryden. The female bunting was seen nearby but we don’t know yet whether other chicks were around – visit Jersey Birds for updates.

On the night of Tuesday 23rd July a fire broke out on the edge of the Royal Jersey Golf Course in Grouville. As well as threatening nearby houses and the infrastructure of the golf course, this fire destroyed important parts of the habitat of our one known pair of cirl buntings. The fire was successfully put out by the Fire Service but not before significant damage to wildlife had occurred – besides the cirl buntings there would have been green lizards and slow worms in the area.  Richard Perchard’s photo of the fire damage was taken at the site of one of the buntings’ feeders, luckily Richard had moved this feeder to another spot that the fire avoided a few months ago.

The spell of hot, dry weather in Jersey always brings the threat of furze fires and disappointingly there is suggestion that this fire was the result of vandalism and may have been started by fireworks. A criminal investigation is underway in the hope of discovering the true cause of the fire and, hopefully, bringing any culprits to justice (see report here). The cirl buntings have not yet been re-sighted and we had hoped that they were nesting as last year young were seen in late July.

Press release from Alderney Wildlife Trust

The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology has been receiving reports of an Atlantic puffin wreck (multiple unusual deaths) on the east coast of Scotland and the north-east of England.

It appears that, while the exact causes of these deaths are currently unknown, the birds have died of starvation, unable to feed in the recent bad weather and strong easterly winds. This incident is likely to be the biggest ‘wreck’ since 1947 and research will be done this summer to see how it affects the northern colonies of puffins. Numbers of guillemots and razorbills have also been picked up after, presumably, suffering the same fate. The RSPB have added that as we are fast approaching the start of the seabird breeding season, where tens of thousands of seabirds return to their colonies to raise their young, the recent events could have an impact on the success of this year’s puffin breeding season. Puffins are already suffering population declines.

No reports of a puffin wreck have occurred in the lower regions of the species range, and the Channel Islands have not received as much bad weather as the north of the UK.

Although the puffins arrived back on Burhou, Alderney, later this year than last, a good number were recorded by the remote camera (see Living Islands Live). It is unlikely that the wreck will affect Burhou, but in the event that anyone does find any dead puffins washing onto shorelines in the Channel Islands, particularly Alderney, please report them immediately to ecologist@alderneywildlife.org. Thank you.

The current cold spell in north-west Europe will have been accompanied by the usual media activity in many places. Much of the news generated will focus on the regular “why weren’t we better  prepared” headlines. One group, however, that know exactly what to do when snow comes in the area are the many thousands of birds that winter in the region. While resident birds not used to such cold weather might have to make do, those species that have come from further north are quick to up and move until they find something more suitable. The most obvious places for these versatile wanderers to head for are the coast and offshore islands that are usually much milder than inland areas. And so, with the snowfall on Friday, Jersey welcomed many thousands of new arrivals.

The usual clue to a cold-weather migration of this sort is the presence of lapwings on verges and every small field. While big flocks might develop in areas like the fields around St Ouen’s Pond, lapwings may happily feed alone in much smaller areas. The 2-300 lapwings on the Island on Thursday had been joined by possibly over a thousand more by Friday. Several small flocks of golden plovers came in with the lapwings – these two birds often join together in winter.

The other abundant and obvious visitors are the thrushes. There were already plenty of wintering redwings on the Island but on Friday morning they were joined by many thousands more that had arrived across the parishes in fields and gardens alike.  New blackbirds and song thrushes had arrived too and were obvious as they tried to feed on the roadside at first light. Fieldfares, a bird formerly more common in the Jersey winter when winters were much colder than now, had also come in but only in smaller numbers so far. Interestingly, there are many less waterbird arrivals like ducks and grebes suggesting that so far it is only snow on the fields moving the wanderers and not the kind of cold temperatures that freeze ducks out of their ponds.

News update from the Hawk and Owl Trust

Five young marsh harriers hatched on Sculthorpe Moor Reserve in Norfolk, UK have had wing tags fitted as part of a long-term study to see where the species travels to once the young birds leave the area where they were hatched.

This year’s birds join a total of 27 young marsh harriers hatched from other Norfolk sites in the same season and 14 from the 2011 generation, making a total to date of 46 birds carrying distinctive lime green wing tags.

Tags are visible to the naked eye from a distance, and the individual codes can be read with binoculars or telescopes.

Older birds can be distinguished from this year’s because the 2011 harriers’ tags carried white letters and numbers, while the 2012 birds have black codes.

The fitting of the wing tags is done by bird ringers, who have a wealth of experience and knowledge in handling birds of all species. It is a painless experience for the birds. Data is being analysed by students at Leicester University, but little is known about the birds’ movements once they leave the nest, where they go in winter and where they return to nest in the spring. Marsh harriers are migratory and are expected to fly south. However, in recent years many marsh harriers have been stayed within the UK and Channel Islands.

This study will allow the scientists to understand the following questions:

1. Where do these birds go once they are independent of their parents? Are they a long distant migrant, travelling into Europe and beyond, or do they stay in the local area for the winter?
2. Once mature, do they return to the area where they were hatched, or do they breed at completely different sites?
3. Once they start to breed, do they breed in their traditional reed bed habitat or in other crops?”

None of Jersey’s marsh harriers have been given wing tags but several have been given numbered metal leg rings in common with other bird species ringed locally and elsewhere.

Please report any sightings of wing-tagged harriers if they come to Jersey or pass through the Island. Sightings should be reported to the Hawk and Owl Trust here but please also let the Société Jersiaise Ornithology Section know too. All records are valuable even if details of the wing codes are not clear to the observer. Look out too for any birds with coloured plastic leg rings that might be obvious – these might be birds from other study programmes.

Just when you thought things could not get worse, a new strain of avian pox is taking its toll on garden birds in Britain.

Report from Birdguides

A new report published this week online in PLOS ONE reports on the impact that avian pox is having on great tit populations. Avian pox has been recorded in British bird species such as house sparrows, blackbirds, dunnocks and wood pigeons for a number of years. However, the emergence of a new strain of this viral disease in great tits is causing concern amongst vets and ornithologists.

Wildlife vet Dr Becki Lawson from ZSL says: “Infection leads to warty, tumour-like growths on different parts of a bird’s body, particularly on the head around the eyes and beak. Although the disease can be relatively mild in some species, great tits suffer severe growths that can prevent them from feeding and increase their susceptibility to predation. Whilst a range of tit species are susceptible to this novel form of the disease, detailed monitoring of birds in Wytham Woods by scientists at the University of Oxford show that great tits are by far the most susceptible.”

“Although recovery from infection can occur, our results show that this new strain of avian poxvirus significantly reduces the survival of wild great tits and has particularly large effects on the survival of juvenile birds. Based on the numbers of affected great tits that we have observed at Wytham Woods, our models do not predict that this new disease will cause an overall population decline of the species. However, pox-affected populations have lower yearly growth rates. Hence, they are likely to have greater difficulty in recovering from other environmental factors that might reduce their numbers,” says Dr Shelly Lachish of the Edward Grey Institute at Oxford University.

With help from the public, scientists at the RSPB and ZSL have tracked the disease, which has spread rapidly in five years from southeast England to central England and into Wales. The annual seasonal peak of observed cases occurs in the early autumn months and incidents continue to be reported at this time of year. Genetic studies on the virus show that it appears to be the same strain seen previously in Scandinavia and more recently in central Europe, and is unlikely to have originated within Great Britain. BTO data on bird movements confirms that great tits rarely migrate outside the country. The spread of the virus to Britain is, therefore, thought to have occurred through the arrival of an infected vector, such as a mosquito.

Great tits are a particularly obvious bird at this time of year as many of them visit bird feeders. Numbers of great tits and blue tits do migrate into the Channel Islands in winter, especially during very cold weather on the continent. Please look out for any with obvious raw looking lesions and abscess-like growths often on the legs and face. There may be obvious lumps too under the feathers. If you see any birds that are affected please let the Société Jersiaise Ornithology Section know and information will be sent on to the authorities. It is unlikely that anything can be done for individual birds but it will be useful to monitor the disease’s progress in Jersey.

Two separate reports are available as downloads from PLOS ONE

Emergence of a novel avian pox disease in British tit species  download here

Epidemiology of the emergent disease Paridae pox in an intensively studied wild bird population download here