The Highland Ringing Group team were out on Canna last week to continue their long term seabird monitoring work. Despite the generally poor summer weather the seabirds were having a good season. Counts of shags, kittiwakes and puffins were the highest since the early 2000s, only fulmars were showing a continuing decline. Most species were also showing above average breeding productivity, with lots of small fish being brought in to feed chicks.
32 small geolocator devices attached to the birds last summer were retrieved (and another 57 deployed). These are now being downloaded and providing fascinating information on where Canna seabirds go when they leave the colonies at the end of summer.
Ally Young with Razorbill and geo locator
Guilliemots in one of the Canna caves
Kittiwakes with their young
A Kittiwake tracked from Canna all the way to the Davis Straight west of Greeland in September before returning to the east side of the Atlantic sometime in mid Jan
A Fulmar tracked from Canna which moved North into Artic waters early October then moved East to South Greenland before returning end of September
A huge thanks to Bob Swann and the rest of the team for sharing this with the Canna Local History Group