Glorious full moon--good for us but almost too bright for the task. This is the night for banding petrels caught in a mist net just near the north harbor on Fair Isle.
Petrels fly around near land only at night so capturing and banding must be done during the dark. At this time of year, adults are still feeding nestlings and do not stray far from the colony. So the birds out and about are the youth, cruising around looking for a new colony to join as they become breeding adults themselves. Thus, our recordings of petrel calls draw them to shore and up into our nets.
The nets are soft string and they slide into a little pocket where one of the scientists gently grasps them and puts them in a little bag. When several little bags of birds are collected, they are taken into the hut for banding, weighing, wing measuring.
Then my job comes in--me and the other newbies who do not know how to to the other jobs. We get to hold the tiny little things in the palm of our hands while their eyes adjust and they are ready to fly.
They are tiny--about 4" from beak to tail. They weigh so little that you cannot even feel them. Their tiny webbed feet are littler than my smallest fingernail. Sometimes they feel around with their beaks or feet until they are ready to fly.
Be still my heart.
With persistence, you can just barely make them out while they are flying. Generally, you can hear their calls low down near the water. But without capturing them, it is unlikely we would see them at all.
Both kind of petrels here spend all their time far out at sea, feeding on plankton along the water surface. They have a fluttery flight and skim the water, patting at the surface with their feet. When they pat, plankton stirs up and that's dinner for them. Other than breeding and searching for mates, they have no need to visit shore. I am going to be vigilant on the return ferry in case I see any but it seems they are hard to find.
We banded 66 birds last night: 65 common Storm-petrels and 1 Leach's Storm-Petrel. Of those we caught, 15 had been banded before, maybe here or maybe farther away. It is possible they would have been banded as far away as Norway or Denmark. The info goes to a data-base run by the British Trust for Ornithology. We will find out from them where the birds are from. Anyone who finds one of our birds will find out too and we get a report. Birds from Fair Isle have been found as far away as Portugal. It takes awhile to find out--maybe I will already be gone.
About 2:30 AM, the sky was light and by 3 AM the sun was up. No more birds and time to go home ourselves.
Bird banding photos:
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| Good view of the white wing patch and tail patch |
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| Common on left, larger Leach's on right. |
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| Tiny webbed foot |
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| Bill with tube nose which excretes the salt from the water enabling them to drink salt water |
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| The correct gentle way to hold the bird |
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