Outstanding

These are the results of the ENR to ENR retraps.
This year thirteen birds were recaptured wearing years placed on them previously at Nan Ron - in between they will have covered many thousands of miles.

2531232, ringed in 2001, so 13 years old.
The oldest recorded STOPE was 31 years, 11 months and 9 days.

2625400, ringed in 2007, 7 years old

2638919, 2641478 both 5 years old.
2668593, 4 years old.

Seven birds were two years old, twelve one year old, and nine birds were same year retraps.

Outstanding are...

...our own retraps on Nan Ron from year to year. Hopefully time over the next couple of weeks will permit me to get on top of this.
The attendee list for 2015 already has names upon it.

Run of recoveries 3.

Birds rung elsewhere and controlled on Nan Ron.

2669638
26 Jul 2012 Twinyess, North Ronaldsay, Orkney
28 Jul 2014 ENR
732 days 140km 231deg

2452351
5 Aug 2012 Duncansby Head, Highland
28 Jul 2014 ENR
722 days 75km 263deg

2688582
21 Jul 2013 Annagh Head, Mayo, IRELAND
28 Jul 2014 EHR
372 days 597km 37deg

2680609
31 Jul  2013 Fair Isle, Shetland
28 Jul 2014 ENR
362 days 190km 235deg
2680709
5 Aug 2013 Fair Isle, Shetland
28 Jul 2014 ENR
357 days 190km 235deg

2531232
10 Aug 2013 Strathy Point, Highland
27 Jul 2014 ENR
351 days 18km 258deg

2690785
12 Aug 2013 Fair Isle, Shetland
28 Jul 2014 ENR
350 days 190km 235deg

2694012
16 Aug 2013 Twinyess, North Ronaldsay, Orkney
31 Jul 2014 ENR
349 days 140km 231deg

2690010
11 Sept 2013 Auckengill, Highland
28 Jul 2014 ENR
320 days, 72km 270deg

2688074
5 Jul 2014 Fair Isle, Shetland
28 Jul 2014 ENR
23 days 190km 235deg
2688415
23 Jul 2014 Fair Isle, Shetland
30 Jul 2014 ENR
7 days 190km 235deg

A run of recoveries 2.

This will address those birds rung on Nan Ron and subsequently recaptured elsewhere.

2641019
27 Jul 2009 - 15 Jun 2014
ENR to Priest Island 1784 days 97km 227deg

2661792
1 Aug 2011 - 15 Jun 2014
ENR to Priest Island 1049 days 97km 227deg

2659250
2 Aug 2011 - 15 Jun 2014
ENR to Priest Island 1048 days 97km 227deg

The next birds were all recaptured on Priest Island between 13-15th June 2014.

2659840 Rung ENR 23 Jul 2012 692 days
2681100 Rung ENR 23 Jul 2012 691 days
2681534 Rung ENR 25 Jul 2012 690 days
2681715 Rung ENR 25 Jul 2012 689 days
2681924 Rung ENR 26 Jul 2012 687days
2681951 Rung ENR 26 Jul 2012 689 days

2681994 Rung ENR 28 Jul 2013 322 days
2682597 Rung ENR 31 Jul 2013 319 days
2682299 Rung ENR 24 Aug 2013 295 days
2682427 Rung ENR 24 Aug 2013 293 days

These five birds were not caught on Priest Island - hurrah.

2681964
28 Jul 2013 ENR
26 Aug 2014 Holms of Ire, Sanday, Orkney
394 days 129km 50deg

2682765
1 Aug 2013 ENR
1 Jul 2014 Lunga, Treshnish Isles, Argyll & Bute
334 days 262km 209deg

2685357
24 Aug 2013 ENR
12 Jul 2014 Fair Isle, Shetland
322 days 190km 55deg

2696814
28 Jul 2014 ENR
16 Aug 2014 High Island, Galway IRELAND
19 days, 668km 214deg

2700012
29 Jul 2014 ENR
26 Aug 2014 Holms of Ire, Sanday, Orkney
28 days 129km 50deg

A run of recoveries.

This will be the first of three posts documenting reported recoveries. This one, the shortest, will be birds notified as firstly rung on Nan Ron and subsequently recaptured in later years. These are birds controlled by our group but firstly ringed by one of the other groups visiting Nan Ron. Who knows how many miles they will have covered in the intervening years.

2573887
19 Jul 2003 - 27 Jul 2014 = 4026 days

2625400
14 Jul 2007 - 27 Jul 2014 = 2570 days

2638919
20 Jul 2009 - 27 Jul 2014 = 1833 days

2668593
25 Jul 2010- 28 Jul 2014 =1464 days

2642081
07 Jul 2013 - 31 Jul 2014 = 389 days

...and another thing.

I came across an article called "The Place Names of a Deserted Island" (from
http://www.skerray.com/island-roan/place-names) compiled by Iain Fraser on the testimony of Donald Mackay.
Given that the steps to the island have now been washed away - making visiting so much more difficult - I had a mind to photograph all of the visual features related by Donald so that, at the very least, anyone interested in this island, but unable to visit, would get a flavour of this enigmatic location. Photos will appear in due course with a view to placing them all somewhere in the future as a visual record of the island.

A view across Broad Skerry (Sgeir Leathann) towards The Gullet (An Gluta)

Other things...

In addition to all the birdy things on-going two other 'projects' were initiated this year.

Gerry started a Flora and Fauna listings - which we'll continue next year, and also add night-time moths, and Bob started a mapping and photographic record of all of the buildings.

For the F and F the first year yielded: x3 Coleoptera, x5 Lepidoptera, x10 Arachnida, x1 Hymenoptera x1 Achaeognatha (beetles, butterflies, spiders, bees, windless insects); as well as 22 plants from docks to broom and gorse to bracken {Gerry, plus one conifer in the 'new' gully!].

For the buildings Bob started to map them, primitively, and started a full photographic record which he hopes to build into a 'virtual' representation of what the buildings would have looked like when in use.

(Our) house number 5 - with outbuildings

Four layers of wallpaper taken from (our) house number 7 [left most recent]

Final night and final figures.

On Thursday night we set up on Am Bail - The Village - otherwise known as the camp site. Again with only two sixty foot nets we started catching at 23.30hrs and continued until we had all had enough. This proved to be just after 2.15am when we had caught in excess of 350 new birds.

One of the many

After four hours sleep, or thereabouts, we started to dismantle camp ready for our departure at eleven. Jean duly arrived with Billy on a choppy sea. Obviously it was going to be a little wet if Jean had talked land-loving Billy into coming along - and so it proved - at least for Cian (and Billy).

Final finals.
In the end our totals for the year were:
Storm Petrel
1507 new birds
34 retraps (including, original ringing year, 1995 x1, 2001 x1, 2007 x1, 2009 x2, 2010 x1, 2012 x10, 2013 x6)
81 retraps (our own birds from 2014 and not put into IPMR)

14 UK controls
2 Portugese controls
4 Norwegian controls (with one bird caught twice)

Great Skua
11 new (including one adult) with 3 retraps
1 Fulmar
1 Snipe
1 Wheatear (same year, juvenile retrap)

Catching some more

The following night the wind was still blowing, but easing, and we pitched the nets in the gully at Cnoc an Losgann. We started catching at 23.30hrs but then, unfortunately, the weather beat us into retreat as steady rain set in after 1am - with us only catching 84 new birds. Timing was everything as we all managed to get back into out tents before heavier rains gave forth.

Catching Storm Petrels at night is not our only activity while on the island. During the day we're keen to 'have a go' at anything else that may be catch-able. There were small collections of twite on the island, but several attempts and several different lures yielded a big fat zero. We did however find ten juvenile Great Skua and caught one free-flying adult - all of which were ringed. We did also ring one Fulmar chick and one Snipe chick - we didn't try for shag this year.

An uncaught Twite

Ringed, photographed and replaced

Fulmar feeding Fulmar

Catching

Sunday evening we set up on what we call The Maze - a gentle sloping piece of land at the north of the island. Locally it is known as Cam Ban - the White Cain - which is the rock structure immediately to the east.
CAtching the first bird at 23.15hrs we continued until we ran out of rings- 557 new birds; where the previous nights record had been a mere 380 (the rest of our rings were back at the camp site). In addition we were catching both local and international retraps (see totals later). We closed down, early, at 02.16hrs Monday morning.

This is Alex nest finding at the White Cain (during the day)

Monday night we were back at Cam Ban with all of our rings. The first bird was caught at 23.30hrs and we continued catching until 03.28hrs - 414 new birds were caught.

Tuesday night was a night off - not due to slacking on our part - but the weather was too inclement and unpredictable with high wings and squally showers to justify staying awake for little return.

Plan B not needed.

This year's gallant party counted nine and we traveled up in three cars on the morning of Saturday 27th. All made good time until reaching the A9 just short of Ballinluig where a minibus had made contact with two cars and partially blocked the road. Kenny et al lost about an hour here, Paul et al, traveling just behind Kenny, were forewarned and managed to divert, while Scott and Cian ploughed in regardless and lost over two and a half hours. Paul paid a heavier price a little later on when his car started to overheat and he had to be 'recovered' on the back of a tow-truck to Tongue, during heavy rain storms to be, hopefully, repaired at a local garage while we were on the island.

Allan, Bob, Kenny, Alex, Colin, Paul, Cian, Scott, Gerry - the 'Class of 2014'

Sunday morning dawned a little damp. It was too hot to wear waterproofs but rained a little to hard not too. On reaching Skerray Jean, with son Andy, were all fired up ready to go and two crossings were made on millpond conditions.
As we knew beforehand the steps to the island had been washed away due to winter storms and so we were prepared for a beach landing. However, things on the jetty were not as bad as first thought as a convenient rock lent itself to some fairly easy free-climbing in order to get on top of those steps that did remain After that it was just strategic positioning of bodies and a hand-over-hand daisy chain to transfer the luggage up onto the island. We had arrived for 2014.

The typical camp-site view

Plan B

Jean made her first visit to the island the other week to find that part of the island was missing following the winter storms! Although not absolutely essential the bit missing did make access to the island simpler.
The quay has gone from this:

To this:

The lower hand rail is now visible in the cleft of rock to the left and the flight of steps washed away. So, revert to plan B. Unfortunately there are few access points to the island but one, just happens, to be around the corner.

Jean has already implied that she can off-load us here but it is a bit more weather dependent and we should make plans for at least a little paddle (if required). So, this year's ringing will be undertaken using plan B. For those going please plan accordingly.

Season 2014

Plans are already underway for this year's ringing visit. Dates have been set, Jean (of the boat) has been notified, and all possible participants have been contacted. In the case of the really keen ones B&Bs have been booked also.
This year is set to be something special. The Birmingham Bunch celebrate 25 years of visiting the island this year - the Liverpool Lads and Lasses are some way behind (and the Shropshire Simpletons, newbies, even further adrift). To mark the event we are planning an overlap on visits so that, for one night only, both the BB's and the LL&L (&SS) will all be on the island for the night. Disco dancing or stormie catching competitions - who knows. Cant wait......

Lone(ly) recovery

2624465
Ringed Treshnish Isles, Argyll and Bute 27.06.2013 Adult
Controlled ENR 29.07.2013 (119mm wing 23.9gms)
32 days 262km 29deg NNE