Whilst on Anglesey we had one last attempt at trying to ring Black Guillemots at a regular Chough/Shag/Manx Shearwater ringing site. We have been aware of upto four pairs present here over the past 15 years or so but have never managed to find an accessible nest and be there at the right time of year. Yesterday there were two active nests, one of which was over 3m into a narrow crack and the other (new) site was behind a large boulder wedged in the cliff face. After a bit of furtling, two point-of-fledge Black Guillemotlings were safely transferred from cliff to bag to cliff-top and back again. The landowner has kindly agreed to us provisioning the site with some purpose-built nestboxes so hopefully we can grow the colony over the next few years and get to ring a few more of these gorgeous little auks. I think these two are only the third and fourth ever ringed in Wales, the first two having been ringed just a week or so ago by Adrienne, Kelvin Jones and Rob Sandham in Holyhead Harbour.
Absolutely gorgeous, and very fat - the Guillemots that is!
A "trophy photo"? Well ornithologists can be human too - deal with it!
Spot the dog (actually it's Dylan the dog!) in the background slaughtering butterflies, a current favourite pass-time.
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