Watch out for colourful shearwaters in 2010!

Watch out for coloured Manx Shearwaters on autumn passage this year. Several have been colour-dyed with harmless dyes at Skomer, Island, off Wales and at Copeland Bird Observatory off County Down in Northern Ireland,in a studyinvolving Chris Thaxter and Shane Wolsey of BTO, Kerry Leonard of Sterna Environmental, and colleagues from the University of Oxford and Copeland Bird Observatory. This project aims to colour-mark up to 40 breeding Manx Shearwaters in mid-July 2010, in order to gain more information about foraging areas and migration pathways of these birds. Different colour dyes will be used for Skomer and Copeland birds to avoid confusion; both dyes are harmless to the birds and have been used successfully on a range of seabirds and waders in previous studies. The dye should remain visible for several weeks.

Another victim of plastic waste dumped in the ocean

Click here to read this article and some disturbing photos by Northern Ireland birder Craig Nash on his blog 'Peregrine's Bird Blog'.

Male Star has left Sligo

After a long and eventful stay of almost a year in Sligo, Male Star has moved on in the past few weeks to the Tyrone shores of Lough Neagh.

For more information, check out the Golden Eagle Trust website.

Fledged young calling from different parts of an extensive broadleaf plantation.

Recently fledged young heard calling, seen perched in trees

Recently fledged young heard calling, seen flying

In a garden

Downy young seen in a nest in a spruce plantation

Near the railway station