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Forgive the lack of updates on the blog of recent times. This is mostly due to late July and August being amongst our busiest times of the year. With hundreds of visitors coming out to the island and continuing with the reserve work including the benthic sampling (seeing what insects live in the mud...

As the breeding season begins to enter the final furlong, it’s time for an update on this troubled breeding season. Unfortunately, there is rather more bad news than good news. Starting with the bad news. Common gulls are having a disastrous year, for the first time in two years the...

The results are in, 99% of all birds have fledged and after a changeable summer, the 2011 Havergate island breeding bird story is ready to be told. The final counts of the large gulls where 460 herring gulls and 1030 lesser blacked backed gulls , a grand total of 1490 large gulls, how does...

Arctic Skua? kittiwake? little tern? All good guesses but since the year 2000 the two fastest declining seabirds are the much less heralded herring gull and lesser black backed gulls. This is according to the SMP (seabird monitoring programme) data recently released by the JNCC. This...

If visitor trips where football or cricket teams then the trips out to Havergate would be described as being in a bad run of form! The last three trips have all had to be cancelled due to a combination of factors. The December visit due to snow, ice and freezing conditions and the January and February...

It feels now that winter has truly arrived, the temperatures are plunging and the nights are drawing in and the clocks are about to go back. A chilling sentence for anyone who lives in the British Isles. It was therefore nice to get an update on the movements of the ringed gull chicks on Havergate...

Today was an emotional day, at least for me. The 2nd Tern chick from the colony on Belpers fledged. I even watched it fly, unbeknownst to it on even them as I should refer to them from the safety of the hide. It didn’t go far it merely flew up and bathed itself in the saline water in the lagoon...

The Tern chicks are still alive. In fact more than just alive, they appear to be doing really well but I won’t use the word thriving. Every day I go out to the island, I presume the worse, an abandoned colony, parents absent and activity all but over. However, this has so far (touch wood) not been...

Earlier in the season we had the disappointment of the Avocets being predated. However, this week’s blog entry should go some way to alleviating this sense of disappointment. This week I get the rare pleasure of reporting, not just one bit of good news but two bits of positive news. Those who...

I’ll keep this brief but sad news..... The Flamingo has departed the islands. No more will anyone look across Main lagoon and be cheered by sight of a large pink bird, normally with his head in the water, feeding away, no more will he take off in flight and look like a long thin pink pencil with...

The breeding season continues a pace on the island. However, firstly I must break some bad news. In my last blog piece I reported that the island was playing host to 23 Avocets the highest breeding number in some time, however between the dates 14 th to the 16 th of July all the nests where predated...

What an odd few days on Havergate but more of that later. Summer has definitely arrived on the island. With it though, something exciting has happened. Those who are familiar with Havergate will know that recently the population of Avocets have been going through what looked like a terminal decline...

Finally, just after I was about to give up on them, the Common gulls have swung into action. Laying there eggs in some fabulous locations. I was expecting them to lay out in the open, in a big dense colony, like their close cousin the Tern. However, they’ve completely taken me by surprise by nesting...