No doubt we will all be glad to see the back of 2020, but there's no doubt that it was another remarkable year for birds on Lundy, whether resident and migrant breeders, those stopping off to rest and feed up, or others just passing through. While Killdeer and Sora Rail were new species for the island (both still subject to acceptance by the British Birds Rarities Committee), others such as the long-staying White's Thrush and the island's first White-tailed Eagle in 140 years brought much excitement and regularly kept Lundy at the forefront of online news on BirdGuides and Rare Bird Alert.
Now begins the annual task of writing up the birding year for publication in the Lundy Field Society Annual Report and the Devon Bird Report. To everyone who filled in record sheets and handed them to Warden Dean Jones for inclusion in the LFS logbook, or emailed records and photos to the island's bird recorders, Tim Jones and Tim Davis, a huge thank you.
May 2021 bring better times for all of us – and many more wonderful birding days on Lundy.
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| Martin Thorne captured this Lundy sunset behind Old Light during his recent week-long stay on the island. |
Storm Petrels
Ever wondered where Lundy's growing number of breeding 'Stormies' go to gather food for their young? A four-year tracking study by Mark Bolton of breeding Storm Petrels in the UK's largest colony on Shetland has shown some intriguing results: rather than flying west to forage at the edge of the continental shelf, where boat surveys in past decades recorded high concentrations, birds were keeping to shallower waters to the south-east, though covering unexpectedly long distances, with feeding trips (of up to three days) averaging 159km from the colony. There's a nice non-technical summary here: https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b/biodiversity/posts/gps-tracking-reveals-new-insights-into-the-foraging-areas-of-the-atlantic-s-smallest seabird
Wouldn't it be amazing to find out where 'our' Stormies from the North Light colony go to feed? Surveys of Manx Shearwaters using data-loggers over a five-year period (2008-2012) and conducted by a team from the Zoology Department of Oxford University revealed the differing between-year foraging behaviour of Lundy's nesting shearwaters. Hopefully it won't be too long before we know more about the movements of their diminutive cousins.
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