Tracking seabirds to see where they feed

It is easy to watch them doing this but once they have flown out to sea again their progress is much more a matter of conjecture.

Now new lightweight geolocators weighing as little as 1.5 grammes are making it possible to track many more seabirds for the first time to discover where they find food and how far they have to travel to do so.

Fifteen kittiwakes have already been fitted with the tags at Flamborough Head, near Bempton Cliffs, and another 15 will be fitted this month. There are also plans to tag 15 gannets there.

The research comes against a background of continuing declines in seabird numbers in the British Isles over the past 20 years.

The situation has been particularly severe in Scotland with huge declines in once massive colonies with one kittiwake colony down by 73 per cent.

Last year provided a glimmer of hope with the best breeding season for 10 years due to a relative abundance of sandeels and other small fish, but Scottish conservationists warned that this was likely to be just a blip and the long-term trend was likely to be one of continued decline.

While the situation at Bempton Cliffs and Flamborough Headhas not been as severe, kittiwake numbers have fallen by 50 per cent from 85,000 pairs in 1987 to less than 38,000 now, while numbers of fulmar, shag, herring gulls and puffins have also fallen over the past 10 years.

The tags should indicate where the kittiwakes are feeding in the North Sea – one kittiwake tagged last year was found to have travelled more than 100 miles to Dogger Bank to feed – and provide evidence as to where Marine Conservation Zones should be established.

It will be interesting to discover where the Bempton gannets are feeding.

Researchers from the University of Leeds who tagged gannets at Bass Rock off the Northumberland coast, found that they were having to make a round trip of 100km to the Norwegian coast to find food for their young and were flying faster than normal on these journeys so that they were not leaving their nests unattended for too long.

Tagging of puffins on the Isle of May off the Scottish coasthas come up with some surprising results as to where they spend the winter.

It has always been assumed that east coast puffins winter in the North Sea. Fifty puffins were tagged on the island during 2007 and 14 of the tags recovered the following spring.

The information recovered showed that many of them had moved directly out into the Atlantic for between one and three months and suggests that many more puffins do the same.

Two seabird cruises are taking place this month to see the birds at Bempton Cliffs, one tomorrow leaves Bridlington at 9.30am and one on Saturday, July 10, leaves at 4.30pm. Ring 01262 850959 for full details.

Two American gulls, a first-summer Bonaparte's gull and a ring-billed gull were seen together at Chowder Ness on the south bank of the Humber near the Far Ings Nature Reserve. Also there were six yellow-legged and eight Mediterranean gulls.

Two Mediterranean and a long-staying juvenile glaucous gull were at Spurn, where there was also an adult roseate tern.

Waders at Blacktoft Sands included eight spotted redshanks, five ruff, a knot and three green sandpipers while there weregood views of a bittern and a spoonbill.

Seven little egrets were at the Old Moor reserve, South Yorkshire.

Two honey buzzards and a hobby were seen from the raptor viewpoint at Wykeham Forest, North Yorkshire.