While most of the other MCINWR islands are winding down for the season, Petit Manan is still going strong with major alcid trapping, island-wide guillemot and storm petrel checks, Arctic tern re-sighting, and our new-this-year project: Atlantic puffin feeding studies.
Atlantic Puffin with bill load through scope.
Puffin flying to burrow with fish that we have to identify as part of our feeding study
During our alcid checks, we discovered two little surprises in the form of Razorbill chicks! Only five pairs are breeding here on Petit Manan, so each new chick is very special to us. We even managed to capture one of his parents bringing food back to the burrow, an unusual sight here on PMI
Freshly banded Razorbill chick
Razorbill flying with food
Here are a few more snapshots of what else has been going on at PMI.
Black Guillemot chick being weighed every 5 days as part of our productivity checks
Leach’s storm-petrel chick
PMI crew banding a puffin chick, minus Julia who took the photo
A puffin undergoing the banding process
Wayne and Julia with their first captured adult Razorbill!
Until next time,
Wayne and Julia
Leave a Reply