I’ve handled more birds here in the last 6 weeks, than in the rest of my working life!!

We’ve been on the island now for 6 weeks, and in that time I’ve handled more birds than in the rest of my working life. Because Sal’s on the adjacent computer, and the risk of getting a smack around the ear I’d better clarify that statement, of course, the feathered kind. The most common close encounter is at night in the house, we have a huge shearwater colony here 60,000 Audubons and 20,000 Wedge-tails, a massive amount for such a small island. They feed out to sea by day and come to the island at night to feed their young; it gets dark here at 6.30 so the lights in the houses are on early, the artificial light completely confuses and disorientates the birds that nest close to the houses, almost every night we get 2-3 birds come gate crashing at dinner time. I carefully pick them up and take them to the beach where it’s completely dark, let them adjust to the light levels and then let them go, this seems to work and as we go to bed at 8.30, the lights aren’t on too long.
If your wondering what handling birds has to do with wait loss, it’s the stress, not from shearwaters their fine, its magpie robins or one in particular, blue-blue. Magpie robins are one of the rarest birds in the world, numbers went down to just 12 individuals in the 70s, with a massive conservation effort, numbers are up to 180, of course with such low numbers it’s still on the critically endangered list, but it didn’t become extinct and numbers are slowly rising of this enigmatic little bird, can I just add each bird is absolutely priceless, it will help put you in the picture.

We are directly responsible for the 22 robins that live on Aride, they are monitored twice a day and all behaviour is recorded. Over the new years hols, myself and Sal were left on our own to hold the fort for 6 days, on the first bloody day we’re on our own I noticed that the bird blue-blue was holding it’s right leg up, not good! With a closer look we could see the leg was very swollen and the ID rings, blue-blue were definitely constricting the leg, whether they were the cause or a consequence of something else was unknown, but it’s clear the rings where giving it jip.

We talked it through and decided to wait until the afternoon to see how he was before we rang the alarm. Well we rang the alarm, and to be honest no cavalry came charging over the hill to help us, but an extremely helpful Kiwi girl on end of the phone saying “take the rings off!” we looked at each other for a bit, take the rings off, easy. We talked about it and came up with a plan, first how to catch it, then how to take the rings off, and then we went quite and skipped lunch because we both felt a little sick. The catching although not graceful was effective, anyone who knows these birds can imagine the noise which didn’t help calm the nerves, all the time I’m thinking am I breaking its leg, neck, back, thankfully I didn’t, we positioned the bird with its leg in the air and Sal tried to remove the rings by prising them open with her finger nails. This proved to be impossible as the rings had become too hard, and Sal’s nails aren’t that good, all we could do was let him go to reduce the stress on both the bird and us.

Back to the Kiwi girl (who is in fact the highest you can get in MR terms) who said “you must be from the UK because you’re too bloody soft! Be rough with him and get the rings off, do what it takes and call me when its done!” We were then told by another leading expert that other species of birds that had had similar conditions had lost their legs and died!
Well after that we are completely at ease, with our national pride dented we all came up with another fool proof plan using two loops of fine fishing line, slid between both sides of the ring to prise it open, it worked we got them both off, and let blue-blue go, went back to our house and drank everything with any alcohol in it, which unfortunately wasn’t a lot.

Back in the UK I have flown by the seat of my pants several times, but I can honestly say that this 24hr period dealing with blue-blue was the most stressful working experience I’ve had.