Last week Mark Newton reported seeing the Kittiwakes showing a bit more interest in the artificial ledges on Mumbles Lifeboat house. By Saturday afternoon the main flock was still hanging around the pier, indicating their strong fidelity to the original site, but we did see up to 10 Kittiwakes sitting on the new shelving, providing a little more optimism that birds might eventually start showing signs of nesting. Fingers crossed!
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4 comments:
Unfortunately the traditional nesting site has been covered with netting, the gauge of which is large enough to entangle the kittiwakes that are trying to nest there. We have received a couple of birds that have been freed from the netting that have sustained severe bruising and abrasions to their wings. There have been a number of birds entangled over the last couple of weeks. Who is responsible for overseeing the type of netting used? It’s evident the netting used is the wrong size.
Simon - I spoke on behalf of GOS to the consultants carrying out the Kittiwake work on the pier. I specifically asked if the netting they intended using had been successful elsewhere and without incident. I was reassured that it was, so it is disappointing to hear what you have to say. I'll get the details of the contact to you tomorrow, perhaps together we can see if we can have it changed. I'd have thought angled planking or even sheeting would be more suitable?
Hi Barry, yesterday (5/10/12) there were 42 kittiwakes on the new ledges, about another 40 on the sea and none on the main pier. One of the lads at the pier mentioned that they'd been having problems with kittiwakes getting tangled in the netting, but I didn't find out if that was very recent.
Rob Thomas -visiting from Cardiff :)
Thanks Rob for the info - see update above. Both myself and Simon have expressed our concerns about the netting on the pier, so hopefully we'll see something done about it very soon.
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