Burhou’s puffin webcams go live as birds start to arrive
THE puffin webcams have gone live.
They were installed by the Alderney Wildlife Trust team on the island of Burhou earlier this week. This is about the sixth year the project has been running.
Head of outreach Claire Thorpe said the puffins were just starting to return after a winter at sea.
‘They come back in dribs and drabs,’ she said. ‘They will be reacquainting themselves with their mate – they do not spend the winter together, so they have to find them again and then slowly return to land and spring clean their burrows. It takes a couple of weeks for them to come back.’
There are usually about 100 breeding pairs on the island, although it can be hard to count them. The puffins usually move into rabbit burrows, which have several entrances. So if a puffin goes in one hole, it could come out of a different one.
The puffins lay just a single egg in April and if something happens to it, they will not lay another.
‘So the colony is quite precarious because it’s quite small,’ Miss Thorpe said.
Birds such as gulls and peregrines can be a threat to the puffin families. The puffins also have an uneasy relationship with the rabbits, which share their island.
Miss Thorpe said the puffins, which move into the rabbits’ burrows, sometimes get into squabbles with the rabbits, but generally things are OK.
It takes about five weeks for the eggs to hatch and pufflings do not leave their holes until they are ready to leave home. However, puffincam watchers will know when the pufflings start hatching because the puffins will start bringing back fish to their nest.
The best time to see puffins is usually the early morning or late afternoon. They currently spend most of their day on the water.
The cameras have proved popular and the AWT data has shown that people from all over the world tune in.
n The cameras can be viewed at http://www.teachingthroughnature.co.uk/.
The service is provided for free by the trust, but it would help if people make a donation to help support the trust’s equipment costs.
The website also has teaching resources for KS1 and KS2 students, which might help parents needing to home school their children.
To adopt a puffin to support the trust’s work, visit http://www.alderneywildlife.org/how-you-can-help/adopt-burhou-puffin.
