It was depressing to record 42 razorbills; 29 guillemots; 10 puffins; 3 fulmars; 1 shag; 3 herring gulls (bits only) and an unidentified auk (probably a razorbill). At least 89 dead birds - some others had probably been bagged and removed from the beach by the volunteers before we started looking.
With the large numbers of recently reported Auk strandings on Newgale and elsewhere, not to mention the many thousands of dead auks being reported along the Bay of Biscay coastline, you have to wonder just how many dead and dying auks there are along the Pembrokeshire coast and also along the coastline of SW Britain! Most of the ones we saw today had been dead for some time (probably soon after the recent hurricane) but some birds are clearly still coming ashore dead and alive.
We checked all birds we saw for rings - none were ringed. Most of the ones we saw were most likely to have been mature adults, returning to their breeding colonies.
I wonder if the RSPB annual (last weekend in Feb) "national beached bird survey" is still continuing. It is surely worthwhile for an organised systematic count being undertaken this month to determine the scale of the seabird wreck around the coastline. Such storm events underline the huge importance of regular long-term seabird colony monitoring and research at major seabird colonies, such as the studies undertaken on Skomer and Skokholm to help determine the impacts of those events.
The images below of the species largely affected were taken at Skomer and Skokholm colonies in recent breeding seasons. Are any of these now among the growing number of dead ones along our coastline?
