CBO Facebook feed
Sorry we’ve been a bit quite on the Instagram front. Mid-Feb; freezing cold; but you can sniff the evenings getting longer. Spring will come soon enough. Some spring shots from Lighthouse Island in 2020.
It’s probably fair to say that if you’re looking at or following the CBO Facebook page you have an interest in our environment. ![]()
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Hence, may we direct you to this environmental index survey, developed collaboratively by DAERA, Food Bio-Sciences Institute, Queen’s University Belfast and Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful, and is being promoted through the cross-sectoral Live Here Love Here initiative?![]()
Results will be used to help inform policy development, for academic and statistical research, and to better understand how to increase our interaction with nature and improve the value we place on it.![]()
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Happy New Year all!We are delighted to launch the new Environmental Engagement Index in partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Queen's University Belfast and Live Here Love Here. ![]()
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The Environmental Engagement Index is unique to Northern Ireland as we lead the way in exploring engagement and connection to nature by using this yearly survey. Research has shown that if people are engaged with nature they are more likely to look after it.![]()
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To take part in the survey visit eei.liveherelovehere.app/![]()
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For further information visit www.daera-ni.gov.uk/news/minister-launches-environmental-engagement-index-northern-ireland
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone at CBO. We can all agree that 2020 certainly did not go to plan! We didn't get everything we wanted to do checked off our year list, but we did manage to add a new species – a Black-browed Albatross – and we broke a sixty-year Manx Shearwater chick-ringing record. ![]()
Recently, the CBO team have been trawling through old CBO annual reports, dating back to 1954. We plan to feature articles from these in upcoming Facebook posts. These old reports give a fascinating insight into the development of the observatory over the past sixty-six years, and sometimes provide a sad reflection on what has been lost – Corncrake, for example, or arriving to the sound of thousands of breeding Arctic, Common, Sandwich & Roseate terns. On the plus side, they record the development of the Manx Shearwater colony from a few hundred to several thousand pairs. ![]()
The reports are also notable for the quality of their artwork, so we thought that this year, to accompany our Christmas & New Year greetings, we would ‘draw’ on some past images. Like all voluntary organisations we are only as good as our membership, so please keep supporting us Join CBO – Copeland Bird Observatory (thecbo.org.uk)![]()
Drawings, reading clockwise from top left:![]()
• Shelduck by Pat McKee: 1989 Report. Shelduck appear, firstly, in the 1955 report where they are called Sheld-duck and are noted as ‘Frequently seen close to buildings believed to have nested’.![]()
• Manx Shearwaters in flight by George Henderson: 1981 Report. Manxies are recorded in the 1954 report as ‘First adults seen 3/4 April. Last seen 17th/18th Sept .. First young caught 20/2lst August last young seen 17/18th Sept. 204 Aduts ringed, 46 young ringed Estimated population ...... 200 pairs’. We now estimate the population as over 4000 pairs.![]()
• A distant view of Lighthouse & Mew islands by Pat McKee: 1985 report. Lighthouse Island, the home base of CBO, has many names including ‘Bird Isle’, ‘John’s Island’, and ‘Cross Island’. It once hosted the lighthouse, but this was decommissioned in the 1880’s and moved to Mew Island.![]()
• Whimbrel by Pat McKee: 1985 Report. More often heard than seen, we still record Whimbrel on migration.![]()
• Nesting tern on Lighthouse Island, with Mew Island in the background, by Ernie Donaldson: 1981 report.![]()
• CBO Buildings by Pat McKee: 1980 report. By 1980 the old lighthouse keepers cottages had been reclaimed. When the observatory was set up in 1954 these buildings were derelict. ![]()
• Convolvulus Hawk Moth by George Henderson: 1989 report. This was captured in the Heligoland Trap at 11.45 pm on 21st August 1989 and was the first record of this migratory moth on the observatory. Another was caught on 11th Sept 2020.
EA02890: Record Breaker!!![]()
We are delighted to report at least one uplifting statistic in these challenging times... we have broken our 60 year record for the number of Manx shearwater chicks ringed in a season. The record breaking pullus, a downy chick, became the 1218th to be ringed, thereby breaking the 2011 record. It was ringed at the Well Path sub-colony at 1am on the morning of Saturday 19th September. And, even better, the CBO ringing teams in follow-up weekends managed to extend this figure, coming in with a final chick-ringing season-busting number of 1278 birds. In addition we added 125 adult birds, bringing the total number of Manxies ringed to a very respectable 1403.![]()
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These figures were grounded on a massive effort by a team of 5 ringers from Oxford University, led by Ollie Padget, who spent a week on the island in early September, ringing 1024 birds between them.![]()
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Our shearwater ringing programme provides valuable information for scientists monitoring the life, survivability, and impact of climate change on these long lived seabirds (our oldest ever recorded was over 49 years old); and it consolidates the 66 year CBO dataset – one of the oldest continuous such sets on wild birds. Over the next 3-4 years a significant number of these birds will spend their "away" time feeding in the South Atlantic, making their way back gradually via Central and North America and the Carribbean for their first Atlantic return flight "home’’. We know they are generally faithful, not only to their native island, but to their natal sub-colony. So, hopefully, around midnight on a future wet, dark, and stormy night, sometime in 2024, a CBO ringer will be scanning a torchlight across the Well Path, will pick up a ringed bird, record the number, and we will know that EA02890 has made it home.