An overview of MarPAMM, last summer and what we are up to now.

MarPAMM:

a little bit of info about what we have been up to so far…

Marine Protected Areas Management and Monitoring (MarPAMM) is an interreg VA cross-border project, designed to develop new tools for monitoring and protocols for managing a number of protected coastal marine environments in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Western Scotland. It is a cross-border project as many marine species and habitats do not abide by administrative borders. Therefore, to manage mobile species and border areas, requires cooperation. 

From 2018 to 2022 more than 40 people from seven partner organisations with diverse expertise and experience in marine conservation, marine research, habitat mapping, modelling, stakeholder engagement, project management and communication are collaborating to support effective management of protected marine species and habitats.

Regions within MarPAMM 

Seven work packages deliver MarPAMM’s full range of outputs with BirdWatch Ireland contributing to two; Seabird Monitoring and Modelling WP and MPA Management Plans WP. The Seabird Monitoring and Modelling WP will be undertaken by BWI staff; Kendrew Colhoun, Paul Baker and Paul Whitelaw, in the Republic of Ireland along the coasts of Co. Sligo, Co. Donegal and Co. Louth. 

Last summer

In 2018, during the breeding season of May-August, the main focus was to carry out a census of Irelands breeding seabirds. Population counts of cliff nesting seabirds, such as Black-legged Kittiwake, Northern Fulmar, Razorbill, Black and Common Guillemot, Shag, Cormorants, all Gulls (basically any marine bird nesting along the coastline), were conducted via land and boat based surveys. 

Burrow nesting seabird surveys of European Storm petrel, Manx shearwater and Atlantic Puffin were performed on offshore islands, as they will only breed at rodent free areas to avoid egg/chick predation, which are usually uninhabited islands. 

En route to Rathlin O’Birne to conduct a Storm petrel survey

Storm petrel returning to its burrow during the night

These population estimates will feed directly into MarPAMMs Management Plans work package but also will contribute to the ongoing work of Seabird Count. Seabirds Count is the fourth census of all breeding seabirds in Britain and Ireland, following on from Operation Seafarer (1969/70), the Seabird Colony Register (SCR; 1985-88) and Seabird 2000 (1998-2002). 

This summer

Currently, in 2019 field season, we are concentrating on two main objectives; monitoring productivity and tracking seabird movements. We are recording the breeding success of Kittiwake at several Sligo and Donegal colonies, contributing to the existing productivity monitoring data. Visiting the kittiwake sites multiple times throughout the season, we can tell if nests with eggs had chicks that successfully fledged or not, providing an indication towards the health of Kittiwake population and the wider marine environment. 

We have been deploying GPS tags and Geolocators onto several seabird species to help us understand, through their movements, how they use their environment, important foraging sites in the breeding season and where do they go during the winter. We have deployed short-term GPS tags on breeding Kittiwakes on the West and East coast of Ireland (within the MarPAMM regions), that will stay on for around 5-6 days. From the tracks of their movements, which are presumably foraging trips to feed their chicks, we can get an idea of important sites that are used by Kittiwakes in the summer. 

While the tags charge by the window, the gulls are lining up on the roof ready for attachment (if only it was that easy)

In regards to long-term deployment, we are attaching solar charging GSM/GPS tags onto gull species. GSM/GPS tags focuses on two principal technologies: global systems for mobile communication (used to send and collect data) and global positioning systems (receives information about a location from satellites). We have been out to Inishmurray Island, off the coast of Sligo, and Inishtrahull Island, off the North coast of Donegal, to put several of these tags on Herring Gulls, Lesser Black-Backed Gulls and Great Black-Backed Gulls. These will stay on for up to three years (hopefully!!!), allowing us an insight to valuable movements of these gulls and how they use their environment in the summer and the winter. 

 Putting metal and darvic rings on gull chicks

We also plan to put Geolocators (uses an electronic light sensor to record ambient light level to determine a location) onto Fulmars, Shags and Black Guillemot for one year. As they are archival, we will need to recapture the bird to gather the data. As well as putting on tracking equipment, metal and darvic rings (numbered colour bands) are also attached to gulls (adults and juveniles). Darvic rings in particular will allow us to spot individuals later in winter and future years and allow others to report a sighting. During the MarPAMM project, we will be undertaking At Sea and Aerial surveys of marine waters and winter bird monitoring.

Thanks for reading,

Paul W