At this time of year, despite the rough and wild weather, watches out to sea can lead you to great wildlife experiences.
Species we associate with the coast such as puffins, razorbills and guillemots spend over half their life far out to sea, feeding on fish miles from land and the places they breed. Research using geolocator tags (the same method as the tags the AWT placed on gannets from Ortac in 2017) showed that each puffin has its own individual trail that it roughly follows every year. For some birds this means venturing far out into the middle of the Atlantic, while others do not travel much further than Ireland. Each bird will make this journey alone in its first winter, and will then follow the same path annually returning to the same colony to breed when they reach maturity after about 5 years. Those that stick a little closer to home may be spotted flying offshore, hugging closer to the coast to avoid the worst of the winter storms.
For other species, like the gannet, they are beginning to make their slow journey back to breeding colonies already. They will forage for fish as they go and we don’t usually see the gannets back in Alderney for about another month but do look out for those heading further north.
Diving ducks like mergansers and divers are also more regularly spotted off the coast in these winter months.
So, dust off your binoculars and see what you can spot out on the big blue ocean or join us for a seawatch from the Ramsar site for world wetlands day when Justin, our avian ecologist, will be there to help identify anything you spot.
Seawatch – meet at Platte Saline Tourgis car park 10am Sunday 2nd Feb