Signs of spring on the Great Orme

It may have been a cold and dull mid-February visit to the Great Orme but there were still plenty of signs of spring and better days to come! The cliffs are no longer completely empty, because here and there on the ledges I could see the white shapes of fulmars already on their nests and occasionally one would glide past me. I saw my first ever fulmar on the Great Orme way back in 1973, an unbelievable 53 years ago, and at the time my Dad told me the story of how his brother, my uncle, had once climbed up to a fulmar nest and been squirted with smelly oil! Served him right in my opinion.

On the water there has been a clear build up of auks since my last visit in January, with rafts of them sitting at the base of the cliffs. 

At the moment the majority seem to be the jet black razorbills with just a handful of the dark grey guillemots, and it was noticeable that so many were in full breeding plumage already.

I don't know anything about the ecology of these auks, do they pair for life or is this rafting part of the process of finding a mate? I'm not sure, but there didn't seem to be any aggression between rivals, they just sat there bobbing up and down on the water. What the trigger is for them to go onto the cliffs I can't say, probably just consistently better weather I suppose. Nobody wants to be clinging onto a cliff with your offspring still in an egg, in the teeth of a gale I guess....

As I watched one of the rafts right below the lighthouse, a harbour porpoise broke the surface a few times. I'm not sure that this fits into the signs of spring category, but it's a sufficiently rare sighting for me on the Orme to make it noteworthy and possibly the highlight of the day. This photo is from the archive as they say, I had do chance of a photo today.

Meanwhile an adult peregrine watched me from the cliffs below the lighthouse.

When I first started birding, about the closest place to see choughs was Anglesey. I saw my first chough on the Great Orme in 2007 but after a relatively slow start they're now pretty common. Today I saw at least 10 birds including this bird which was making quite a racket near this hole.....

.....and here's why. Out popped a second bird and started examining the edges of the hole. Notice the bling on this birds leg.

Suddenly a peregrine flew in and landed on this ledge. After a minute or two it started calling in a way which I don't think I've heard before. At first I thought it was a gull calling or perhaps an irrate fulmar nearby advising the peregrine to move on, but then a second peregrine flew in and landed a little further down the cliff and also started calling.  

Apparently this type of call by peregrines is called ee-chupping and it's a peregrine to peregrine vocalisation. If it's delivered loudly like in this case it apparently means that the other peregrine is a new bird which is either an unwelcome intruder or a potential mate. There didn't seem to be any aggression between the two so perhaps the latter is the most likely answer in this case. There's an interesting post here on the subject (opens in a new window).

On the sea and especially around Llandudno pier, there seemed to have been a build up of red-throated divers with at least eight seen as well as 15 great crested grebes.

So in the end, what started as a slightly depressing and cold morning ended up being full of hope and anticipation! Roll on spring.