Cathy the Spring Watch shag, Farne Islands

Eider duck 24 May, now monitored on Spring Watch

On the Farne Islands,  Iolo Williams and the Spring Watch team follow the fortunes of a shag they’ve named Cathy.  I reckon she was the burpy creature I caught on video days before Iolo met her.  If you read my previous blog you’ll recognise the chair leg nesting material Iolo showed, and the blue rope.   His female eider on a nest lined with down plucked from her breast is a bird we photographed too. I’m eager to discover whether her four eggs will hatch.  It's fun to see Spring Watch following in our footsteps.

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 It’s interesting to compare and contrast. Iolo and team had days of dreadful weather that held up filming for a day.  On Outer Farne and Inner Farne we see solely Iolo and the birds. That’s not the experience most of us will have.  Visitors arrived by the boatload.  But the birds are so abundant, so close, that sharing with lots of people doesn’t detract.
Spring Watch brings us the latest in science and technology, with burrow cameras to film the puffin as they lay their eggs. And tags on shag to note where they forage, how deep they dive, and  how far they must go to find food sources.
I’ve tweeted Spring Watch to ask if shag sit with open beak to regulate body temperature.  We photographed a shag sitting in full sun, beak wide.  No shelter from the heat on the exposed cliffs.  Or from the fog, wind and rain after we left.

Shag in strong sunlight.

Sitting on eggs on rock exposed to strong sunlight, this shag has its beak open. I want to know if this is a strategy to regulate body temperature. See that striking green eye, and the yellow about the gape and throat. In certain light the plumage looks green, as it does here. I love the dark fringe on each feather of the mantle.  And the individual feathers on the bird's crest.


  Copyright is monitored.